Ride-hailing Apps Worse for the Environment Than Taking Your Own Car
A recent study from researchers at Carnegie Mellon University has found that ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft are more damaging to the environment than journeys taken in private vehicles. Combined, taxi and ride-hailing service trips in the US have nearly tripled since ride-hailing apps appeared in 2012. Increasing from 1.4 billion trips in 2012 to 3.9 billion in 2018. The huge increase in the number of vehicle miles travelled (VMT) is contributing to increased emissions, congestions and crashes.
Most of the research about the environmental impact of ride-hailing services is coming out of the US. This is perhaps no surprise considering that this model of transport first appeared in San Fransisco back in 2011. Despite much of the research being carried out overseas, the information is just as relevant for the UK.
Increasing Vehicle Miles Travelled (VMT)
When ride-hailing apps first burst onto the scene, many commentators believed that they would contribute to the reduction of emissions in urban areas. It was thought that people would favour ride-hailing services over using their own car. However, evidence is beginning to show that this isn’t the case.
Research carried out in the US has started to show that the availability of ride-hailing apps has led people to make trips that they wouldn’t have made previously. Some studies have shown that between 49% to 61% of journeys made with a ride-hailing service either wouldn’t have been made, or would have been made by walking, biking, or public transit.
On top of this, the availability of these services hasn’t shown a significant reduction in the number of journeys made in private vehicles.
Less use of Alternative Transport
A large number of people haven’t changed their transport habits in response to ride-hailing apps. However, of those that have changed their habits, they have replaced alternative forms of transport with journeys with ride-hailing services. One study reported that major cities, ride-hailing attracted people away from bus services, light rail and cycling (6%, 3% and 2% net reduction in use, respectively).
Increased Deadheading
Deadheading is the term given to miles travelled by taxis or ride-hailing vehicles that don’t involve a passenger. These are ‘dead’ miles where the drivers are travelling between or waiting on the next fare. Deadheading increases congestion, VMT and contributes to an increase in both noise and air pollution in urban areas.
One Benefit, Less Air Pollution
Surprisingly, ride-sharing services did beat private vehicle journeys on one key environmental metric. Less air pollution. While this might seem counter-intuitive, this is because one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions is cold-starting a car. Cold-starting is classed as starting a car after at least 12 hours of non-use.
The amount of air pollution produced when cold-starting an engine is equivalent to about 200 miles (360km) travelled. This means that even though ride-hailing drivers are travelling more they can potentially contribute less emissions per passenger miles travelled.
Despite this one benefit, overall, the introduction of ride-hailing services seems to be detrimental to the environment, particularly in urban areas. Estimates have shown that in Paris and London alone, the introduction of these services has contributed to CO2 emissions equivalent to an extra 250,000 cars. The damage done by these services has led to an international coalition being founded under the hashtag #TrueCostOfUber. You can find out more here.
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