Suggested Citation:
Alemi, Farzad, Giovanni Circella, Daniel Sperling (2018) Adoption of Uber and Lyft, Factors Limiting and/or Encouraging Their Use and Impacts on Other Travel Modes among Millennials and Gen Xers in California. Transportation Research Board 97th Annual Meeting

In this paper, the authors investigate the factors that limit or encourage the use of ride-hailing/on-demand ride services such as Uber and Lyft in California, and the potential impacts that these services have on other modes of travel. In the study, the authors use data from a large travel behavior survey of millennials and members of the preceding Generation X. Not surprisingly, the authors find that millennials are more likely to adopt on-demand ride services, and they tend to use the services more frequently. Uber/Lyft users are more responsive to waiting time and ease of arranging rides than others. Both users and non-users rate their preference towards vehicle ownership and usage as the strongest limiting factor to the adoption of these technology-based services–more so among non-users and infrequent riders who use these services less than once a month. The authors find that the use of on-demand ride services tends to reduce the amount of driving made by both frequent and non-frequent users. It also substitutes for some trips that would have otherwise been made by transit or active modes, more so among frequent users, younger individuals, those who live in zero-/lower-vehicle households,and those who are more multimodal.

Key words: Adults, automobile ownership, consumer preferences, mode choice, ridesharing, socioeconomic factors