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Delve: How Cities Can Make Ride-Hailing Services Environmentally Sustainable, with Animesh Animesh

Published: 23 September 2022

What if using a ride-hailing app like Uber or Lyft could help decrease a city’s carbon emissions? Combined with public transit use and municipal policy changes, that’s beginning to happen. However, the bigger, less understood question is what motivates people to choose their cars over the bus, or Uber over walking to work. New data-driven research from Desautels Professor Animesh Animesh shows the environmental impact of ride-hailing and how comprehensive urban planning policies could make the skies a lot clearer.

In research paper “Impact of Ride-Hailing Services on Transportation Mode Choices: Evidence from Traffic and Transit Ridership,” Animesh and his co-authors gather and analyze data to determine the most sustainable options in terms of traffic congestion and the demand for public transit.

“Technologies change the way we work, the way we purchase things, the way we live, socialize, communicate—one of these recent developments is ride sharing platforms like Uber and Lyft,” says Animesh. “This technology itself, just like any other technology, is not good or bad—it's how people use it. Our suggestion to city policymakers is that you should look at the distribution of riders, drivers, and walkers in your community. Accordingly, you will be able to figure out the impact of Uber on the traffic and environment in general.”

The policy implications of Animesh’s research could change the way that cities and other municipalities tackle not only ride-hailing regulations and public transit funding in light of sustainability, but issues of equity and accessibility around transportation and the environment.

For further insights, listen to the podcast and read the article on Delve.

You can subscribe to the Delve podcast on all major podcast platforms, including Apple podcasts and Spotify.


Delve - Thought leadership from McGill University’s Desautels Faculty of Management

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Founded in 2019, Delve is the official thought leadership publication of McGill University’s Desautels Faculty of Management. Under the direction of Professor Saku Mantere, inaugural Editor-in-Chief, Delve features the latest in management thinking that stretches perspectives, sparks new ideas, and brings clarity to decision-makers at all levels and across sectors.

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