Who uses ride‐hailing? Policy implications and evidence from the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area
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abstract
While many are eager to guide policy decisions on ride‐hailing, understanding the broader social and travel implications hinges on local contexts. Towards providing policy guidance in the Canadian context, this paper explores how mobility sub‐markets are related to ride‐hailing use in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area. Using data from a 2018 travel survey, cluster analysis is used to identify four traveller sub‐markets which are compared with ride‐hailing use. The first comprises “multi‐modalists,” who are younger, mobile, educated, and represent the largest group of ride‐hailing users. Second are users in two auto‐oriented markets—“private modalists” and “auto dependents”—who are older and least likely to engage in ride‐hailing. Finally, “low‐mobility travellers” are the most socio‐economically vulnerable and have lower household incomes, lower education attainment, lower likelihoods of being employed, fewer cars per household, and the highest reliance on public transportation among users in the traveller sub‐markets. Nevertheless, this group represents the second largest market for ride‐hailing, which fills a mobility gap in the absence of auto access. Understanding the social and travel behaviour implications from ride‐hailing is important towards crafting context‐appropriate public policy. Results from this study suggest that ride‐hailing is primarily used by those who are already highly mobile (multi‐modalists) and those who are most vulnerable (low‐mobility travellers).
