Despite Uber’s recent disappointing IPO, the rideshare market is expected to continue its explosive growth and that will affect transportation infrastructure in a number of ways, some expected and some yet to be fully understood. According to Global Ridesharing: 40 billion rides and counting, by Sharespost, customer spending on rideshares globally could grow to $400 billion by 2021, up from between $175 billion to $225 billion this year.
“We are already seeing early evidence ridesharing companies are expanding into adjacent ‘human and non-human mobility’ markets, including food delivery, short-term rental cars, complementing or supplementing public transportation, last-mile delivery services, and long-haul or freight/ground delivery services,” Sharespost notes.
The unknown impact of rideshare services — as well as autonomous vehicles, which ride sharing services are investing in — on toll roads and lanes as well as public transit has been on the mind of transportation infrastructure investors for some time. In the near term, the new technologies are not expected to have a sizable impact on toll roads or lanes, and while some reports pin declining public transit use on rideshare services, others point to rising rates of car ownership.
But what many people might not realize is the chance that these technologies could increase the use of toll roads and lanes and public transit. Many are hopeful that “last-mile” rideshare services, those that connect customers to and from public transit, are boosters of ridership. In some of these arrangements, transit authorities subsidize a portion of the use of a rideshare service that is linked to a public transit trip to encourage ridership.
Autonomous vehicles, meanwhile, according to Standard & Poor’s Industry Top Trends 2019: Transportation Infrastructure, “can increase asset utilization and service levels. These systems are rapidly becoming mainstream due to government mandates,” the report notes. “Over the long term, automated vehicles are likely to make it to the vehicle market.”
Depending on the type of vehicle and the location, the growth of AVs will be uneven, S&P continues. “While the regions with significant technology concentration [the U.S. and some EU countries] have an early lead, we expect countries such as China, which is undergoing a massive market demand, to catch up and seize the leadership in developing self-driving cars and implementing relevant infrastructure projects.”
