State & Local Government Policy, Business and Technology

Determining the Feasibility of Shared Mobility Services in Low-Income, Rural Areas

Government Technology: DAVIS, Calif. — While new mobility options have proliferated rapidly, their effects have not spread evenly across the country. And at a recent workshop called Pooling and Pricing: Harnessing the 3 Revolutions to Solve Congestion, Climate Change, and Social Equity, officials discussed how to further shift toward shared mobility.

Though transportation networking companies (TNC) like Lyft and Uber have entered more than 500 regions across the United States — providing significantly more flexibility for travelers, commuters and students alike — these new transportation models, “typically work well in efficient, dense corridors,” said senior researcher Caroline Rodier, of the Future Mobility Initiative at the University of California, Davis. “However in rural areas, transit distances are long and densities are low.”

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