Uber and Lyft increased traffic delays in San Francisco by 40 percent

By Chelsea Whyte

Uber and Lyft drivers are on strike to demand regulated fares and livable wages, in the lead-up to Uber’s initial public offering on the stock exchange on 10 May. Now there is some more bad news for these services: they haven’t lived up to claims of reducing traffic congestion.

In San Francisco, rides through these two services increased traffic delays by 40 per cent over a six-year period, according to a new study.

Farzad Alemi at the University of California, Davis says these findings are valid, but cautions that the size of the effect suggests that there is more to be considered.

“The authors did not take into account the vehicle occupancy,” he says, adding that his own work found that the number of people per car increases on the weekends and in the evenings. But he says that we need more research to understand if those trips are replacing rides on mass transit or people driving their own cars.

...Read the full story at NewScientist