Ride-Hailing’s Climate Risks: Steering a Growing Industry toward a Clean Transportation Future

Ride-Hailing’s Climate Risks: Steering a Growing Industry toward a Clean Transportation Future

Ride-hailing is a climate problem for two primary reasons. First, a typical ride-hailing trip is more polluting than a trip in a personal car, mainly as a result of “deadheading”the miles a ride-hailing vehicle travels without a passenger between hired rides. The second reason is that ride-hailing is not just replacing personal car trips; instead, it is increasing the total number of car trips. In the absence of ride-hailing, many would-be ride-hailing passengers would take mass transit, walk, bike, or forgo the trip. This report focuses on ride-hailing, but many of its findings and recommendations apply to taxis as well. For example, electrification, increased pooling, and improved coordination with mass transit would lessen the negative impacts of taxi service on transportation systems and the environment.

Key findings

   A non-pooled ride-hailing trip is 47 percent more polluting than a private car ride.

   A typical ride-hailing trip is about 69 percent more polluting than the trips it replaces, and can increase congestion during peak periods.

   An electric, pooled ride-hailing trip can cut emissions by 68 percent compared with a private vehicle trip in the average car, or about 79 percent compared with a non-pooled ride-hailing trip.

   Governments must provide access to highquality, multimodal transportation choices, prioritizing the movement of people over cars.

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