Uber and Lyft were supposed to reduce carbon emissions, but they turned out to be polluters. Robotaxis look to repeat some of the same mistakes.<\/p>\n
Robotaxi companies are eager to present themselves with a green halo.\u00a0\u201cClimate change is the single biggest issue we face as a global community,\u201d Cruise declared in\u00a0a blog post published on Earth Day<\/a>\u00a02022. \u201cEach of us has an opportunity to make an impact. Cruise knows the AV industry can \u2013\u2013 and should \u2013\u2013 help lead the charge.\u201d Its rival Waymo seems to agree. In\u00a0a post this summer<\/a>, the company stated, \u201cCities where we operate gain another zero-emission transportation option, which could help them meet their climate goals.\u201d<\/p>\n Sustainability is critical to the public pitch of robotaxi companies, which are under growing scrutiny after California regulators\u00a0suspended Cruise\u2019s driverless permit<\/a>\u00a0last month due to safety concerns. But the idea that robotaxis will benefit the planet runs counter to what we know about the sustainability of a very similar service: ridehail.<\/p>\n Although climbing into driverless taxis may seem like an entirely novel way to travel, the user experience will be familiar to anyone who has taken an Uber or Lyft: a customer summons a robotaxi using their smartphone, which then picks them up and ferries them to their destination before driving off. It\u2019s basically ridehail, minus the driver.<\/p>\n Sustainability is critical to the public pitch of robotaxi companies<\/strong><\/p>\n Robotaxi companies themselves seem to agree; Cruise uses ridehail crash rates as the benchmark for\u00a0its safety reporting<\/a>, and Waymo recently unveiled an\u00a0integration<\/a>\u00a0with Uber in the Phoenix area.<\/p>\n Unlike robotaxis, Uber and Lyft have been with us for 15 years \u2014 long enough to study and evaluate their impact on sustainability. And based on what we have learned about ridehail, robotaxis are more likely to foul the air than clean it.<\/p>\n Like robotaxi companies today, ridehail executives a decade ago presented themselves as environmental allies. Their core claim\u00a0was summarized by Logan Green<\/a>, a co-founder of Lyft, to\u00a0MIT Technology Review<\/em>\u00a0in 2015: \u201cWe\u2019re the replacement, the alternative, to car ownership.\u201d<\/p>\n That assertion held intuitive appeal, especially considering ridehail companies\u2019\u00a0favorite statistic<\/a>: the average American car sits unused roughly 95 percent of the time. By making door-to-door trips just a smartphone tap away, Uber and Lyft would empower customers to ditch their cars.\u00a0<\/p>\n Those liberated from vehicle ownership could then use their ridehail app to access a constellation of climate-friendly mobility modes like transit, bike share programs, and scooters \u2014 all of which\u00a0generate less greenhouse gas emissions per mile<\/a>\u00a0than even an electric automobile. The ridehail companies invested directly in micromobility: Uber\u00a0bought an e-bike share company<\/a>\u00a0while Lyft\u00a0acquired<\/a>\u00a0the largest bike share operator in North America.<\/p>\n The companies were bullish about synergies with public transportation. Both Uber and Lyft enabled users to\u00a0purchase transit<\/a>\u00a0tickets on their app, and they offered themselves as a solution to\u00a0transit\u2019s \u201cfirst mile \/ last mile\u201d problem<\/a>\u00a0of getting passengers to and from a station. The US Department of Transportation shared their enthusiasm, funding several first mile \/ last mile\u00a0pilots<\/a>\u00a0involving ridehail companies.\u00a0<\/p>\n Adding to their environmental bona fides, in 2015, Uber and Lyft unveiled pooled ride products that capitalized on the companies\u2019 prowess in data analysis to match passengers going in the same direction. Those willing to split the trip with strangers would receive a discount and reduce the number of vehicles on the road.<\/p>\n Uber and Lyft have been with us for 15 years \u2014 long enough to study and evaluate their impact on sustainability<\/p>\n Ridehail executives claimed that their net effect would be fewer cars in a city, spewing air pollution as they go. \u201cUber can help reduce traffic by taking cars off the road,\u201d\u00a0vowed<\/a>\u00a0Uber executive David Plouffe in 2015. The media helped spread that narrative, with stories like one in\u00a0The New York Times<\/em>\u00a0in 2014, which\u00a0posited<\/a>\u00a0that ridehail could \u201creduce the environmental toll exacted by privately owned automobiles.\u201d<\/p>\n The reality has been something altogether different.<\/strong><\/p>\n Research has refuted what used to be ridehail\u2019s most fundamental sustainability argument: that it reduces car ownership and driving. A\u00a02021 study<\/a>\u00a0found that car registrations usually\u00a0rise<\/em>\u00a0in a city after ridehail arrives because the number of ridehail drivers who acquire a vehicle exceeds the users who get rid of one.\u00a0<\/p>\n Other studies have found that Uber and Lyft increase\u00a0traffic congestion<\/a>\u00a0as well as\u00a0total driving<\/a>\u00a0for two primary reasons. First, some ridehail trips would have otherwise occurred on cleaner and more space-efficient modes like biking or transit. Second, ridehail vehicles are often empty because the driver is either cruising streets waiting for the next passenger or en route to pick them up \u2014 a phenomenon known as \u201cdeadheading.\u201d<\/p>\n According to a\u00a02018 study<\/a>, even carpool trips cause a net increase in total miles driven. But that finding may be a moot point because practically no one seems to be taking shared rides. Despite\u00a0massive investments<\/a>\u00a0from Uber and Lyft, pooled ridehail has turned out to be a\u00a0money-losing flop<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Shared trips have intractable downsides, starting with the annoyance of one passenger\u2019s itinerary taking others out of their way. \u201cOne of the most compelling reasons to take ridehail is reliability and speed,\u201d said Harry Campbell, founder of\u00a0The Rideshare Guy blog<\/a>\u00a0and podcast. \u201cShared trips cut into that efficiency.\u201d\u00a0Pooled ridehail users could also find themselves trapped next to someone unpleasant, without being able to exit the vehicle or switch seats as one could do aboard public transportation.<\/p>\n Shared trips have intractable downsides<\/strong><\/p>\n Lyft has now nixed its pooled ridehail service<\/a>\u00a0after briefly trying to restart it post-pandemic. Uber\u2019s offering, meanwhile, is buried within its app. \u201cThe proof is in the pudding,\u201d said Campbell. \u201cPooled ridehail hasn\u2019t worked out.\u201d<\/p>\n Making matters worse for the planet, ridehail has turned out to be more of a competitor than a complement to the greenest transportation modes like transit, bike share programs, and scooters.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cDrivers tend to go where there is a lot of demand, in downtown areas,\u201d Greg Erhardt, a civil engineering professor at the University of Kentucky, told me. \u201cThat\u2019s where the mode share of transit, biking, and walking, is relatively high.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the much-hyped first mile \/ last mile (FMLM) connections between ridehail and transit have not materialized. In 2016, Pinellas County, Florida, offered riders $5 off a trip to or from a transit station, but\u00a0only a few dozen people used it<\/a>\u00a0per day, representing less than one transit rider in a thousand. Across the country, a\u00a02022 analysis<\/a>\u00a0of the San Francisco Bay Area found that just 0.4 percent of transit riders took ridehail to or from a station.<\/p>\n Ridehail has turned out to be more of a competitor than a complement to the greenest transportation modes<\/p>\n \u201cThe lack of evidence of ride hail working as a FMLM solution is damning,\u201d David King, an urban planning professor at Arizona State, told me in 2019 when I wrote\u00a0an article in\u00a0The Drive<\/em><\/a>\u00a0about first mile \/ last mile trips. \u201cWe don\u2019t see pilots becoming successful and scaling, and we don\u2019t see them leading to increased transit ridership.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Ridehail\u2019s net effect on public transportation has been devastating. A\u00a02019 study<\/a>\u00a0co-authored by Erhardt found that ridehail\u2019s entry into a city typically reduces bus and rail ridership by between 1 and 2 percent per year, compounded annually. The authors concluded that ridehail may be \u201can important driver of [transit] ridership declines\u201d prior to the pandemic.<\/p>\n Today, ridehail companies have largely abandoned their original vision of fighting climate change by reducing car use. Uber has\u00a0dumped its e-bike unit<\/a>, Lyft is\u00a0reportedly taking offers<\/a>\u00a0for its bike share business, and neither company still prioritizes transit scheduling or ticketing within its app.<\/p>\n Instead, the companies have rewritten their sustainability pitch to emphasize commitments to\u00a0electrify all cars on their platforms by 2030<\/a>. Although vehicle electrification is a necessary step to combat climate change, EVs still generate greenhouse gasses through their manufacture, charging, and disposal (not to mention air pollution from the erosion of brakes and tires). A\u00a02020 University of Toronto study<\/a>\u00a0found that less driving \u2014 not just less gas-powered driving \u2014 is necessary to prevent a potentially catastrophic 2 degree Celsius increase in global temperatures by 2100.\u00a0<\/p>\n For a while, Uber and Lyft seemed to be champions of the effort to slow climate change by reducing driving. Not anymore.<\/p>\n So what does ridehail\u2019s ignominious sustainability track record portend for robotaxis, assuming that they ultimately scale\u00a0in the way their executives envision<\/a>? In short, nothing good.<\/p>\n Robotaxis, like ridehail, are poised to increase total miles driven due to deadheading and transit replacement. And given the similarities between ridehail and robotaxis, the inability of Uber and Lyft to solve transit\u2019s first mile \/ last mile problem suggests that Waymo and Cruise probably won\u2019t, either. (Data is currently scarce due to the newness of their services.)<\/p>\n Read on<\/a><\/p>\n The post Uber failed to help cities go green \u2013 will robotaxis, too? (Verge)<\/a> appeared first on London Reconnections<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Uber and Lyft were supposed to reduce carbon emissions, but they turned out to be polluters. Robotaxis look to repeat some of the same mistakes. Robotaxi companies are eager to present themselves with a green halo.\u00a0\u201cClimate change is the single biggest issue we face as a global community,\u201d Cruise declared in\u00a0a blog post published on Earth Day\u00a02022. \u201cEach of us…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1439,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-camcab"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3449"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}