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Sustainability, Scalability, and Resiliency of the Town of Innisfil Mobility-on-Demand Experiment: Preliminary Results, Analyses, and Lessons Learned

Conference ·
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In 2017, the town of Innisfil, Ontario, launched Innisfil Transit in partnership with Uber, a transportation network company, to provide a subsidized on-demand public mobility service as an alternative to investing in a new fixed-route bus service. The performance of Innisfil Transit is documented in a 2021 Ryerson University report by Sweet, Mitra, and Benaroya, which shows greater cost effectiveness of the mobility provided over the proposed bus alternative. This paper expands on those findings by assessing Innisfil Transit with respect to sustainability, scalability, and resiliency. First, we quantify the energy and emissions of this program relative to traditional transit and driving alone across varying powertrains. We then characterize a conservative first-order estimate of the percentage of US communities that fall within a similar spatial-demographic tier as Innisfil. Replicability also hinges on service cost and performance in comparison to average values for low-density transit in the US. Lastly, most transit agencies experienced a significant drop in demand (as much as 90%) with slowly rebounding ridership since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The resiliency of the Innisfil program to the pressures induced by the pandemic is examined in comparison to other transit operations. The lessons learned across these three dimensions complement prior work to better understand the efficiency and sustainability of on-demand public mobility service for low-density communities like Innisfil.
Research Organization:
National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Vehicle Technologies Office (EE-3V)
DOE Contract Number:
AC36-08GO28308
OSTI ID:
1898024
Report Number(s):
NREL/CP-5400-84533; MainId:85306; UUID:f9abd59b-33da-45cd-94a2-d8554abcbecf; MainAdminID:67981
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (8)

Uber Economics: Evaluating the Monetary and Travel Time Trade-Offs of Transportation Network Companies and Transit Service in Chicago, Illinois journal April 2019
The unaffordable city: Housing and transit in North American cities journal December 2018
Transportation, Distance, and Health Care Utilization for Older Adults in Rural and Small Urban Areas journal January 2011
COVID-19 and Public Transportation: Current Assessment, Prospects, and Research Needs journal January 2020
Impacts of transportation network companies on urban mobility journal February 2021
The impact of ride-hailing on vehicle miles traveled journal September 2018
Future of Rural Transit journal January 2018
Factors Influencing Willingness to Pool in Ride-Hailing Trips journal May 2020

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Related Subjects

ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS
COVID-19 recovery
mobility on demand
small urban and rural
transit
transportation network companies