Public transportation ridership

By: J. David Chapman/June 28, 2018

I just spent three weeks in London traveling almost exclusively via their subway public transportation system called the Underground.

After squeezing into carriages nose-to-armpit, I came home and reviewed a public transportation report stating statistics showing public transportation ridership flat in most urban cities and in a freefall in many. This is happening at a time when urban populations and employment is expanding. Should Oklahoma City be alarmed at this trend as we are adding streetcars to our downtown? What is going on in these cities and where are the passengers going?

Seems it is old-fashioned competition that is affecting ridership of public transportation in urban communities around the world. Passengers find app-based taxi services like Uber and Lyft more convenient and comfortable than public transportation options, such as buses and trains. Believe it our not, cycling safety and convenience is increasing to point that it is becoming commonplace, especially in Europe where rental bike programs are widely available. The affordability of cars is also affecting public transportation with attractive loan and lease programs and reduced operational costs with cheap fuel. Reports also blame the Internet for online shopping, working from home, and office-sharing for reducing the amount of travel by local passengers.

The competition affecting legacy systems is increasing every day with new ideas and technologies, such as rental electric scooters which can be abandoned when arriving at your destination, dock-less bicycles, battery-powered e-bikes and driverless taxis. Mass public transport do some things very well, such as moving larger populations of riders with more environmental sensitivity. The challenge facing these systems, as ridership falls, forces operators to field less trains and buses meaning longer waits for those remaining riders and less convenience.

For communities, the solution going forward is to embrace these technologies and app-based services incorporating them into the overall transportation network. App-based transportation services are a real blessing for suburban areas where bus routes don’t exist and taxis simply can’t be found.

This is the key for Oklahoma City. We have to get people to the urban core before they can use the streetcar system. They should utilize Uber and Lyft, rental bicycle programs, and other competitive services to fill in the networks to get people to the streetcar system.

J. David Chapman is an associate professor of finance and real estate at the University of Central Oklahoma (jchapman7@uco.edu).