It seems like these days, a lot of the novelty of ride-hailing is wearing off; or as I’ve put it on the podcast lately: too much of a good thing can be bad. But cities are fighting back and 2020 is gearing up to be the year of regulation for TNCs (Transportation Network Companies) like Uber and Lyft. Regulators are looking at everything from labor issues (AB5 in California) to congestion and increased taxation on ride-hail companies.
But one of the biggest stories we’ve seen from a policy point of view recently is what happened at LAX at the end of 2019. LAX is one of the largest airports in the country and they were the first to move ride-hail and taxi pick-ups completely offsite, which caused a lot of confusion, chaos and anger. Transportation is a polarizing topic and when you mess with it, you have to make sure you get it right. The LAX-it system that was created at LAX is running a lot smoother these days but the damage has been done. Ride-hail’s reputation at LAX has been tarnished as evidenced by numerous conversations with people here in Los Angeles (I was born and raised in LA) and on social media.
New Report on Ridehailing at LAX
We followed this situation closely for months, and decided we wanted to try something new and release our first consulting report titled, “CONGESTION AT THE CURB: An Analysis of Ride-Hailing at LAX and Recommendations to Optimize the TNC System at Airports“. The report was written by Blair Schlecter and myself and published through NewCities and CoMotion. It’s a short read (for a report) at just 21 pages and aims to share background on why LAX made this change, what they did right and what could be improved in the future.
If you’ve followed ride-hail at airports over the years, you’ve probably seen a lot of changes: from pick-up and drop-off points to fees and regulations. Airports around the country are dealing with a number of major issues: a growing number of passengers, aging infrastructure, and an influx of new mobility options like Uber and Lyft. This report uses our extensive knowledge and expertise from covering the industry for over 5 years to analyze what went right and what went wrong with LAX and make concrete recommendations that can be adopted by LAX or other airports facing similar challenges.
The intended audience for this report is obviously airport officials, but also regulators, industry insiders and really anyone with an interest in ride-hail. Efficient pick-up and drop-offs are a huge challenge for airports and TNCs but the more data that’s out there, the better the system we can come up with.
You can read a copy of the report here.
And the full blog post on the CoMotion website is also here.
If you’re interested in hiring our rideshare consulting team, please send me an e-mail (harry[at]therideshareguy.com)
-Harry @ RSG
PS – I’d love to hear your feedback on the report and let us know what issues you’d like us to tackle next.
