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Could Bay Area’s traffic nightmares bring back casual carpool?

March 17, 2025
Rachel Swan

Photo of casual carpooling at the Berkeley BART station in 1999

Photo from Vince Maggiora/S.F. Chronicle

Susan Shaheen, the Transportation Sustainability Research Center’s co-director, discusses casual carpooling in the Bay Area.

Susan Shaheen, a professor in-residence of civil and environmental engineering at UC Berkeley, became fascinated with this “pop-up transportation solution,” and how it created a permission structure for people to hop in cars with strangers. When Shaheen studied the phenomenon in 2014, her data suggested that 6,000 riders and 3,000 drivers were carpooling each morning — enough to make a small dent in bridge traffic.

San Francisco Chronicle
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/traffic-casual-carpool-20218379.php

NICR Webcast Series: From Taxis to Ridehailing: Examining Gender Issues for Female Drivers and Passengers

January 23, 2025

Brooke Wolfe of the UC Berkeley Transportation Sustainability Research Center will be presenting research findings on February 13, 2025 from 12:00-1:00pm ET.

Abstract:

This research analyzes gender issues for female drivers and passengers of transportation network companies (TNCs) and taxis. Between August 2023 and May 2024, the researchers conducted driver and rider focus groups (n=8 drivers and n=8 passengers); a driver survey (n=170); a TNC user/non-user survey (n=440, including n=217/440 taxi non-users, n=7/440 TNC non-users, and a subset of n=5/440 non-users of TNCs and taxis); and expert interviews (n=13). This research finds that both female drivers and passengers experience an array of safety concerns and challenges traveling with young children in TNCs (e.g., traveling with a car seat, driver accommodation of car seats, etc.). The report discusses policy considerations to address these concerns (e.g., expanding a ‘women-preferred’ option for drivers and passengers and introducing an optional service for drivers to provide car seats for passengers with children). These policies could help reduce several concerns that female drivers and passengers confront when using TNCs.

Click here for more information and to register for the webinar.

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