Enabling Car-Free Living: Shared Micromobility and Public Transit Interactions in Chicago

Abstract

Shared micromobility/bikeshare services and public transit both offer travel alternatives to the automobile in urban areas. While these services might be viewed as competitors in the urban mobility space, this thesis argues that each benefits from the other as part of a “package of options” available to the car-free or car-lite urban resident that together provide a comprehensive replacement for auto-mobility. This work centers on the Chicago mobility context. It compares shared micromobility systems in Chicago, Los Angeles, Austin, Pittsburgh, and Washington, D.C., each of which have varying levels of transit integration, ridership, ownership models, and fares. It finds that transit agency ownership of shared micromobility systems appears not to be a panacea and that truly integrated fares are not present even in agency-owned systems. It also finds that lower fares are present in systems with greater levels of public subsidy, regardless of the ownership model. The second part of the thesis characterizes the specific interactions between Divvy, Chicago’s main scooter- and bikeshare system, and the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA). It tests the suitability of novel data sources, including CCTV footage and CTA farecard transactions, for inferring transfers between the two systems and finds that existing spatiotemporal inference methods do not capture the wide heterogeneity in transfer rates among rail stations. Although Divvy has stations near most CTA rail stations, there is room for improvement in the rapidity of these transfers. Using GIS and open-source routing tools, the thesis finds an average walk time of 2.1 minutes from CTA entrances to the nearest Divvy station and suggests high-priority relocations. The third part of the thesis presents preliminary results from a survey of Chicago-area residents probing their attitudes and behaviors regarding shared micromobility and public transit. The survey results showed some evidence of complementary use between the two modes. The thesis concludes with a set of recommendations for the CTA regarding improvements in its integration with Divvy.