Document Type

Working Paper

Publication Date

7-17-2019

SSRN Discipline

Legal Scholarship Network; TransportRN Subject Matter eJournals; Law School Research Papers - Legal Studies; Corporate Governance Network; Geography Research Network; LSN Subject Matter eJournals; Transportation Research Network; Humanities Network; GeographyRN Subject Matter eJournals

Abstract

In the last two to three years alone rideshare companies "” mostly but not exclusively Uber "” have increasingly come to bid on public services contracts for transportation provision Cities that contract with rideshare platforms do so because they are captivated by the chance to offer existing services at lower costs However it is becoming increasingly clear that the real value generated by driver activity is the unprecedented amount of information created by the labor that drivers perform Ridesharing is inherently built on the ability to collect astoundingly granular data about individuals as well as equally tantalizing insights about aggregate behavior From the perspective of municipal actors this information is valuable not only for what it can reveal about the working conditions of rideshare drivers no small thing to set aside but also because it offers insights about the success of pilot programs and the scope of future urban infrastructure demandsbrbrThis paper draws on semistructured interviews with policy analysts transportation advocates and government officials across the United States to make two arguments First I argue that the data produced by rideshare drivers is as if not more valuable than the transportation itself And second I caution that many municipal actors may either be failing to recognize the importance of rideshare data or have been unsuccessful at translating this realization into improved contracts with rideshare platforms br

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