---
title: "Ride-Hailing Apps Make Traffic Worse — And Now They’re Admitting It"
description: "Uber and Lyft funded a traffic study that showed that ride-hailing apps are responsible for a big chunk of traffic in major cities."
date: "2019-08-06"
modified: "2019-08-06"
authors:
  - name: "Dan Robitzski"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/danrobitzski"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/ride-hailing-apps-traffic-worse"
categories:
  - "Advanced Transport"
tags:
  - "lyft"
  - "the digest"
  - "transport"
  - "Uber"
---

# Ride-Hailing Apps Make Traffic Worse — And Now They’re Admitting It

![Uber and Lyft funded a traffic study that showed that ride-hailing apps are responsible for a big chunk of traffic in major cities.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/ride-hailing-apps-traffic-worse.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image:  Brian Jeffery Beggerly/Victor Tangermann\</em\>*

## Traffic Updates

Ride-hailing apps like Uber and Lyft are directly responsible for making traffic in cities worse.

That's not new: studies have [arrived at the same conclusions](<https://futurism.com/ride-hailing-services-cutting-traffic-opposite-effect>) again and again. What's different this time around, though, is that Uber and Lyft actually funded the study that came back to point the finger at them, [according to *The Verge*](<https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/6/20756945/uber-lyft-tnc-vmt-traffic-congestion-study-fehr-peers>) — which makes it more difficult than usual for the two companies to discredit the research.

## Bumper To Bumper

Uber and Lyft jointly commissioned the transportation consultant firm Fehr & Peers to compare app-caused traffic to the rest of the traffic in a city. The results, [shared online last week](<https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FIUskVkj9lsAnWJQ6kLhAhNoVLjfFdx3/view>), show that rideshare trips are vastly outnumbered by personal vehicle use, but that they still account for a big chunk of metropolitan traffic.

Most damning: Uber and Lyft cause one to three percent of traffic in major cities' surrounding counties, but seven to 14 percent of traffic in dense city centers.

## Now What

Ironically, the app-funded study estimated that Uber and Lyft are responsible for twice as much traffic as independent studies that the two companies sought to discredit, per *The Verge*.

What the study didn't answer is what would happen if Uber and Lyft vanished overnight. Sure, there would be fewer cars idly circulating the streets in search of a passenger, but for all we know those people would just drive themselves instead of dutifully riding public transit.

**READ MORE:** [Uber and Lyft finally admit they’re making traffic congestion worse in cities](<https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/6/20756945/uber-lyft-tnc-vmt-traffic-congestion-study-fehr-peers>) \[*The Verge*\]

**More on ride-hailing:** *[Uber and Lyft Caused Half of San Francisco's New Traffic Congestion Since 2010](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/san-francisco-traffic-uber-lyft>)*

## Author
Dan Robitzki is a senior reporter for Futurism, where he likes to cover AI, tech ethics, and medicine. He spends his extra time fencing and streaming games from Los Angeles, California.

### Author social links  
[Twitter](<https://x.com/danrobitzski>)