“Uberizing” Public Transit in Texas Cities

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Dallas, Houston and Austin were ranked the 7^th, 11^th and 13^th most congested urban areas in the United States, according to a recent study by INRIX. Light rail and bus lanes solves the issue in urban locations. However, within all three greater metropolitan regions are “landscape cities,” low-density cities in which the majority of the population lives in single-family homes.

“The lack of density is in the DNA of Texas cities,” writes Junfeng Jiao (Director, University of Texas’ Urban Information Lab) and Juan Miro (Distinguished Professor, UT Austin). But that lack of density makes running routed transit systems inefficient.

Jiao and Miro suggest that ride-hailing companies providing on-demand public transit could connect riders to mass transit services. Another possibility is flexible, on-demand bus service. The authors also suggest that cities partner with their school systems to convert yellow school buses into on-demand transit during idle hours.

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