About Pittsburgh's Jitneys

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a nice story about Pittsburgh's jitneys in which my research with Eric Goldwyn (with assists from Annalisa Liberman and Cuthbert Onikute) is cited. I am quoted:

Realizing jitneys fill a transit gap, government agencies around the country have tried to regulate them but almost always fail. Jitneys service specific markets so when government agencies begin treating them like regular transportation providers -- requiring them to service designated routes, obtain licences and so on -- ridership decreases and so does interest by drivers.
Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and Miami have all tried over the past few decades to create regulated jitney markets and failed, according to research by Columbia University's David King. He said Miami has had the most success largely by licensing its private van operators but then leaving them alone.
Cities are wrestling with regulating a new wave of Web services -- such as Uber.com -- that coordinate shared rides over social media, while also studying how to rein in some old-fashioned jitneys and buses. In the greater New York area, calls have increased this summer for regulation of illicit "dollar bus" services after one struck and killed an infant July 30 in northern New Jersey.
"Taken together, what we have is a tremendous interest in what is a very old but very newly visible type of transit. The regulatory environment is unclear," said Mr. King, an assistant professor of urban planning.
"The regulatory calls you're hearing now are the same regulatory calls we've been hearing for a hundred years."

There are interesting things going on in Pittsburgh, as elsewhere.


Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/news/transportation/local-jitney-service-illegal-but-thriving-702320/#ixzz2eG1wbLB7

Call for Papers: Spatial and Land Use Implications of Taxis, Jitneys, Paratransit and Flexible Transportation

The Journal of Transportation and Land Use (JTLU) has issued a Call for Papers on the Spatial and Land Use Implications of Taxis, Jitneys, Paratransit and Flexible Transportation. I will be serving as volume editor for the issue and encourage those doing research in these areas to submit a paper. JTLU is an open access, peer reviewed journal.
Here is the link, and here is more information:

Call for Papers: Call for Papers: Spatial and Land Use Implications of Taxis, Jitneys, Paratransit and Flexible Transportation

JTLU Call for Papers: Spatial and Land Use Implications of Taxis, Jitneys, Paratransit and Flexible Transportation Volume Editor: David King ( dk2475 AT columbia.edu ; Columbia University) The Journal of Transportation and Land Use seeks original research papers that explore issues associated with taxi service, jitneys and other flexible or informal transit systems in cities throughout the world. Ideal papers for this special issue will explore how these transport services influence existing transport networks and urban form, affect travel behavior or negotiate contested urban spaces. Taxicabs, jitneys, low-cost bus services and other paratransit services represent unique, flexible transit services in cities throughout the world, and recent scholarship has explored regulatory, economic and labor characteristics of these services. Areas that have received less attention include how these services influence travel behavior, complement or compete with conventional transit, and the role of land uses for service provision. GPS and consumer data also provides new opportunities for spatial analysis of driver and passenger trip characteristics at a level of detail previously impossible. Researchers working in any area of taxicabs, jitneys, flexible or informal transit, both intracity and intercity, are encouraged to consider submitting a paper. Specific Areas of Interest Include: • Competition among for-hire vehicles at the curb, including taxis, jitneys, intercity buses and jitneys • The effect for-hire vehicles have on demand for parking • Paratransit operations and opportunities • For-hire vehicles as feeder systems for fixed route transit • Locational issues with taxi garages, dispatch sites and other facilities • Land use considerations with for-hire services (stadia, airports, theater districts, etc.) • Spatial dispersion of taxi, jitney and other services • Models and simulation of taxi, jitney and other services • Case studies of novel policies involving for-hire vehicle services, such as use of taxis as paratransit • Travel behavior and mode choice research • Social equity issues with regard to service areas • Urban design characteristics of for-hire vehicle services • GPS and consumer data used for planning and regulatory purposes • Spatial analysis of taxicab, jitney or flexible transit services