New state website shares local ride-hailing data

A new state website, the first of its kind in the nation, provides data about the use of transportation network services such as Uber and Lyft.
 
The data include the number of rides that originate in each city and town, which is used to determine how much municipalities receive from the transportation infrastructure fund that ride-hailing services pay into.
 
At tnc.sites.digital.mass.gov, visitors can use interactive maps to see the number of trips originating in each municipality, total destination trips, and trips per capita. The numbers are also available in searchable tables on the site.
 
State legislation enacted in August 2016 to regulate transportation network services created a new temporary transportation infrastructure fund to address the impact of the services.
 
Each year by Feb. 1, each transportation network service must report the number of rides from the prior year that originated within each city or town and pay a per-ride assessment of 20 cents into the fund. Half of the amount in the fund is paid to cities and towns based on the number of rides from the previous year that originated in that city or town. The other half is split between the Commonwealth Transportation Fund and the Massachusetts Development Finance Agency, with the latter using its funds to aid small businesses in the taxicab, livery or hackney industries.
 
According to the data on the new site, there were approximately 64.8 million “rideshare” trips originating in Massachusetts last year. The most originated in Boston, which had 34.9 million rides, followed by Cambridge, with 6.8 million.
 
Suffolk and Middlesex counties were the starting points for more than 80 percent of all trips in the state. They were also two of the top three counties in per capita rides, along with Nantucket. Outside of the the Boston region and the Cape and Islands, Hampshire County has the highest number of rides started per capita.