Estimate the number of rideshare rides that happen for airport commutes.
- Tina Greist
Clarifying questions:
- When you say ridesharing rides, do you want to count rides taken to and from airports using Uber/Lyft? yes
- We are only focusing on rides to and from the airport? yes
- Do we want to calculate the number of rides for a specific airport or a geographic area such as the US/Canada? Let’s pick one airport. OK I can use SJC as the location.
- Do we want a count for each day/ month or 12 month? Let’s calculate for a day.
Ok, so to summarize the question again-
Calculate how many airport rides are taken by travelers to and from SJC airport in a day using Uber and Lyft.
Let me brainstorm how I would like to calculate this number:
Formula:
number of travelers using ride-sharing services = (number of planes to/from SJC * number of travelers on each plane ) – ( travelers who park and fly + travelers who get family/friends to drop off)
Daily rides using ride shares to and from airport= number of users/ 3 (each car can fit 3 passengers on avg)
planes at SJC = 24* 60 /5 = 280 planes a day –one plane every 5 minutes
total travelers at SJC = number of planes * travelers on each plane= 200*280 = 56000 = 50K rounded.
20 % of the travelers get friends and family to drop off, 10 % park and fly, 10% take public transport, 60% of the travelers to the airport using ride-sharing services.
Formula: 50K – (10K+5K+5K) = 30K
travelers mostly have luggage, some are single travelers, some travel with family, let’s say single travellers opt for car pool, which means each ride can fit 3 riders.
30K / 3 = 10K rides every day.

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