Skip to main content

Cubic and Mastercard study shows impact of New York’s car free day

Following a request from New York City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez to measure the impact of Car Free Day NYC held in April, Cubic Transportation Systems (CTS) and Mastercard have now published their report about transportation demand and retail impact assessment resulting from the initiative. Rodriguez organised the initiative with a strong coalition of local support towards the goal of reducing single-occupancy vehicle use and stimulating dialogue around environmental issues. The assessment leveraged
November 17, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
Following a request from New York City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez to measure the impact of Car Free Day NYC held in April, 378 Cubic Transportation Systems (CTS) and 1756 Mastercard have now published their report about transportation demand and retail impact assessment resulting from the initiative.

Rodriguez organised the initiative with a strong coalition of local support towards the goal of reducing single-occupancy vehicle use and stimulating dialogue around environmental issues.

The assessment leveraged the Urbanomics Mobility Project, a Cubic-Mastercard co-developed data analysis toolset for fuelling smarter and more inclusive cities, based on public transportation data and insights derived from anonymised and aggregated transaction data.

Specific objectives of Councilman Rodriguez’s request included measuring changes in public transportation demand, traveller spend behaviour around car-free zones and the impact of redistributed traffic on business areas in proximity to car-free zones.

The one-day event resulted in an increase of more than 30,000 passengers than the season’s daily average on the MTA subway, while public data for other services like bike share also showed a statistically significant increase in usage.

For retail stores, there were no significant adverse effects on commercial activity in the surrounding areas, despite road closures created to facilitate and support the spirit of the event.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • World transport ministers focus on ITS deployment
    October 15, 2012
    A globally important event takes place on the opening day of the ITS World Congress when some 16 transport ministers from around the world will hold a Ministerial Round Table to focus on strategies to strengthen more rapid deployment of ITS on a global scale. The event, on Monday 22 October from 13:30-15:30, will be held under the chairmanship of Doris Bures, the Austrian Federal Minister of Transport, Innovation and Technology and Siim Kallas, the Vice-President of the European Commission and European Comm
  • Indra technology to manage Medellín’s traffic and public transportation
    August 15, 2012
    Spain-headquartered Indra has become the technological leader for Medellín's traffic and transportation systems after being awarded two contracts valued at just over US$11 million. The first contract, awarded by the Medellín Subway, will allow the city to have an intermodal public transportation system that is unique in Colombia and will facilitate the management and the combined use of the subway and buses.
  • Bogotá’s affordable path to safer roads
    April 28, 2022
    Enforcing speed limits on key corridors is a cost-effective way of reducing collisions in the Colombian capital, say the authors of a new study. Andrew Stone talks to them
  • PTV sets its sights on Smart City solutions
    February 9, 2017
    Making a city smarter not only relies on understand technological opportunities but also human decision-making, as Miller Crockart explains. Cities are about people – a fact that can easily be forgotten when experts talk about roads, healthcare and education as though they are abstract and unconnected monoliths rather than things people use. Understanding how and why people use services is vital for making decisions on how they can be optimised for maximum efficiency across inter-connected networks that for