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.

Related Content

  • September 8, 2016
    Register now for Mastercard Smart Cities Hackathon
    ITS Australia has teamed up with Mastercard to present the ITS 2016 Mastercard Smart Cities Hackathon which will be staged at the ITS World Congress Melbourne. With more than $20,000 in prizes, the Smart City Hack, being held on Saturday 8 and Sunday 9 October, will bring together Australia’s most talented developers, designers and entrepreneurs to create a new wave of smart city services and solutions.
  • August 19, 2015
    Costing transit is complicated case
    David Crawford welcomes fresh thinking from Canada. Public transit improvements can bring society “significantly more value” than conventional transport models normally indicate, argues Canadian researcher Todd Litman. “Traditional evaluation practices originally developed to assess roadway improvements, and focus primarily on vehicle travel speeds and operating costs. “They do not generally quantify or monetise basic mobility benefits, vehicle ownership and parking cost savings, or efficient land developme
  • May 2, 2022
    How Covid has impacted transportation
    How have Covid-induced changes in transportation impacted health? And how can transport companies mitigate these effects? Soheil Sohrabi of S-Plus-M and Texas A&M University explains
  • August 19, 2022
    Safety first in the Big Apple
    For a variety of reasons, seniors are particularly vulnerable to traffic violence – but better road design can help. Adam Hill examines New York City’s new plan to keep older people from becoming collision statistics