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

  • Q&A: Samuel Johnson, IBTTA
    February 18, 2020
    Samuel Johnson, chief operations officer for the Transportation Corridor Agencies in Orange County, California - and 2020 IBTTA president - talks about his background and career...
  • Shaking up the taxi market with smarter ride requests
    February 24, 2016
    Timothy Compston looks at the rise of Uber and ride request mobile apps. There is little doubt that the advent of Uber has come as major shock to established taxi operators and has caused regulators, cities and DOTs to rethink current regulations so they can keep pace with the changing dynamics of the marketplace.
  • Germany's approach to adaptive traffic control
    February 3, 2012
    Jürgen Mück, Siemens AG, describes the three-level approach taken in Germany to adaptive network control
  • Mobilising data for the future of urban transport
    August 8, 2018
    It's not just gathering the data that's important, says Johan Herrlin - it's making sure that transport organisations share it with one another that will determine travellers' satisfaction. Data is transforming the way we move around cities, from family car journeys to the daily train commute. Gone are the days when travelling from A to B meant remembering your AA map and having to ask for directions at regular intervals. If you were trying to navigate London as a tourist a mere decade ago, it required