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

  • Airborne traffic monitoring - the future?
    March 1, 2013
    A new frontier in the quest to monitor road traffic is opening up… but using airborne drones to reduce the jams comes with some thorny issues. Chris Tindall reports. Imagine if you could rely on a system that provided all the data you needed to regulate traffic flow, route vehicles and respond swiftly to emergencies for a fraction of the cost of piloting a helicopter. That system exists, but as engineers and traffic managers start to explore the potential of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) – more commonly k
  • Zuora: MaaS comes to the masses
    April 28, 2020
    The shift from ownership to usership in the subscription economy provides opportunities for the whole of the mobility sector for the next decade and beyond, says John Phillips of Zuora
  • Effectively tackle vehicle pollution
    January 25, 2012
    In 2008, Italy's first traffic charge named 'Ecopass' was launched in Milan in an attempt to reduce road congestion and pollution levels as well as to boost public transport through the re-investment of the pollution charge revenues.
  • Plastic is fantastic for payment platform interoperability
    April 2, 2014
    The Sino Visitor Pass aims to promote trade between Singapore and China by making travel easier, as Jon Masters finds out. Singapore has notched up another first in transportation innovation with announcement of a dual-currency payment card in partnership with the province of Guangdong in China. From the middle of 2014, visitors to Singapore and Guangdong will be able to use a ‘Sino Visitor Pass’ to pay for use of public transportation among other things.