Ride-Hailing: A Transportation Solution to Advance Equity for Foster Youth

• In Event: Intersections of Education and Neighborhood, Housing, and Transportation Policies

Abstract

This paper analyzes trips to school taken by foster youth in Los Angeles County as part of the Los Angeles County Office of Child Protection’s (OCP) school transportation pilot program with HopSkipDrive, a ridehailing company that specializing in transporting children. It focuses on two comparisons: between trips in the foster youth pilot compared with general use trips that students’ parents purchased for them, and between trips on HopSkipDrive as compared with averages for the general California student population. This service has important social equity implications: trips arranged through HopSkipDrive in the OCP pilot are longer than those of the general population, and these pilot program trips tend to originate in low-income communities and communities of color.

Author

• Samuel Joseph Speroni, University of California - Los Angeles