Examining the role of ridesourcing services during rain: A Chicago case study

• Estimated effects of rain on TNC ridership in Chicago with valid confidence intervals using non-parametric methods. • Rain effects are larger in densely populated, high income areas. • Rain effects relative to base ridership are larger in peripheral areas. • Areas with low transit access and car ownership show higher rain effects, suggesting TNC dependency during rain. Transportation network companies (TNCs) are an established transportation mode. Yet, uncertainty remains on the level to which rain affects TNC ridership and how this relates to socioeconomic factors. Leveraging TNC trip and weather data from Chicago we estimate rain effects on ridership using non-parametric methods and use OLS regression to reveal their associations with underlying demographics. We find rain causes ridership fluctuations between −46 % and + 140 %, with highest percentage changes observed in the periphery of Chicago. Ridership tends to decrease in areas near the Chicago Transit Authority rail lines, suggesting a possible alleviating effect of transit. OLS regression reveals areas with higher population tend to experience higher changes in ridership during rain (p < 0.001), and the same is true in areas with higher shares of high-income households (p < 0.05). In addition, higher transit access (p < 0.001) and lower shares of households with no vehicles (p < 0.05) are associated with lower rain effects on ridership.