How 3,000 Uber rides could replace New York's entire taxi fleet

New York City could operate with no more than a few thousand taxis or rides if we took carpooling more seriously, researchers have suggested. When commuters share their rides through carpooling, the cost of individual transport lowers and there are potentially fewer cars on the road which can cause increased congestion and pollution. Modern ride-hailing services including Uber and Lyft, in which passengers can hail a ride through mobile devices and also share their vehicle with others, have caused controversy and are often less-than-popular with traditional taxi firms, but researchers say these services could have a real impact on how many vehicles are needed on our city roads. Currently, New York City has issued almost 14,000 official taxi medallion licenses, but according to researchers from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), the city could make do with no more than a quarter of rides. The team has developed a new algorithm which crunched the numbers and, assuming carpooling becomes more popular, MIT has come to the conclusion that NYC only needs 3,000 four-person cars to serve 98 percent of transport demand in New York City.