A new model for airport ground transportation: Transportation network companies at San Francisco International Airport

Abstract

San Francisco International Airport (SFO) was the first airport in California and one of the first in the USA to develop permit agreements with transportation network companies (TNCs). SFO announced agreements with Sidecar, Lyft and UberX in October 2014, followed by Wingz in November 2014. These announcements represented a significant milestone in an evolution that began nearly two years earlier, when the airport learned that TNCs were operating on airport roadways. This evolution continues to this day with the ongoing evaluation of TNC operations, which now account for 58 per cent of all commercial ground transportation trips at SFO and which generate over US$1.8m in revenue per month. This paper describes the development of TNC policies at SFO, the airport’s operating permit, the real-time tracking system developed to support auditing and enforcement, initial findings and ongoing considerations for TNCs at SFO.