Chicago 1st City To Publish Detailed, Standalone Rideshare Data

CHICAGO — The City of Chicago has announced the publication of detailed data on ride-hailing providers such as Uber, Lyft and Via. Mayor Rahm Emanuel said the new information — which will be published on the city's data portal — will offer new insights while maintaining driver and rider privacy.

“With this information, we will better understand our transportation landscape and be prepared to solve future mobility problems,” Emanuel said in a statement.

Chicago the first city in the country to publish such detailed, standalone ride-hailing data, officials said.

The newly-released data, which will be updated quarterly, will include the following information:

• Registered vehicles:
• make, model and year
• month of last inspection
• total trips completed
• Registered drivers:
• driver start month
• city of residence
• total trips completed
• Transportation Network Provider trips:
• starting and ending location, collected by census tract
• starting and ending time rounded to nearest 15 minutes
• trip fare rounded to nearest $2.50 and tip rounded to nearest $1.00

The data is deidentified to protect the privacy of companies and drivers, the city said.

“The availability of TNP data on the City’s Open Data Portal is vital to our ability to be innovative around the future of mobility,” said Brenna Berman, Executive Director of City Tech, in a statement. “This data will inform our work to develop focused, collaborative, cross-sector pilots that further the recommendations made by the City’s Task Force.”

Driver names are not included, trip times are rounded to the nearest 15 minutes, fares and tips are rounded to the nearest $2.50 and $1 respectively and locations are aggregated by census tract, the city said.

There are currently three licensed transportation network providers in Chicago — Uber, Lyft, and Via. Vehicles must complete annual inspections and drivers must undergo a uniform background check prior to onboarding.