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After Mayor Charlie Hales brokered a deal in December allowing Uber and competitors to come back Portland this month, a big question loomed: Would Uber share it's tightly-held data with city regulators so they could create policies to govern the tech giant?
The latest set of rules drafted by a special task force are pointing to yesâUber, Lyft, and other ride-hailing companies will likely have to cough up ride data if they want to operate in the city.
The draft recommendationsâscheduled to be reviewed by City Council on April 9ârequire both taxis and ride-hailing companies to share the date and time of each ride, pick up and drop off locations, wait times and the duration of trips.
"We only have anecdotal evidence on how well or how poorly taxi service in Portland has served," says Dana Haynes, the Mayor's spokesman. "We thought this would be a good opportunity to see if we could get some actual data so we could make data-driven decisions."
Although Haynes couldn't point to any specific probes the city would launch, he says data on how Portlanders use for-hire cars will help determine, "with some assurance, 'here's what we need in our community: fill in the blank.'"
If these rules are adopted by Council and the companies cooperate, Portland will become one of the first cities to plumb Uberâs rich database.
In January, Uber agreed to give Boston officials a peak under the hood to help track traffic congestion and guide planning decisions. And the data debate continues to rage in New York City, where city council is grappling with what kind of data Uber and other should hand over.
Additionally, Portland officials are recommending the city collect information on how long riders in wheelchairs or those with limited mobility wait for their taxi or Uber to arrive, so later the city may conduct âa comparative analysis of wait timesâ for those passengers.
So, will the city get its data when the pilot program launches later this month? Probably.
Brooke Steger, a general manager for Uber, says the company has no problem sharing data the city may request, so long as user confidentiality is protected.
"We've shared very comprehensive data packages with cities like Boston, and we're definitely open to sharing similar packages here in Portland. The goal would be to help [the city] understand how the transportation networks are working together, how traffic is flowing, and how we would be able to help."
Lyft is âopen to working with cities to see how ridesharing can inform transit planning,â company spokeswoman Chelsea Wilson wrote in an email. Wilson wrote that Lyft has shared trip data with other cities in the past and noted that sharing data âwill be important to the city [of Portland] during this pilot program.â
WWeek 2015