CARPOOLING: PAST TRENDS AND FUTURE PROSPECTS

The author presents statistics on ridesharing trends throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Based on the U.S. Census figures from 1970, 1980 and 1990, these data show that carpooling has declined in both absolute numbers and relative shares since 1970. The author's numbers are troubling; they show that the number of commuters using carpools declined from 19 million to 15.4 million between 1980 and 1990, which is about 60 percent of the total national share of transit users in the U.S.