Impact of Congestion Charge and Minimum Wage on TNCs: A Case Study for San Francisco

This paper describes the impact on transportation network companies (TNCs) of the imposition of a congestion charge and a driver minimum wage. The impact is assessed using a market equilibrium model to calculate the changes in the number of passenger trips and trip fare, number of drivers employed, the TNC platform profit, the number of TNC vehicles, and city revenue. Two charges are considered: (a) a charge per TNC trip similar to an excise tax, and (b) a charge per vehicle operating hour (whether or not it has a passenger) similar to a road tax. Both charges reduce the number of TNC trips, but this reduction is limited by the wage floor, and the number of TNC vehicles reduced is not significant. The time-based charge is preferable to the trip-based charge since, by penalizing idle vehicle time, the former increases vehicle occupancy. In a case study for San Francisco, the time-based charge is found to be Pareto superior to the trip-based charge as it yields higher passenger surplus, higher platform profits, and higher tax revenue for the city.