Project: #283 Driving Low-Income Mothers to Greater Success: The Impact of Ride-Hailing on Income and Employment Progress Report - Reporting Period Ending: March 31, 2021 Principal Investigator: Lee Branstetter Status: Completed Start Date: Jan. 31, 2020 End Date: Dec. 31, 2020 Research Type: Advanced Grant Type: Research Grant Program: FAST Act - Mobility National (2016 - 2022) Grant Cycle: 2019 Mobility21 UTC Progress Report (Last Updated: March 29, 2021, 5:14 a.m.) % Project Completed to Date: 15 % Grant Award Expended: 100 % Match Expended & Document: 30 USDOT Requirements Accomplishments The major goal/objective of our project is to determine what impact additional transportation resources in the form of free Uber rides have on the geographic and socioeconomic mobility of low-income single mothers. In the most recent period, we dramatically stepped up the pace of recruitment of low-income mothers into our research project. At the time of this writing, over 210 mothers have signed up for our program and we have about 140 active participants. At the current pace of recruitment, we are on track to meet our target of 650 participants by the end of the calendar year. While the number of participating mothers with several weeks of consistently observed GPS data is still relatively small because of the recent recruitment, we now have statistical evidence that selection into our "treatment" group appears to have dramatic effects on the geographic mobility of participating moms. It is too soon to detect any impact on socioeconomic mobility. In the past reporting period, the project has engaged six CMU masters students and three doctoral students as research assistants, thereby providing training and professional development. Given the ongoing nature of the project, it is too soon to disseminate results as papers or presentations. We plan to do that once statistical analyses are complete. Impacts As already noted, ours is a multiyear project with multiple sources of support. Research is ongoing, and will probably not conclude until sometime in 2022. However, this research has already lead the PIs to consider a follow-on project that will explore transportation resources other than Uber. That other project has already received an NSF planning grant worth nearly $50,000, and we will be applying for a Civic Innovation grant worth $1 million in May. Other N/A Outcomes New Partners N/A Issues Like nearly everything else in the United States, our efforts to recruit low-income mothers into a study designed to give them additional transportation resources to help them find work, commute to work, or work more hours were severely impacted by the shutdown of the local economy as part of the region's response to the COVID crisis. This required a lengthy pause in our plans for recruitment. With a decline in COVID cases, accelerating vaccinations in our region, and forecasts for a robust economic recovery unfolding over the next 12 months, we are back on track, and expect to complete the measurement component of our study sometime in 2022.