Transportation network companies (TNC), also known as ride-hailing or ridesourcing, accelerate and simplify the connection between drivers and passengers via smartphone apps and provide passengers with the best real-time mobility service. The technology of real-time matching of the locations of travelers and drivers through online platforms and GPS makes this service available. In addition, ridesourcing provides travelers with more services, such as e-payment, reviewing drivers, and selecting a car class.

The advantages of TNCs are increasing the financial and practical effectiveness of car travel in cities compared to traditional taxis and private cars. At the same time, ridesourcing raises the availability and affordability of car usage for citizens. As a result, it increases the vehicle-kilometers travelled (VKTs) in the city, as it shifts some citizens from using public transport to TNC or provides more mobility for non-mobile users ^[1][2][23,24]. This, consequently, changes the more sustainable modes to less sustainable ones. There is a concern that ridesourcing raises the Jevons paradox, which means that its functional productiveness may boost rather than reduce overall VKTs and car usage in cities ^[3][25]. The rebound effect, caused by the Jevons paradox, counteracts the expected benefits of emerging efficient technologies ^[4][5][26,27]. For example, Rayle et al. argued that 8% of Uber and Lyft users would not have taken a journey if TNCs had not provided services in San Francisco ^[6][12]. At the same time, the study of seven large metros (Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington DC areas) showed that 22% of respondents would not have made TNC trips if this service had not been available ^[2][24].

The impact of ridesourcing on public transport usage in cities is controversial as researchers show that TNC has substitutionary and complementary effects on public transport usage in American cities ^[7][8][28,29]. Furthermore, Ilavarasan et al. (2018) indicated that TNC might help with first/last mile problems of public transport, because 66% of survey respondents in New Delhi said that an important reason to choose ride-hailing is the access to public transport stations ^[9][30]. Moreover, the results of the American Public Transportation Association indicate that ridesourcing was more popular among citizens at weekends and late at night when public transport offers a reduced service ^[10][31].

However, regarding substitutionary effects, ridesourcing could cause a shift in travel behavior from public transport to car usage, particularly in big cities. For example, 33% of the ridesourcing users in San Francisco would have taken public transport if Uber and Lyft were not available ^[6][12]. Later, Henao (2017) found almost the same result (22.2% of users of the TNC) for Denver ^[1][23]. Additionally, Clewlow and Mishra (2017) found that ridesourcing lures citizens from public buses and light rail ^[2][24]. The research in Boston in 2018 indicated that 42% of respondents would have replaced their current ridesourcing trip on public transport had the ridesourcing service not been available ^[11][32].

Later, Schaller concluded that TNCs in big American cities are primarily supplanting modes such as buses, the subway, biking, and walking, instead of “replacing the personal auto” ^[12][33].

At the same time, Tiranchini (2020) investigated 27 empirical ride-hailing studies in cities in the Global North and Global South ^[13][34]. He concluded that there are not enough data to determine whether the complementary effect is bigger than the substitution, but there is enough evidence to claim that multi-modal travelers are more likely to adopt ride-hailing than public transport, especially for occasional trips. However, at the same time, observing studies with updated data, he found the tendency that the substitute impact is stronger than complementary in several cities ^[13][34].

The recent research in China investigated the factors which determine the nature of ridesourcing impact on public transport usage. For example, the study in Chengdu found that the substitute effect of ridesourcing on public transport is more common for short trips (<15 min) in areas with high-density land-use and with good transit access, especially for the areas featuring a large number of business and much more real estate ^[14][35]. Another study in Chengdu showed that ridesourcing as a substitute for public transport is more evident in the city center and the areas covered by the subway, whereas the complementary effect is more evident in suburban areas with poor public transport coverage ^[15][36]. In addition, the fleet size and fares of ridesourcing greatly affect the complementary and substitutive relationship between ridesourcing and public transport ^[16][37].

Some studies in American cities also show that ridesourcing is more associated with downtown core neighborhoods and areas with good public transport access, rising rents, and whiter and more educated residents ^[17][18][38,39].

Simultaneously, ridesourcing might affect the urban environment by changing the level of car ownership in cities and, consequently, have an impact on the emissions of urban transport ^{[19][20][21][22]}[40,41,42,43].

These different studies indicate that ridesourcing might have an effect on car usage; as an alternative mode for regular commuting, ridesourcing creates a new form of car dependence with a smaller tendency toward public transport usage. The understanding of the association between ridesourcing, public transport, and car dependence could give essential input for policymaking and on-demand mobility management at a city level.

2. Transportation Network Companies (TNC) C in Moscow

The widespread ridesourcing technology pushed the development of the market of transportation network companies in Moscow at the beginning of the 2010s, and it is still growing, especially through the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of this, there was almost a 20-fold growth in the number of passengers in taxis ^[23][15], from 45,000 to 890,000 passengers per day, from 2010 to 2019. During the same time period, the taxi fleet increased by 6.5 times, from 7500 to 48,000 cars in Moscow ^[23][15]. Moreover, 58% of the ridesourcing fleet was renewed by a Moscow government subsidy from 2010 to 2019. As a result, there are still several players in the TNC market in Moscow, such as Yandex-taxi, Uber, Gett, Citimobil, Vezet, inDriver, Maxim, and Taxovichkoff, which are step by step being merged with the largest player—Yandex-taxi. Regarding the urban mobility system, there seems to be a high risk of a rebound effect ^[4][26] of car usage in Moscow because of ridesourcing. What if users choose ridesourcing instead of other modes, including public transport? Consequently, it changes the travel behavior of users from more to less sustainable modes and produces more traffic congestion. However, this is unlikely to apply to Moscow because there was a population growth of 9.2% from 2010 to 2019 ^[24][64], and the share of people using public transport also increased by 6–10% over the same period ^[25][2]. The impact of ridesourcing on public transport has a strong substitutional nature. Overall, 66% of TNC users would replace their last TNC trip with public transport if ridesourcing was not available. Additionally, the OLR model indicated that the more the respondents use TNC, the less they use buses/trams/trolleys and the more they use walking as a mode of transportation. In addition, the OLR model contributes to understanding the profile of people who frequently use TNC companies in Moscow. They are usually young or middle-aged people living in or next to the city center, rarely driving a private car and walking for more than 500 m during the day. At the same time, making time to walk or do other physical activities during the day is likely to be of little importance to them because they are active enough and do not care about it as much as other respondents do. Due to the survey results, public transport is the most replaced mode by ridesourcing in Moscow. Besides that, the usage of ridesourcing as a substitute for public transport is two times greater in Moscow than in San Francisco ^[6][12], California ^[26][84], Santiago de Chile ^[27][85], and Madrid ^[28][72]. This once again confirms the highly public transport-oriented mobility system of Moscow.