New Index Ranks Cities by their Transportation Apps

Lindsey Hallock and Jeff Inglis share news of the new "Innovative Transportation Index" [pdf], created by the Frontier Group.

Here's how the index works and some of what it finds: "This report reviews the availability of 11 technology-enabled transportation services – including online ridesourcing, carsharing, ridesharing, taxi hailing, static and real-time transit information, multi-modal apps, and virtual transit ticketing – in 70 U.S. cities. It finds that residents of 19 cities, with a combined population of nearly 28 million people, have access to eight or more of these services, with other cities catching up rapidly."

It's important to note that some of the technologies measured in the index are only available in select cities, while start-ups scale-up technology in cooperation with local governments. RideScout comes to mind. Other of the technologies are currently the source of rampant and ever-evolving controversy about the nature of regulation and the market. Uber comes to mind.

Austin comes out on top of the rankings, followed by San Francisco and Washington, D.C.

Frontier Group also shares graphics available for sharing and to showcasing the accomplishments of individual cities. That means that images, such as the one to the right, are available, for example, for calling-out cities that aren't as technologically advanced as some local politicians claim. Like cities that completely lack bikeshare, for example.