Downtown Orlando Rideshare Hub Pilot Program
FRA Award Submission 2019
The need to create an organized program that would help advance downtown Orlando’s entertainment district in terms of traffic congestion, crowd control management and therefore, public safety, was quickly prioritized after the City of Orlando created a formal nighttime economy management program in 2017.
Through the work of the robust and empowered private/public Nighttime Economy Management committee, the concept of “Rideshare Hubs” was born. With more and more patrons choosing rideshare as their preferred method of transportation, downtown Orlando expressed a desire to safely and efficiently streamline the mass exiting of thousands of patrons.
Rideshare Hubs: 100-Word Description
2 Hubs
Vibrant Downtown with Constraints
While the desire itself to have dedicated, easy-to-navigate areas for rideshare drivers and rideshare riders to connect it is not a new concept (nor are the realities of restrictive infrastructure, political climate, funding availabilities, etc), the way Orlando has built their solution is truly innovative.
Downtown Orlando is a relatively small area with its central business district and its entertainment district sitting directly on top of each other. Downtown Orlando sees upwards of 20,000 patrons on any given weekend night. Downtown Orlando’s sidewalk widths cannot support crowds this size therefore the Orlando Police Department has closed a main thruway street - Orange Avenue - and several intersections to vehicular traffic 3-4 nights a week, every week, for years. Downtown
Orlando offers a free bus circulator seven days a week; day and night. The bars/clubs/restaurants are required to stop selling alcohol at 2:00 am causing a late night “push” of people on to the
streets as the venues close. Downtown Orlando is proud of its vibrant nighttime economy but recognizes the unique and cumbersome challenges that come as a result of these factors.
Given the above constraints, the need to think outside the box was a foundational requirement.
“How do we turn our 2:00am ‘push’ in to a ‘pull?’” we asked ourselves early in the conceptualization phase. The goal was simple: to get patrons home safely and efficiently. As the concept developed, the realization that the city would need to entice patrons with not only an organized exiting strategy for both drivers and riders, but also with additional incentives such as public restrooms and late- night food offering was apparent. The “Rideshare Hub” concept was born and it was ambitious.
Rideshare Hub Amenities
Mobile Food Vending and additional public restrooms (available late-night) are key components to the overall hubs themselves. These two components also required their own mix of private/public collaboration and planning. Since the Rideshare Hub concept called for additional food options late- night, the needed to create a way to program adjacent space for this use became a necessary sub- project which has led the City of Orlando to create a temporary use permit (TUP) and amend the current Mobile Food Vending Program to now allow (for the first time ever) food trucks to vend from city street parking metered spots.
The city has designated one zone adjacent to each Rideshare Hub in downtown (there are two) for
“food truck only parking” at which permitted food truck operators pay the meter at an increased hourly rate during their use. We extended the hours of operation of the Mobile Food Vending Parking Zone Program to not only with in conjunction with the Rideshare Hubs, but seven days a week from 8:00am – 3:00am. To be permitted to vend from any of these designated locations, you must apply for a separate TUP and provide a certificate of insurance for $1,000,000 indemnifying the City of Orlando ($2,000,000 aggregate).
Rideshare Hub Amenities
Other amenities include:
• Dedicated security
• Dedicated cleaning staff
• Mobile Food Vending Parking Zones (proximate)
• Public Restroom
• Lighting
Ultimately, the now established Rideshare Hubs are a product of extensive partnership between the City of Orlando and several private entities including Uber, Lyft, Mears Transportation, the Central Florida Regional Transportation Authority, Event Transport Solutions, Allied Universal, and others.
Working in collaboration for over 18 months has afforded us the ability to create and pilot an organized, late-night transportation solution that makes sense for our users.
The Downtown Orlando Rideshare Hubs are the first of its kind to utilize designated bus lanes
(during non operating hours) for rideshare/taxi staging and loading. Downtown Orlando was one the of the firsts to work in partnership with competitors Uber and Lyft to develop an unified operation of which their downtown Orlando user’s experience is systematic, transparent and consistent.
Partnership
Impact
Ultimately, the Rideshare Hubs were created to further enhance the overall downtown experience.
This includes many specific goals: to decrease the congestion on city streets therefore allowing people and cars to flow in/out of downtown at a quicker rate; to encourage patrons to visit
downtown Orlando trusting they can rely on rideshare and/or taxi options without long waits,
dropped rides, unavailability, etc; to create a concise and thorough transportation plan, designed in partnership and therefore adopted by all involved parties; to increase overall downtown staffing on- the-streets at night including cleaning efforts, security, an transportation management; to decrease the ancillary chaos that comes from crowd congestion on a closed main thruway street that could be better utilized at that time; and to pioneer this proactive and innovative approach to a common
“problem” in entertainment districts across the world.
The pilot, thus far, has shown positive results such as; an increase in available rideshare drivers therefore more completed trips; a comprehensive wayfinding plan that is uniform across user
platforms i.e. on-the-street signage, in-app navigation, and via promotional efforts; and improved efficiency moving downtown patrons safety to their night’s final destination.
Funding
The City of Orlando’s Community Redevelopment Agency gains its funding through tax increment financing. When the CRA was created, all real property values were “frozen” as of a specific date, any increases in those values after that date are considered “increments” which are then deposited into the CRA for use within its boundaries.
No in-kind funding has been leveraged thus far.
The 6-month pilot is estimated to cost $125,000. This includes transportation management services, security services, FF&E rentals and purchases, and janitorial/restroom attendees.
Event Transportation Solutions (ETS) Pre-planning: $6,600
FF&E rentals and purchases: $18,322 Nightly hub operations: $67,600
Management fee: $7,475
Estimated total costs per weekend:
$2900/weekend – Transportation Management
$700/weekend – Security Services
$300/weekend – Janitorial/Restroom Attendees
Problem Solving
Since a program specifically like the Downtown Orlando Rideshare Hubs has not been similarly enacted anywhere else, the need to “problem-solve” was at the core of each phase of this project.
The City of Orlando needed to figure out how to do things that we’ve never done before such as how to use dedicated bus lanes for an ancillary use; how to target a new, very specific audience; how to work in collaboration with private businesses who do not typically work in partnership with each other; and how to efficiently design a complete operational plan, leaving room for real-time adjustments, that can be followed
by different groups of people day to day.
The interagency communication plan is an impressive component of this project! Fortunately, the communication leaders represented from each organization involved in this project embraced the uniqueness of this pilot program and creatively collaborated at every phase. As a result, our final
communications and media plan were extremely well-received, thorough and re-creatable.