Ridesharing Apps Bring Big Money in Philly

According to the Philadelphia school district, ridesharing apps Lyft and Uber brought in a combined $44 million in their first two months of legality. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, this data was gleaned from tax revenue coming in. That means that the services are averaging $5.5 million a week in the City of Brotherly Love, starting on November 4th, 2016 and going through the last day of the year.

Lyft and Uber have thrived in legality, making thousands for the public school system in Philadelphia.

As part of making ridesharing legal, the city laid out a 1.4 percent tax per ride. The school district receives two-thirds of the tax money. The Parking Authority gets the remaining third. This means big things for the school system. As per the Inquirer: “The district expects the ride-hailing app industry to generate between $2 million to $2.5 million for the city’s schools annually. The district has a budget of about $2.8 billion.”

There was some precedent for the rampant success of ridesharing. The city made Lyft and Uber temporarily legal between July and September (to overlap with the Democratic National Convention) with a one percent tax. During that period the two services made a combined $53 million, or 59,000 riders a day. According to the PPA, Uber accounted for 80 percent of those totals.

The paychecks come as a welcome blessing to the schools. “On Thursday, the school district announced it received $357,593.31 in tax revenue from the July-to-September period, the first revenue it received from taxes on ride-hailing companies. The district anticipated another $411,381.12 in revenue from November and December taxes,” said the Inquirer.

Before the law was signed, one bone of contention that held things up was the tax breakdown between the school district and the parking authority. Now, however, both entities can benefit from the strong performance of the ridesharing apps.