How Many Uber Rides Does It Take To Kill NYC Cabs?

There is an endangered creature in the travel landscape that was at the heart of a recent study—the iconic New York City taxicab.

According to a study just released by MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), hat tip to The Verge, we now have an inkling as to what it would take to wipe those yellow cabs off the face of Manhattan’s map for good.

Honestly, it’s not all that much.

The report explains that carpooling services could actually reduce traffic around the bustling city if every traveler bumping around town embraced the technology.

MIT’s Adam Conner-Simons explains, “One way to improve traffic is through ride-sharing—and a new MIT study suggests that using carpooling options from companies like Uber and Lyft could reduce the number of vehicles on the road 75 percent without significantly impacting travel time.”

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Those cabs that pepper the city are a New York institution. So, it boggles the mind that those yellow cars could become an endangered species around the city. According to the city, the rise of Uber and Lyft could actually go a long way to staving off congestion as well as pollution.

It would only take about 3,000 carpooling vehicles to serve as a knockout punch to the classic method of hailing a ride by sticking out your arm and hoping for the best. It’s that amount of hypothetical Uber or Lyft rides (accounting for four-person cars) that would cater to 98 percent of the town’s demand.

Now, this would mean a remarkable shift in consumer expectations as it would mean embracing carpools, ditching the mode of transport that sends one person to a Manhattan destination at a time.

Professor Daniela Rus explains, “Instead of transporting people one at a time, drivers could transport two to four people at once, results in fewer trips, in less time, to make the same amount of money.”

Uber is one solution that allows users to choose an option that would allow drivers to pick up passengers along the way. It’s this kind of solution, taking into account a citywide buy in, that could dramatically curtail the city’s other iconic entity, traffic congestion.

As noted, this doesn’t mean New York City will switch to Uber overnight, but the advent of a carpooling option means that at least a modicum of congestion relief is a possibility over the coming years.

Rus continues: “Ride-sharing services have enormous potential for positive societal impact with respect to congestion, pollution and energy consumption. It’s important that we as researchers do everything we can to explore ways to make these transportation systems as efficient and reliable as possible.”

However, cabs aren’t going anywhere. As Fortune found last summer, taxis continue to outperform newfangled apps in the city. This is counter to a more widespread trend that has seen Uber surpass other modes of ground transportation for travelers, according to a Certify study last year.

Basically, don’t worry about missing out on New York’s classic cabs or the ensuing congestion. Both will be there for some time yet.

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