Measuring the Effect of Private Transport Job Accessibility on Rents: The Case of San Francisco’s Tech Shuttles

Abstract

We measure the effect of San Francisco’s technology firm commuter shuttles on rents utilizing a kernel density estimation approach. To model the effects of job accessibility improvements that the shuttles provide, we capture the influence of each shuttle stop in terms of the number of jobs that shuttle connects to in Silicon Valley and the market capitalization of the companies served. We compare these results to baseline models with simple distance measures. Our models identify a strong correlation between commuter shuttles and rents, suggesting that the effects of private shuttles can be anticipated without measuring the job accessibility gains they provide.