Online shopping, brick-and-mortar retailers and transit ridership in the U.S.

Abstract

With increasing trends in online shopping, brick-and-mortar retailers have experienced declines in businesses forcing them to close down completely, downsize or go online. Shopping malls and strip malls, for example, have been faced with less foot traffic in recent years, while struggling to retain and attract new businesses to operate in various locations. Similarly, public transit agencies in the U.S have seen declines in ridership. Using a bivariate probit model and consumer-level data to examine the inter-relationship between online shopping, mall visits and public transit use, this study seeks to determine if online shopping activities contribute to the declines in public transit ridership in the U.S. Our results indicate that public transit use is positively associated with mall visits; for consumers who are online shoppers, online shopping creates a negative effect on mall visits thereby reducing their public transit use. This effect, however, is small relative to the effect of car ownership.