Article

Effectiveness of Designated Driver Programs for Reducing Alcohol-Impaired Driving: A Systematic Review

In recent years, mobility-on-demand services have experienced rapid growth and become an integral part of the urban transport system. As one of the prevalent mobility-on-demand services, online designated driving allows car-owners booking professional drivers via mobile apps to deliver private cars (frequently with the car-owners inside) to a designated location for a fee. Online designated driving can play a crucial role in promoting road safety by providing a responsible alternative for those who cannot drive themselves due to drinking or fatigue, but there is still a lack of empirical study on its basic travel patterns. Using massive trip records of online designated driving, this study investigates the collective and individual spatio-temporal travel patterns, and reveals the spatio-temporal impact mechanism of various land-use types on online designated driving demand. Take Beijing as a case study, the results show that unlike ride-hailing trips that primarily occur during the daytime, 93.07 % of online designated driving trips occurs between 18:00 and 7:00 the next day, with the longest peak observed on Friday nights. Meanwhile, the average distance of online designated driving trips is approximately twice as long as that of ride-hailing trips (16.58 km vs. 8.48 km). The collective travel patterns of online designated driving exhibit a shrinking trend in the form of “surface-line-point” over time. Regarding individual patterns, we rigorously demonstrate that 81.55 % of high-frequency users exhibit a “fixed-destination” phenomenon, indicating a clear centripetal tendency. Furthermore, online designated driving is primarily associated with limited land-use types, revealing that it may serve specific target audiences, like travelers returning from entertainment and catering activities after consuming alcohol, or those in need of transportation for business and automotive services. These findings can contribute to refining operational practices and enhancing regulatory measures for online designated driving.

Hazardous alcohol consumption causes approximately 4% of deaths globally, constituting one of the leading risk factors for the burden of the disease worldwide. Alcohol has several health consequences, such as alcohol-associated liver disease, hepatocellular carcinoma, nonliver neoplasms, physical injury, cardiac disease, and psychiatric disorders. Alcohol misuse significantly affects workforce productivity, with elevated direct and indirect economic costs. Due to the high impact of alcohol consumption on the population, public health has led to the development of a range of strategies to reduce its harmful effects. Regulatory public health policies (PHP) for alcohol can exist at the global, regional, international, national, or subnational levels. Effective strategies incorporate a multilevel, multicomponent approach, targeting multiple determinants of drinking and alcohol-related harms. The World Health Organization categorizes the PHP into eight categories: national plan to fight the harmful consequences of alcohol, national license and production and selling control, taxes control and pricing policies, limiting drinking age, restrictions on alcohol access, driving-related alcohol policies, control over advertising and promotion, and government monitoring systems. These policies are supported by evidence from different populations, demonstrating that determinants of alcohol use depend on several factors such as socioeconomic level, age, sex, ethnicity, production, availability, marketing, and others. Although most policies have a significant individual effect, a higher number of PHP are associated with a lower burden of disease due to alcohol. The excessive consequences of alcohol constitute a call for action, and clinicians should advocate for developing and implementing a new PHP on alcohol consumption.

Many city residents cannot install their private electric vehicle (EV) chargers due to the lack of dedicated parking spaces or insufficient grid capacity. This presents a significant barrier towards large-scale EV adoption. To address this concern, this paper considers a novel business model, on-demand valet charging, that unlocks the potential of under-utilized public charging infrastructure to promise higher EV penetration. In the proposed model, a platform recruits a fleet of couriers that shuttle between customers and public charging stations to provide on-demand valet charging services to EV owners at an affordable price. Couriers are dispatched to pick up low-battery EVs from customers, deliver the EVs to charging stations, plug them in, and then return the fully-charged EVs to customers. To depict the proposed business model, we develop a queuing network to represent the stochastic matching dynamics, and further formulate an economic equilibrium model to capture the incentives of couriers, customers as well as the platform. These models are used to examine how charging infrastructure planning and regulatory intervention will affect the market outcome. First, we find that the optimal charging station densities for distinct stakeholders are different: couriers prefer a lower density; the platform prefers a higher density; while the density in-between leads to the highest EV penetration as it balances the time traveling to and queuing at charging stations. Second, we evaluate a regulatory policy that imposes a tax on the platform and invests the tax revenue in public charging infrastructure. Numerical results suggest that this regulation can suppress the platform’s market power associated with monopoly pricing, increase social welfare, and facilitate the market expansion.

Introduction: Studies have shown that approximately half of arrested intoxicated drivers had their last alcoholic drink at a licensed bar or restaurant. Current efforts to prevent intoxicated patrons from leaving licensed establishments and driving home have been only partially successful. Since a high proportion of drinkers drive to their drinking destination, promoting the use of alternative transportation (AT) – including safe ride shuttles, free or subsidized taxi and ridesharing services, voluntary or paid designated driver programs, and more accessible public transportation – is an important strategy for preventing impaired driving. The primary goal of this study was to review and synthesize the findings of research studies designed to test the effectiveness of AT programs in reducing alcohol-impaired driving. A secondary goal was to report if using AT has led to any unintended consequences, in particular greater alcohol consumption. Method: We identified relevant academic articles, new articles, government reports, and other documents (English only) through the University of Chicago library, Google Scholar, and Google Search. We also included published articles recommended by peers. Key search terms included: alternative transportation; safe rides; designated driver; alcohol-impaired driving; alcohol consumption, cost effectiveness; and reduce drunk driving. Initially, we identified 168 potentially relevant sources, of which only 57 were academic articles. After a thorough review, we narrowed down the number of relevant articles to 125 including some background articles and government reports. Results: Some AT programs produced reductions in one or more of the following outcomes: (1) impaired driving; (2) impaired driving crashes; (3) driving under the influence (DUI) arrests; and (4) traffic crashes in general, but others were not shown to be effective. A few programs resulted in greater self-reported alcohol use, but there were no significant findings indicating that drinking when using AT led to an increase in alcohol-related harms such as public intoxication, assaults, or other alcohol-related crime. Of the studies that conducted a cost-benefit analysis, most showed that AT programs yielded a positive benefit, but these studies did not include a sufficient number of variables to be considered true cost-benefit analyses. Conclusions: There is mixed evidence regarding the effectiveness of AT programs. Evaluations with more rigorous quasi-experimental and experimental designs are needed to identify which types of AT programs work best for different types of communities and target groups. Practical Applications: The literature review and synthesis revealed that the most successful AT programs typically have some of these attributes: (1) social acceptance; (2) high level of public awareness; (3) low cost; (4) year-round availability; (5) provide rides to and from drinking venues; (6) several sponsors that provide funding); (7) user convenience; and (8) perceived safety.

Despite decades of education and enforcement campaigns, alcohol-impaired driving persists as a social problem in the U.S. Are there other factors influencing decisions to drive after alcohol consumption that may be amenable to change? We conducted a roadside survey in California in 2012 to assess whether residential accessibility, travel attitudes (indicated by ratings of convenience and safety for travel options), and perceptions of arrest risk affect travel choices made subsequent to alcohol consumption. We conducted hybrid choice modeling for 580 participants. Mode-specific travel attitudes were valid constructs and predictive of travel behavior. Perceived level of service (speed) increased the utility for taxi and getting a ride. Perceiving high risk of arrest affected mode choice through travel attitudes. Not everyone assessed their mode options in the same way. For example, frequent binge drinkers appear to be more willing to consider taxis, men had stronger preferences towards active modes, and younger drivers were less pro-driving in this context. Past drinking and driving behavior affected one’s attitude towards driving, while the number of drinks was related to mode choice. While our accessibility measure was not significantly related to attitudes or choice, decreasing urbanicity corresponded with stronger preferences for driving. This pilot study suggests that improving level of service (speed), convenience, and overall safety are considerations for public health in terms of promoting alternatives to drinking and driving. This line of research also has implications for emerging options, such as ride hailing, and how these might be optimized for specific segments of the population.