Stories from the Front Seat: Supporting Accessible Transportation in the Sharing Economy

Ridesharing services like Uber and Lyft play an important role in broadening access to affordable, efficient transportation for people with vision impairments by providing an alternative to public transit, friends, or family. While previous work has focused on the challenges that people with disabilities experience using public transportation and how they interact with ridesharing drivers, little research has focused on the people in the "front seat" and how drivers support people with vision impairments during rides. To better understand these interactions, we interviewed 18 ridesharing drivers who had experience driving passengers with a disability, specifically people with vision impairments. Our findings show that ridesharing drivers engage in different forms of labor (i.e. physical, relational) to support passengers with disabilities and are seeking ways to learn more about disability. Contrary to most previous literature on ridesharing and the sharing economy, we find that drivers do not see this labor as a burden. We discuss ethical and design considerations for the complex process of disability disclosure, wherein passengers might benefit from having drivers know in advance about their disability, but also open themselves up to possible exploitation by drivers.