A rideshare fee to fund buses
The companies and data in this case are made up.
A city proposes a $2 fee on every rideshare trip. It wants to spend the net revenue on evening bus service. Recommend whether it should proceed, change the plan or gather more evidence first.
Suggested time: 20 minutes for a written response, then 5 minutes for the challenge. This is a practice exercise, not a full Regionals paper or a statement of the final exam format.
A · Monthly budget forecast
| Measure | Before fee | Forecast with fee |
|---|---|---|
| Rideshare trips | 100,000 | 85,000 |
| Fee per trip | $0 | $2 |
| Administration cost | $0 | $10,000 |
| Evening bus service cost | n/a | $180,000 |
B · Two-week pilot
| Measure | Before pilot | During pilot |
|---|---|---|
| Average passenger fare | $14.00 | $15.20 |
| Average driver receipt per trip | $10.00 | $9.20 |
| Platform receipt per trip | $4.00 | $4.00 |
| Fee collected per trip | $0 | $2.00 |
| Bus trips in pilot area | 8,000 | 8,600 |
Evidence limit: The pilot had no comparison area. Weather, school schedules and other transport changes were not controlled. The monthly forecast is an estimate, not an observed outcome.
Your task
- Calculate gross and net monthly fee revenue. Does the forecast cover the proposed bus service?
- Using the pilot, account for the $2 fee across passengers, drivers and the platform. Can the bus-ridership change be attributed to the fee?
- Make a recommendation. Identify who may benefit, who may bear the cost and one result that would change your decision.
Your answer stays on this page. It is not submitted or saved; copy it before leaving.
Follow-up challenge
The city says the bus-ridership increase proves the policy works. Explain why that claim goes beyond the evidence.
Read a worked response
The forecast produces $170,000 in gross revenue (85,000 × $2) and $160,000 after administration. It falls $20,000 short of the proposed $180,000 service. At unchanged administration cost, 95,000 trips would be needed to cover both costs, above the forecast.
In the pilot, passengers paid $1.20 more and drivers received $0.80 less per trip. The platform receipt stayed at $4. Together these changes account for the $2 fee. That is observed incidence in this pilot; it does not establish what would happen across the city or over a longer period. Bus trips rose 7.5%, but a before/after comparison without a control cannot isolate the fee’s effect.
I would revise and test the plan before citywide adoption. The current budget does not fund the promised service. A smaller service expansion or an identified funding source would close the gap. Riders who gain reliable evening service may benefit; drivers and rideshare users bear observed costs. We have no income or accessibility data to establish which households gain overall. A longer pilot with a comparison area should measure trips, driver earnings and bus access. I would support expansion if recurring net revenue covers the service and access gains justify the measured burden.
Other recommendations can earn full credit when they follow from the exhibits and acknowledge the limits.
Score your response · 100-point practice rubric
This self-assessment assigns 20 points to each category. These weights apply only to this practice exercise; official competition weights remain unpublished.
| Category | Evidence needed for 20/20 |
|---|---|
| Interpretation | State the decision, distinguish monthly forecasts from the two-week pilot and notice the funding constraint. |
| Evidence | Use both exhibits, including the $20,000 shortfall and $1.20/$0.80 split. |
| Reasoning | Show the arithmetic and distinguish correlation from a causal effect. |
| Judgment | Choose an action, assess affected groups and give a measurable reversal condition. |
| Defense & adaptability | Respond to the causal claim; explain what comparison evidence would strengthen it. |
| Score per category | Practice standard |
|---|---|
| 0 | Missing, irrelevant or fundamentally incorrect. |
| 5 | Some relevant observations, with major errors or unsupported assertions. |
| 10 | Partly correct; important evidence or a reasoning step is missing. |
| 15 | Sound analysis with a minor omission or an underdeveloped limitation. |
| 20 | Accurate, supported and complete for the task; assumptions and limits are explicit. |
The worked response illustrates full-credit evidence in the first four categories. For Defense & adaptability, score your own response to the follow-up challenge; reading the model answer does not demonstrate that skill.
What to practice
A policy change and what it does.
- Markets and incentives
- Government intervention
- Public policy design
- Macro context
- Externalities
- Distributional effects
How to use this case
- Read the case and restate the decision in one sentence. List the quantities, units and constraints before calculating.
- Work each question without the model response. Write the calculation and the inference separately.
- Compare your work with the model. Mark one arithmetic error, missing assumption or unsupported claim to correct.
- Ask a partner to challenge your recommendation. Give a specific condition that would change it.
Skills checklist
| Skill | Application in this case |
|---|---|
| Interpretation | State the decision, distinguish monthly forecasts from the two-week pilot and notice the funding constraint. |
| Evidence | Use both exhibits, including the $20,000 shortfall and $1.20/$0.80 split. |
| Reasoning | Show the arithmetic and distinguish correlation from a causal effect. |
| Judgment | Choose an action, assess affected groups and give a measurable reversal condition. |
| Defense & adaptability | Respond to the causal claim; explain what comparison evidence would strengthen it. |
Common mistakes
- Quoting a number without explaining what it changes.
- Treating a forecast as an observed fact, or a correlation as a causal effect.
- Optimizing revenue while ignoring cost, risk or opportunity cost.
- Listing uncertainties without making a provisional decision.
A second practice session
Change one numerical assumption in the exhibit. Recalculate the decision threshold, explain whether your recommendation changes, and say which original assumptions still matter. Have a partner check units and arithmetic.
The content areas above describe preparation topics. They do not assign exam percentages or finalize time limits, permitted resources or grading weights. See the handbook draft for adopted rules.