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Good practice Imported

Driver's Seat Cooperative — A Driver-Owned Data Cooperative for U.S. Gig Workers

United States of America · Denver · See the United States of America profile · See the Denver profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 39% 71/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Founded in 2019, Driver's Seat Cooperative is a driver-owned data cooperative where gig and rideshare drivers pool trip data for shared analytics; by December 2022 it had 5,000+ active members across 30+ U.S. cities and reported a 13% average income increase.

5,000+ members
Active members (December 2022)
~2,000 members
Active members (earlier) (September 2021)
30+ cities
U.S. cities with active membership (2022)
5 million+ trips
Trips tracked (cumulative) (cumulative)
13 %
Average reported income increase for app users
6,079 rides
Rides analysed in independent Denver labour study (November 2021 - January 2022)
Driver's Seat Cooperative — A Driver-Owned Data Cooperative for U.S. Gig Workers

Details

Maturity
Scaling
Promoter
Driver's Seat Cooperative
Period
2019–present
Keywords
civic technology, data cooperative, gig economy, urban mobility data

Context

Driver's Seat Cooperative is a worker-owned data cooperative, founded in 2019 by CEO Hays Witt, that lets rideshare and delivery drivers on platforms such as Uber, Lyft and DoorDash sync their trip data into a shared app.

Activities

The app gives each driver personalised analytics on earnings, mileage and the best times and locations to work, while pooling anonymised data that members can use collectively to advocate to cities and platforms. As a cooperative, members can become owners with voting rights and a share of profits, rather than only being customers of the platform.

Results

According to the Rockefeller Foundation, an early funder, active membership grew from about 2,000 in September 2021 to more than 5,000 by December 2022, with the cooperative active in more than 30 U.S. cities; it has tracked more than 5 million trips, and drivers using the app have reported a 13% average increase in income. Driver-collected data from the app has also been used for independent public-interest research: a Colorado Jobs With Justice study drew on Driver's Seat trip data from 6,079 rides tracked in Denver between November 2021 and January 2022 to estimate real driver take-home pay after expenses.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Low (< €50k) — Grant/philanthropy-funded cooperative with app-development and member-support costs, low relative to platform-scale operations.
Time to results
Medium (1–3 years) — Founded 2019; membership grew roughly 2.5-fold between September 2021 and December 2022.
Staffing & skills
Small cooperative staff led by a CEO, Member-drivers acting as worker-owners with voting rights

Conditions for success

  • Cooperative ownership structure giving drivers voting rights and a share of profits
  • Personalised earnings/mileage analytics as an incentive to sync trip data
  • Philanthropic seed funding (Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation, Mozilla, Omidyar Network, Draper Richards Kaplan, Impact America Fund)

Common failure modes

  • Remains a niche alternative relative to the much larger rideshare platforms it monitors
  • Continued reliance on grant funding rather than full member-revenue self-sufficiency

Where it fits

Governance type
Worker-owned data cooperative
Scale
Multi-city (30+ U.S. cities)
Income level
High-income (United States)

Commonly funded by

Philanthropic / foundation funding

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Attachments

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