Depreciation of Rideshare vehicles

Hi Daniel, thanks for your question.

Depreciation represents the consumption of a vehicle’s value over time, not a current operating expense. Because of that, it should not be included as part of a rideshare driver’s ongoing spending or intermediate inputs in your model. IMPLAN treats depreciation as consumption of fixed capital, which falls under Other Property Income (OPI) within Value Added. So rather than counting it as current spending, the correct placement is within OPI.

If you're building a custom specification for rideshare operators, especially if the default IMPLAN cost structure doesn’t reflect their unique use of personal vehicles, you can incorporate your depreciation estimate directly into OPI. However, if you're relying on an existing IMPLAN Industry, you should avoid adding additional depreciation, since IMPLAN already includes it within OPI and adding your own estimate would result in double counting.