Urban Microtransit Cross-sectional Study for Service Portfolio Design

A recent article from Boston Consulting Group and Via highlights advantages that microtransit can have when implemented under the right settings, an increasing research area. But what built environment and sociodemographic settings make these services most successful? How does this dependency on microtransit vary for different types of operations (e.g. door-to-door, virtual stops, trip distance and trip types, hub-and-spoke, first/last mile)? How do these benefits vary by users of the market? How do they perceive and value these benefits relative to their needs? Consequently, if the city agencies wish to construct a portfolio of solution options, how should they design their portfolios? How do electric charging requirements impact these decisions? This project will investigate these research questions. In partnership with Via, a worldwide transportation provider, and data collected from NYC DCAS, the research team will gain access to a cross-sectional data set of microtransit implementations, both electric and non-electric, from various cities worldwide. Using that data with sociodemographic and built environment data for each selected city from U.S. Census and international databases, the team will develop a model relating performance metrics of different classes of operations to city and service attributes. The model will then be applied within a service coverage optimization model to identify Pareto-dominant projects within a city to construct a portfolio of different service options and user preferences. For operational classes in which there is insufficient data, a day-to-day simulation developed by Chow will be used to extrapolate from existing operational class data (using that as baseline) to obtain metrics. In its focus on the user setting in terms of demographics and user behavior and preferences, the research differs from typical microtransit research in complementing research that tends to focus on characteristics of the industry and the physical systems.

• Record URL:
  http://c2smart.engineering.nyu.edu/urban-microtransit-cross-sectional-study-for-service-portfolio-design/

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Completed
• Funding: $166546
• Contract Numbers:

  USDOT 69A3551747124

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590

  Connected Cities for Smart Mobility towards Accessible and Resilient Transportation Center (C2SMART)

  New York University
  Tandon School of Engineering
  Brooklyn, NY  United States 
• Managing Organizations:

  Connected Cities for Smart Mobility towards Accessible and Resilient Transportation Center (C2SMART)

  New York University
  Tandon School of Engineering
  Brooklyn, NY  United States 
• Performing Organizations:

  Connected Cities for Smart Mobility towards Accessible and Resilient Transportation Center (C2SMART)

  New York University
  Tandon School of Engineering
  Brooklyn, NY  United States 
• Principal Investigators:

  Chow, Joseph

• Start Date: 20200301
• Expected Completion Date: 20210228
• Actual Completion Date: 20210531
• USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Built environment; Cities; Consumer preferences; Cross sectional studies; Demand responsive transportation; Demographics; Metrics (Quantitative assessment); Optimization; Passenger transportation; Public transit; Ridesourcing; Simulation; Social factors
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Passenger Transportation; Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Public Transportation;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01736236
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Connected Cities for Smart Mobility towards Accessible and Resilient Transportation Center (C2SMART)
• Contract Numbers: USDOT 69A3551747124
• Files: UTC, RIP
• Created Date: Apr 16 2020 9:22AM