Urban Studies Commons^™

Rideshare Practices In Developing Countries Vs Developed Countries, Francis Wambalaba

PSU Transportation Seminars

This project investigated strategies towards development, marketing and implementation of employer programs for reducing single occupancy vehicles to mitigate traffic congestion. It was guided by the following research questions: which socio-economic factors influence carpooling; how do environmental factors influence carpooling; and what are effective traffic management strategies for enhancing carpooling. The presentation will also strive to introduce the US context for purposes of perspective.

Data-Driven Optimization For E-Scooter System Design, Abolhassan Mohammadi Fathabad, Xiaofeng Li, Jianqiang Cheng, Yao-Jan Wu

TREC Final Reports

The objective of this project is to develop data-driven, decision-making models for shared-mobility system design and operation. Specifically, we will use shared e-scooters as a representative system, with the ultimate goal of facilitating an electric shared-mobility revolution that promises a more sustainable future. In the past few years, shared e-scooter systems have gained increased popularity around the world because of their benefits to health, traffic congestion, the environment, and accessibility. As of 2018, approximately 100 U.S. cities have launched shared e-scooter programs, accounting for 38.5 million trips. However, the business model to manage e-scooter sharing remains nascent, with many challenges …

Reckoning With Induced Vehicle Travel, Jamey Volker

PSU Transportation Seminars

Empirical research shows that expanding roadway capacity induces more driving - the so-called "induced travel" phenomenon. However, environmental impact assessments and cost-benefit analyses of roadway capacity expansion projects have historically ignored, underestimated, or misestimated this induced travel effect. As a result, they frequently overestimate the projects' potential to relieve congestion and reduce air pollution. That spurred our team at the National Center for Sustainable Transportation (UC Davis) to develop an online tool to facilitate estimation of induced vehicle travel from capacity expansion projects. This presentation will explain the induced travel phenomenon, introduce our induced travel calculator and its offshoots, …

Webinar: Mobility, Accessibility, And Resiliency Of Community-Dwelling Older Adults, Kate Hyun, Kathy Lee, Caroline Krejci

TREC Webinar Series

Mobility disparities among older adults affect their ability to travel and access services. This project seeks to understand challenges, barriers, and gaps that older adults experience and to develop forms of assistance or educational strategies to fill the varying mobility gaps and meet the mobility needs. This study characterizes older adults’ use of existing and potential transportation options, including conventional transit, paratransit, and ride-hailing systems, based on surveys and interviews collected from community-dwelling older adults in Dallas, Texas. Through the interview during the pandemic, the research team found that perceptual and knowledge barriers appear to be reduced among older adults …

Data From: “Developing Strategies To Enhance Mobility And Accessibility For Community-Dwelling Older Adults”, Kate Hyun, Kathy Lee, Caroline Krejci

TREC Datasets and Databases

This study administered a survey to 146 lower-income adults in Dallas, TX, aged 55 and older, between February and June 2020. As affordable public transportation options target senior citizens age 65 and older, this study focused on older adults as aged 65 and over. However, we also recruited adults aged 55 to 64 to distinguish how emerging seniors differently perceive or perform transportation activities compared to current older adults. In a partnership with a local organization providing resources and information for older adults and family caregivers located in Dallas, we used snowball sampling by recruiting participants from Foster Grandparent Program …

Developing Strategies To Enhance Mobility And Accessibility For Community-Dwelling Older Adults, Kate Hyun, Kathy Lee, Caroline Krejci, Nilufer Oran Gibson, Troyee Saha

TREC Final Reports

Mobility disparities among older adults affect their ability to travel and access services. This project seeks to understand challenges, barriers, and gaps that older adults experience, and develop forms of assistance or educational strategies to fill the varying mobility gaps and meet mobility needs. This study characterizes older adults’ use of existing and potential transportation options, including conventional transit, paratransit, and ride-hailing systems, based on surveys collected from 146 low-income older adults in Dallas, TX. Using the survey data and interview data, we develop two mathematical modeling (a Latent Class Cluster Analysis and agent-based modeling (ABM)) and conduct content analysis …

Development Of Intelligent Multimodal Traffic Monitoring Using Radar Sensor At Intersections, Siyang Cao, Yao-Jan Wu, Feng Jin

TREC Final Reports

Multimodal traffic monitoring is critical for improving mobility and safety at intersections with potential conflicts among various modes of transportation. Traditional traffic monitoring approaches utilizing cameras cannot work reliably during the night and under hazardous weather conditions. We propose to build a new intelligent multimodal traffic monitoring device using the low-cost mmWave radar. The proposed device can reliably distinguish different modes (such as buses, pedestrians, bicyclists, trucks, motorcycles, etc.), and determine the counts, speed, and moving directions of every single target in an urban environment under various lighting and weather conditions. In the study, a low-cost prototype system will also …

Examining The Impact Of Transportation-Related Barriers On Self-Perceived Physical Health Among Adults In The United States, Philip Baiden, Godfred O. Boateng, Stephen Mattingly, Alan Kunz Lomelin

TREC Final Reports

Objective: Drawing from the framework of social determinants of health, the objective of this paper was to investigate the crosssectional association between transportation-related factors and self-perceived physical health among adults in the U.S. while adjusting for known demographic and socioeconomic-related factors.

Methods: Data for this report were derived from the 2017 National Household Travel Survey. An analytic sample of 71,235 respondents aged 18 and 64 years was analyzed using binary logistic regression. The outcome variable examined was self perceived physical health and the main explanatory variable was a measure of household vehicle deficit.

Results: Of the 71,235 respondents examined, 8.9% …

The Impact Of Ride Hail Services On The Accessibility Of Nonprofit Services, Dyana P. Mason, Miranda Menard

TREC Final Reports

Nonprofit organizations are responsible for providing a significant level of human services across the United States, often in collaboration with government agencies. In this work, they address some of the most pressing social issues in society – including homelessness, poverty, health care and education. While many of these organizations consider location and accessibility crucial to supporting their clients – often locating services near bus or train stops, for example – little is known about the impact of new technologies, including ride hail services like Lyft and Uber, on nonprofit accessibility. These technologies, which are re-shaping transportation in both urban and …

Rethinking Streets For Physical Distancing, Marc Schlossberg, Rebecca Lewis, Aliza Whalen, Clare Haley, Danielle Lewis, Natalie Kataoka, John Larson-Friend

TREC Final Reports

This report summarizes the primary output of this project, a book of COVID-era street reconfiguration case studies called Rethinking Streets During COVID-19: An Evidence-Based Guide to 25 Quick Redesigns for Physical Distancing, Public Use, and Spatial Equity. COVID-era needs have accelerated the process that many communities use to make street transformations due to: a need to remain physically distanced from others outside our immediate household; a need for more outdoor space close to home in every part of every community to access and enjoy; a need for more space to provide efficient mobility for essential workers in particular; and a …

Transit Impacts On Jobs, People And Real Estate, Arthur C. Nelson, Robert Hibberd, Kristina Marie Currans, Nicole Iroz-Elardo

TREC Final Reports

This is the first volume of a five-volume set of publications comprising the report titled “Transit Impacts on Jobs, People and Real Estate.” It is the culmination of four research projects funded by the the National Institute of Transportation and Communities (NITC), a US DOT funded National University Transportation Center. This volume includes a preface that review key findings of the prior four research grants, an executive summary that reviews key findings of all five volumes of the current report, the context that reviews the context of the present research including details on more than 50 fixed route transit systems …

Emerging Technologies And Cities: Assessing The Impacts Of New Mobility On Cities, Rebecca Lewis, Rebecca Steckler

TREC Final Reports

Advances in emerging technologies – such as autonomous vehicles (AVs), e-commerce, and the sharing economy – are having profound effects not only on how we live, move, and spend our time in cities, but also on urban form and development itself. These new technologies are changing how people and goods move around a city and are beginning to have substantial effects on land use, street design, parking, and housing. These changes will have significant implications for city governance, revenues, and budgets.

In partnership with the cities of Gresham and Eugene (the Cities), this project assessed the challenges and opportunities presented …

Next Steps For Portland’S Neighborhood Greenways, Scott Cohen

PSU Transportation Seminars

Portland's neighborhood greenways are a key component of the city's transportation system and future. Join PBOT's new neighborhood greenway coordinator to learn how this facility type developed, near-term plans for improvements, and what the future holds for these unique bikeways.

Participants will gain a better understanding of:

• The history of Portland's neighborhood greenways
• PBOT's evaluation process for the neighborhood greenway system
• Where the system is thriving and where PBOT sees deficiencies
• How PBOT plans to address the system's development over the next three to five years

Webinar: Contextual Guidance At Intersections For Protected Bicycle Lanes, Christopher Monsere, Nathan Mcneil

TREC Webinar Series

Separated bike lanes have become increasingly common around the United States as cities seek to attract the new riders, including people who want to ride but limit their riding because they do not feel comfortable riding with motor vehicle traffic. Planners and engineers are working to identify contextually appropriate, safe, and comfortable designs for intersection locations, where bicyclist paths cross the paths of turning vehicles as well as cross-traffic. This research employed a combination of user surveys and simulations to anticipate expected bicyclist and turning vehicle interactions and bicyclist comfort based on design type and volumes. Findings examine which types …

Fast Track: Allowing Bikes To Participate In A Smart-Transportation System, Stephen Fickas, Marc Schlossberg

TREC Final Reports

This project focuses on a mode of transportation that is currently left out of V2X (vehicle-to-everything) conversations: bicycling. The project demonstrates how university researchers, city traffic engineers, and signal-controller manufacturers can come together to give bicyclists the same technology appearing on modern vehicles: Green Light Optimized Speed Advisory (GLOSA). GLOSA allows motorists to set their speed along corridors to maximize their chances of catching a “green wave” (i.e., not being forced to stop as they travel through the corridor). This project demonstrates how GLOSA can be used by bicyclists in the same way it is used by motorists on a …

Our Young People And The Gateway To Opportunity, Jonnie Ling

PSU Transportation Seminars

The Community Cycling Center has been working with youth through the "Big Jump: Gateway to Opportunity" project. We'll be discussing our exploratory educational model and the ways the project can increase accessibility and opportunity for the youth living and learning in the Gateway neighborhoods.

Public Transportation And New Mobility, Chris Pangilinan

PSU Transportation Seminars

New mobility options such as bike share, scooters, and transportation network companies (e.g. Uber) are proliferating across the United States and beyond. Early research has shown that while the private automobile continues to be the main competition for transit, new mobility options may also be siphoning off some riders. In this seminar, we will explore what the role of public transportation should be in this era of rapidly expanding private transportation options. We will also examine how private transportation could be harnessed to help public transportation succeed and allow for cities to meet their mobility goals.

The Success Of An Integrated Mobility Strategy: Lessons From The Netherlands For The Pacific West Coast, Lucas Van Der Linde

PSU Transportation Seminars

The Netherlands sets the standard for their multimodal connectivity. It has world's highest use of cycling and an integrated mobility network with an efficient transport system. During this seminar, Lucas will tell more about the Dutch Approach and how this could be applied to the American transportation context.

Lucas will use the case of the Bay area to show this. The Bay Area in California currently faces massive challenges in transportation because of the enormous growth of the region. With the use of a new innovative modelling tool, the Move Meter (http://www.movemeter.com/), Lucas will show the potential of …

Utilitarian Skateboarding: Insight Into An Emergent Mode Of Mobility, Michael Joseph Harpool

Dissertations and Theses

In recent years research and planning efforts to enhance the conditions and opportunities for active transportation modes have increased significantly; however, these efforts have primarily focused on pedestrians and bicyclists. Skateboarding and other alternative modes of mobility remain an untapped potential for healthy and sustainable travel. This research addresses numerous knowledge gaps in the literature on utilitarian skateboarding under the larger umbrella of active transportation. Analysis of online survey results and semi-structured interviews with skateboarders in Portland, OR provides insight into the motivations and barriers of traveling by skateboard and the demographics and perceptions of skateboard commuters. Like bicyclists and …

Transportation Impacts Of Affordable Housing: Informing Development Review With Travel Behavior Analysis, Amanda Howell

PSU Transportation Seminars

Planning for affordable housing is challenged by development policies that often do not differentiate between the travel patterns of residents of market-rate housing and those living in affordable units. The development review process generally requires an evaluation of the anticipated additional transportation demand that new development places on the system and an assessment of fees or improvements to mitigate these impacts.

However, industry standard guidelines for assessment of travel demand outlined within the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) Trip Generation Handbook have been focused solely on vehicle trip rates for these traffic impact analyses. Given the public goals of providing …

Density Differences: Exploring Built Environment Relationships With Walking Between And Within Metropolitan Areas, Jamie Orrego

PSU Transportation Seminars

Part of the Student Presentations from TRB

To explore the relationships between measures of density and walking within and between urban areas, we present an analysis of the travel survey data from six different cities from the US and Santiago, Chile. The analysis of aggregate and disaggregate pedestrian trips presented here examine the potential consistency of relationships between walking and density within and across different regions, with a specific focus on population density. Our findings illustrate a relationship between population density and walk mode shares that is roughly linear and of nearly equal magnitude across US regions in densities below …

Exploring The Determinants Of Vulnerable Road Users’ Crash Severity In State Roads, Álvaro Caviedes

PSU Transportation Seminars

Part of the Student Presentations from TRB

Pedestrians and bicyclists are the most vulnerable road users and suffer the most severe consequences when crashes take place. An extensive literature is available for crash severity in terms of driver safety, but fewer studies have explored non-motorized users’ crash severity. Furthermore, most research efforts have examined pedestrian and bicyclist crash severity in urban areas. This study focuses on state roads (mostly outside major urban areas) and aims to identify contributing risk factors of fatal and severe crashes involving pedestrians and bicyclists in state roads. The results seem to suggest that besides improvements …

New Probe Data Sources To Measure Cycling Behavior And Safety, Christopher Cherry

PSU Transportation Seminars

Emerging probe data sources from smartphones on on-board devices are able to measure behavior of cyclists with very high resolution. From this, for the first time, we are able to measure relatively precise behavior that allows new insights into exposure, route choice, safety behavior, or technology choice. Probe data, merged with other data sources, can begin to develop a more complete picture of cyclists on-road behavior.

This presentation will offer examples of analyses done to investigate cyclists behavior using app-based and on-board GPS data in the context of individual cyclists behavior (i.e., app users) and behavior of bikeshare users (i.e., …

Building Planner Commitment: Are California’S Sb 375 And Oregon’S Sb 1059 Models For Climate-Change Mitigation?, Keith Bartholomew, David Proffitt

TREC Final Reports

California’s Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act (SB 375) and the Oregon Sustainable Transportation Initiative (SB 1059) have made them the first states in the nation to try and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions using the transportation-planning process. Evaluating how these pioneering laws have changed local planning processes – as well as plans themselves – in each state provides insight into the laws’ effectiveness at changing development patterns in a way that reduces GHG emissions, without waiting decades to see the effects in the built environment. Both states’ laws require metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) and the municipalities that comprise them …

Using The Planning Process To Mitigate Climate Change, Keith Bartholomew

TREC Project Briefs

This research evaluates how Oregon’s SB 1059 and California’s SB 375 have integrated climate change mitigation strategies into local planning processes, and seeks to understand how transportation planning can help slow climate change.

Advisory Bike Lanes In North America, Michael Williams

PSU Transportation Seminars

Despite being used successfully for decades in Europe, Advisory Bike Lanes are an emerging facility type in North America and can be an effective tool for communities wishing to provide bicycle lanes on streets that are otherwise too narrow to accommodate them. This talk will introduce the concept and operation of advisory bike lanes and look at some lessons learned from the early installations of this facility in the U.S. and Canada.

Changing The Focus Of Urban Transport From Congestion To Access, Jeffrey Gutman

Brookings Scholar Lecture Series

The traditional approach of urban transport planners has been to focus on the reduction of traffic congestion. More recently, with the growth of cities worldwide and the ever-present challenge of congestion, transport and urban planners have started to focus on the concept of access as the ultimate goal. How can we ensure and enhance access to jobs, education, commerce, and other services by all segments of the population? This requires a more complementary effort by transport planners and urban planners as well as finance and fiscal experts. The lecture will follow this shift in emphasis, the opportunities it poses, and …

A Pathway Linking Smart Growth Neighborhoods To Home-Based Pedestrian Travel, Steven R. Gehrke, Kelly J. Clifton

PSU Transportation Seminars

Land development patterns, urban design, and transportation system features are inextricably linked to pedestrian travel. Accordingly, planners and decision-makers have turned to integrated transportation-land use policies and investments to address the pressing need for improvements in physical activity levels via the creation of walkable communities. However, policy questions regarding the identification of smart growth indicators and their connection to walking remain unanswered, because most studies of the built environment determinants of pedestrian travel: (a) represent the built environment with isolated metrics instead of as a multidimensional construct and (b) model this transportation-land use relationship outside of a multidirectional analytic framework. …

Measuring Stress Levels For Real-World On-Road Cyclists: Do Bicycle Facilities, Intersections And Traffic Levels Affect Cyclists' Stress?, Álvaro Caviedes

PSU Transportation Seminars

This research effort presents a novel approach to measure cyclists’ stress: real-world, on-road measurements of physiological stress as cyclists travel across different types of bicycle facilities in various traffic volumes. This study addresses the question of how the characteristics of a bicycle trip affect stress levels using physiological data, specifically GSR. As detailed in the next section, GSR-based studies have been successfully employed for many years in the psychological field to recognize and associate emotions and behaviors to physiological responses. The three research questions examined in this study are: i) Does peak traffic impact cyclists’ stress levels? ii) Do intersections …

Impact Of Last Mile Parking Availability On Commercial Vehicle Costs And Operations, Miguel Figliozzi, Chawalit Tipagornwong

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This research analyses how parking availability levels affect commercial vehicle parking costs and operations in congested urban areas. Unlike passenger vehicles, parking availability has an impact on route characteristics and commercial vehicle fleet sizes. Hence, commercial vehicles parking costs cannot be captured solely by estimating delays and/or the cost of parking fines. This research combines logistics, queuing, and optimization models to study the impact of last mile parking availability on commercial vehicle costs and operations. Scenarios are built to study the impact of parking availability on typical less-than-truckload (LTL) and courier service costs. Results indicate that parking availability levels do …