Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

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 …

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 …

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 …

Integrating Freight Into Livable Communities, Kristine M. Williams, Alexandria Carroll

TREC Final Reports

Where livability is a goal of the planning process, freight runs the risk of not being considered except as an afterthought or as something to be excluded. Yet, freight is an integral part of local economic development. Because economic prosperity is a key characteristic of livable communities, freight must be incorporated into the planning process. This study explores the relationship between freight and livability through a comprehensive literature review and case study research. The final report includes a menu of strategies and case study perspectives that highlight the importance of transportation and land use integration, interagency coordination, and context-sensitivity in …

Investigations In Transportation, William G. Becker, Carol Biskupic Knight

TREC Final Reports

The Investigations in Transportation program is an elementary school partnership and curriculum development project that will engage science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) professionals in school-based activities and projects that will bring real-world applications to elementary classrooms for grades 3-5. The Portland Metro STEM Partnership (PMSP) is providing leadership and facilitation to a team of educators from Portland State University, Beaverton School District and Hillsboro School District who will work with volunteers from the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) to design, develop, implement and assess the impact of an in-class unit entitled "Investigations in Transportation". This report presents a study …

Distributional Consequences Of Public Policies: An Example From The Management Of Urban Vehicular Travel, Winston Harrington, Elena Safirova, Conrad Coleman, Sébastien Houde, Adam M. Finkel

All Faculty Scholarship

This paper uses a spatially disaggregated computable general equilibrium model of a large US metropolitan area to compare two kinds of policies, “Live Near Your Work” and taxation of vehicular travel, that have been proposed to help further the aims of “smart growth.” Ordinarily, policy comparisons of this sort focus on the net benefits of the two policies; that is, the total monetized net welfare gains or losses to all citizens. While the aggregate net benefits are certainly important, in this analysis we also disaggregate these benefits along two important dimensions: income and location within the metropolitan area. The resulting …

Development Of Mobile Mapping Technology To Facilitate Dialogue Between Transportation Agencies And The Public, Ken Kato, Marc Schlossberg, James Meacham

TREC Final Reports

The goal of this grant was to take the technological innovations for deploying survey instruments to mobile phones, developed under a previous OTREC grant, and publish them as globally accessible mobile applications (apps) for use in a variety of transportation planning settings. Under this grant, three applications have been developed for three distinctly different user groups. The first, JLA Involve, was developed and deployed for JLA, a Portland, OR.-based public involvement firm, to support their work with the City of Tualatin, OR., in updating their Transportation System Plan (TSP). The second was developed and deployed for the City of Eugene, …

Travel Behavior, Residential Preference, And Urban Design: A Multi-Disciplinary National Analysis, Jessica Greene, Nico Larco, Yizhao Yang, Marc Schlossberg, Daniel Rodriguez, Noreen Mcdonald, Tabitha Combs

TREC Final Reports

This report summarizes the findings of a national project to examine the travel behavior, social capital, health, and lifestyle preferences of residents of neotraditional developments (NTD) compared to more standard suburban developments. We compare survey results from residents of matched pairs of neighborhoods in seventeen U.S. cities and towns, with each pair comprised of one NTD and one typical suburban neighborhood of similar size, age, and socio-demographic composition. The study addresses salient themes in the transportation, planning and health literatures: a national study, surveying populations of diverse incomes, collecting resident information on preferences for and attitudes towards neighborhood qualities, and …

Transferring Community-Based, Active Transportation Gis Assessment Tools Nationwide, Marc Schlossberg, Nico Larco

TREC Final Reports

“Livability” has recently been declared one of four top priorities by the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT), and the USDOT, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) have entered into an historic partnership to address the issue. Ultimately, this term refers to the quality of life within one’s community and the ease, comfort, and joy with which one can access places he or she want to go. For most Americans, their neighborhoods have been designed to predominantly accommodate the automobile, and more active forms of transportation such as walking and …

Linking Experiential Learning To Community Transportation Planning, Robert Parker, Bethany Johnson

TREC Final Reports

This OTREC education proposal will link experiential education with local transportation planning through a collaborative partnership between the University of Oregon and the City of Eugene. Educators have long worked to find pedagogical approaches that yield the best educational results. This is particularly true in the planning disciplines where there is an ongoing dialog among academics and practitioners about how to most effectively train aspiring professionals.1 To provide a mix of academic and practical experience, most planning programs include a mixture of theoretical and applied curriculum. The American Planning Association (APA) recognizes this need and as a result, APA accredited …

Analysis Of Induced Travel In The 1995 Npts, James G. Strathman, Kenneth Dueker, Thomas W. Sanchez, Jihong Zhang, Ann-Elizabeth Riis

Center for Urban Studies Publications and Reports

In this paper we estimate the relationship between road capacity and vehicle miles of travel (VMT) from a sample of 12,000 respondents from 48 urban areas in the 1995 Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey (NPTS). Our approach seeks to account for the effects of residential location, employment location, and commute mode choice in estimating the effect of capacity on VMT. VMT is found to be directly related to road capacity, as well as indirectly related through the influence of road capacity on residential and work place densities.

Travel And Parking Behavior In The United States, Gerard C. Mildner, James G. Strathman, Martha J. Bianco

Center for Urban Studies Publications and Reports

This paper looks at the connection between the regulation of parking by cities, transit service levels, and travel and parking behavior in the United States. Travel behavior information comes from the 1990 Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey (NPTS) and the Federal Urban Mass Transportation Administration’s 1990 Section 15 Report. Data on the current state of parking programs in place in central business districts of the U.S. is identified through telephone interviews of local officials responsible for parking policies from the twenty cities identified in the NPTS. The travel behavior analyses and the data from the parking officials interviews were combined with …

Municipal Transportation, Charles Noyes Wheeler

Student and Lippitt Prize essays

Reviews the importance of municipal transportation due to the ever growing city populations and urban areas of the United States in the 1900’s.