LOUD Publishes Research on 'Mobility service design with equity-aware choice-based decision-support tool' in the TRD Journal

LOUD published a paper titled ‘Mobility Service Design with Equity-Aware Choice-Based Decision-Support Tool: New York Case Study’ in the journal Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment.

Fig. Spatial Distribution of Time Value in New York State (Left) and New York City (Right)

Fig. Vulnerable Populations in New York State

Customized mobility services are rapidly becoming widespread, but assessing their impact on equity remains challenging due to a lack of regional-scale travel data and efficient transportation models. This study utilizes synthetic population data and a traveler-choice-based traffic optimization model to support the design of mobility service coverage with an equity-focused approach. The paper presents a decision support tool that determines the optimal operational range for future mobility services under budget constraints to achieve specific goals, such as minimizing travel utility disparities. The study tests the tool using synthetic data from New York State and demonstrates its application by considering new ride-hailing and microtransit services. The paper estimates the "cost of transportation equity": under a specific budget level, a subsidy of $71.39 per vehicle per day is needed to minimize travel utility disparity, and a subsidy of $29.86 per vehicle per day to minimize travel utility inadequacy. The results support regional funding and resource allocation by quantifying trade-offs between different services, goals, and budget levels, providing valuable insights for related research and practice.

Ren Xiyuan, the first author of the paper and a PhD student at LOUD, notes that regional (state-level) mobility service projects often overlook the impact on transportation equity. This is partly due to the difficulty in obtaining travel data across metropolitan and rural areas, which hinders the construction of travel choice models considering diverse population preferences; and partly because most studies focus on overall revenue or user satisfaction of mobility services, with no consensus on measuring transportation equity. This research combines synthetic population data from New York State with a traveler-choice-based traffic model, establishing four core indicators (overall revenue, total travel utility, travel utility disparity, and travel utility inadequacy) to compare the optimal operational range of emerging mobility services under efficiency and equity goals, providing a reference for regional funding and resource allocation. Ren plans to incorporate environmental impacts of mobility services (such as carbon emissions, noise/pollution) into the core indicators in future research and apply the developed decision support tool to more practical cases.

This research builds on the collaborative platform between LOUD and the C2SMARTER University Transportation Laboratory led by Professor Joseph Chow from NYU Tandon School of Engineering, which focuses on joint PhD training and research collaboration.

Paper Link:

Ren, X., Chow, J. Y., Guan, C. (2024). Mobility service design with equity-aware choice-based decision-support tool: New York case study. Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, 132, 104255. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trd.2024.104255