Feasibility Study of a Campus-Based Bikesharing Program at UNLV

Bikesharing systems have been deployed worldwide as a transportation demand management strategy to encourage active modes and reduce single-occupant vehicle travel. These systems have been deployed at universities, both as part of a city program or as a stand-alone system, to serve for trips to work, as well as trips on campus. The Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada (RTCSNV) has built a public bikesharing system in downtown Las Vegas, approximately five miles from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). This study analyzes the feasibility of a campus-based bikesharing program at UNLV. Through a review of the literature, survey of UNLV students and staff, and field observations and analysis of potential bikeshare station locations, the authors determined that a bikesharing program is feasible at UNLV

Guest Editorial: Introduction to the Special Issue on Advances in Smart and Green Transportation for Smart Cities

According to a recent UN report, continuing population growth and urbanization are expected to increase the world’s urban population by 2.5 billion people by 2050, with 2.9 billion extra vehicles. This massive growth in both population and number of vehicles, together with urban transformation and a trend toward mega cities, creates greater and more challenges for achieving smart transportation goals in smart cities. Therefore, new and more integrated modes of transportation, and environment friendly solutions are required to accommodate the rising demands of high liveability in smarter cities that offer safe, secure, affordable, reliable and sustainable transportation in old and new markets alike

"Lei of Green" Revisiting the "Dream"

The purpose of this project is to design walkable solutions for Honolulu, by overcoming gaps and separations caused by various transportation barriers that create dis-connectivity, with parks, beaches, landmarks, schools and communities. The research focuses on “building upon the shoulders of those who preceded us”. Previous project visions will be used as the foundation to inspire new ideas and designs to solve Honolulu’s “walkability” issues. The original “Lei of Green” design proposal created by the late Mr. Tom Papandrew, proposed design solutions and guidelines that promote walkability, recreation, safety and connectivity within an urban city. This doctorate project will be using Mr. Papandrew’s idea and other past examples of work, related to the “Lei of Green”, to create a stronger foundation of research, to support the design segment of this doctorate project. This study is the outcome of five main areas of research: 1) studies on a previous bike proposal for O‘ahu; 2) LEED – Neighborhood Development Criteria; 3) “The Image of the City” book written by Kevin Lynch; 4) Defining and finding the design criteria and benefits of both, Walkable Communities and Greenways; and 5) an interpretation of select case studies that embody both walkability and greenways. The result of all studies will shape the design benchmarks that will comprise the foundation for the final design proposal, of a sustainable walkable greenway system in Honolulu. This greenway system will be used to connect parks, beaches, landmarks, schools and communities to each other, to promote alternative transportation means, safety, additional tourist attractions, preserve existing green spaces and to instill Hawai‘i “sense of place” and cultural values that make Hawai‘i a unique destination. This research will provide a basic understanding of a walkable greenway design to eliminate gaps and separations within a community that can be used to create a walkable city for Honolulu

Micromobility: Progress, benefits, challenges, policy and regulations, energy sources and storage, and its role in achieving sustainable development goals

Micromobility is dominant in urban areas, enhancing the transportation sustainability and assisting in fulfilling the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This work provides an overall assessment of micromobility: its role under SDGs, policy options, micromobility regulations, emerging technologies, utilisation determinants, energy source, and energy storage. The analysis shows that micromobility could play a major role in achieving the SDGs, specifically SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being) by lowering toxic gas emissions and reducing projected traffic accidents. Also, the effect on SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth) by reducing the transportation footprint, on SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities) by increasing transposition accessibility, reducing traffic congestion and improving the air quality, and equally on SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production) by reducing transportation footprint and increase the sources efficiency. Moreover, micromobility affects SDG 13 (Climate Action) by reducing the greenhouse gases. Furthermore, the analysis shows a clear gap in literature and publications on micromobility, especially in energy management and energy storage area. This review shows that new technology of renewable energy and energy storage could play a significant role in achieving the sustainability of micromobility therefore achieving the SDGs

Assessing the Travel Demand and Mobility Impacts of Transformative Transportation Technologies in Indiana

SPR-4413The rapid development of transformative transportation technologies, such as bike-sharing, shared e-scooters, and ridehailing systems, is reshaping the transportation landscape. These transformative transportation technologies have the potential to significantly change travel behavior and travel demand and affect transportation agencies\u2019 planning, operations, and decisionmaking. The objective of this project is to develop a framework and models to quantify the potential travel demand and mobility impacts of transformative transportation technologies in Indiana cities. This project analyzed historical system usage data and conducted survey studies to evaluate the availability and use of transformative transportation technologies in select Indiana cities. The project also proposed a data-driven model to study the relationship between shared micro-mobility and the existing transit system and developed a simulation model to analyze the potential mode choice change under different future development scenarios. Additionally, based on a comprehensive literature review, a list of operations; environmental, health and safety; and accessibility and equity metrics were identified as the Key Performance Indicators to evaluate transformative transportation technologies. Furthermore, as this study was conducted in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the impacts of the pandemic on both traditional and transformative transportation systems were also examined as documented in the literature and stated in our survey

Vermont Transportation Energy Profile 2021

Slightly more than one-third of the total energy consumed in Vermont is used for transportation (see Figure E-1). Transportation energy is overwhelmingly derived from fossil fuels, with over 95% coming in the form of gasoline and diesel fuel. Transportation is also the largest source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the State, accounting for 39.1% GHGs in 2017. Consequently, the 2016 Vermont Comprehensive Energy Plan (CEP) included three goals and nine supporting objectives related to reducing transportation sector energy consumption and GHG emissions (VDPS, 2016). The 2021 Vermont Transportation Energy Profile (“the Profile”) is the fifth installment of a biannual reporting series that evaluates the State’s progress toward achieving these transportation sector targets

Bicycle Sharing Systems: Fast and Slow Urban Mobility Dynamics

In cities all around the world, new forms of urban micromobility have observed rapid and wide-scale adoption due to their benefits as a shared mode that are environmentally friendly, convenient and accessible. Bicycle sharing systems are the most established among these modes, facilitating complete end-to-end journeys as well as forming a solution for the first/last mile issue that public transportation users face in getting to and from transit stations. They mark the beginnings of a gradual transition towards a more sustainable transportation model that include greater use of shared and active modes. As such, understanding the way in which these systems are used is essential in order to improve their management and efficiency. Given the lack of operator published data, this thesis aims to explore the utility of open bicycle sharing system data standards that are intended for real-time dissemination of bicycle locations in uncovering novel insights into their activity dynamics over varying temporal and geographical scales. The thesis starts by exploring bicycle sharing systems at a global-scale, uncovering their long-term growth and evolution through the development of data cleaning and metric creation heuristics that also form the foundations of the most comprehensive classification of systems. Having established the values of these metrics in conducting comparisons at scale, the thesis then analyses the medium-term impacts of mobility interventions in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, employing spatio-temporal and network analysis methods that highlight their adaptability and resilience. Finally, the thesis closes with the analysis of granular spatial and temporal dynamics within a dockless system in London that enable the identification of the variations in journey locations throughout different times of the day. In each of these cases, the research highlights the indispensable value of open data and the important role that bicycle sharing systems play in urban mobility

Urban Public Transportation Planning with Endogenous Passenger Demand

An effective and efficient public transportation system is crucial to people\u27s mobility, economic production, and social activities. The Operations Research community has been studying transit system optimization for the past decades. With disruptions from the private sector, especially the parking operators, ride-sharing platforms, and micro-mobility services, new challenges and opportunities have emerged. This thesis contributes to investigating the interaction of the public transportation systems with significant private sector players considering endogenous passenger choice. To be more specific, this thesis aims to optimize public transportation systems considering the interaction with parking operators, competition and collaboration from ride-sharing platforms and micro-mobility platforms. Optimization models, algorithms and heuristic solution approaches are developed to design the transportation systems. Parking operator plays an important role in determining the passenger travel mode. The capacity and pricing decisions of parking and transit operators are investigated under a game-theoretic framework. A mixed-integer non-linear programming (MINLP) model is formulated to simulate the player\u27s strategy to maximize profits considering endogenous passenger mode choice. A three-step solution heuristic is developed to solve the large-scale MINLP problem. With emerging transportation modes like ride-sharing services and micro-mobility platforms, this thesis aims to co-optimize the integrated transportation system. To improve the mobility for residents in the transit desert regions, we co-optimize the public transit and ride-sharing services to provide a more environment-friendly and equitable system. Similarly, we design an integrated system of public transit and micro-mobility services to provide a more sustainable transportation system in the post-pandemic world

I See Myself in that Career : Exploring Methods to Attract the Next Generation Transportation Workforce

Predicting a workforce crisis for the past twenty years, the transportation field has launched a wide variety of initiatives to increase the future talent pipeline that would choose transportation as a field of choice for study and future careers. This project follows on the premise that increasing awareness of career opportunities is essential to attracting new entrants at an early age, and that awareness building should be dynamic. This includes providing views of who works in the transportation field, what their experiences are, and what they value about their work. This paper hypothesizes that first-person glimpses into transportation careers are just as essential for job seekers as knowing job specs, qualifications, pay scales and opportunities for advancement. In-depth career profiles of workers were developed and showcase individuals, from diverse backgrounds and interests, engaged in work critical to the future of our transportation systems and infrastructure as an inducement to consider future education and training work needed to enter such a field. A number of other initiatives have created occupation and career profiles in public and private agencies. As with other awareness building and talent pipeline development initiatives such efforts need to be made accessible to a wider more diverse audience and metrics for tracking their effectiveness should be developed and implemented. Coordinating and testing these efforts are part of a future stage of program