Public Transportation

Transportation network company (TNCs) rides that are shared amongst users (i.e., pooled) can offer a variety of benefits including increased mobility and reduced transportation emissions. However, very few TNC users select pooled trips and not all pooled rides are matched with other riders. This report supports increased pooling by exploring different pooling strategies and incentives. TNC users were actively engaged to offer insights through the photovoice methodology (a participatory research method that allows community members to use photography to communicate their personal...

This work assesses the robustness of the public transport systems in three Latin American metropolitan areas: Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro, and Buenos Aires. By integrating infrastructure and mobility data, we propose metrics to quantify both structural robustness and functional performance. We analyze the similarities and differences among these cities under complete bus-line removal scenarios that emulate realistic disruptions, such as service suspensions or operator closures. Open infrastructure data allow us to quantify structural robustness in terms of network topology and...

COVID-19 has presented public transit agencies with unprecedented operational and fiscal challenges. In the San Francisco Bay Area, for example, public transit ridership remains approximately 90% below pre-pandemic levels as of November 10, 2020, according to Transit App. It is generally agreed that personal protective measures (i.e., masks, face shields, gloves), sanitation, and air ventilation — combined with social distancing — reduces the spread of COVID-19. However, experts do not agree on the minimum...

Over a five-year period, the University of California Berkeley’s Global Metropolitan Studies-China Program conducted research in partnership with local counterparts in Beijing, Shanghai, Jinan, Chengdu, and Kunming. Research focused on strategies for maintaining and increasing the sustainability of the cities’ transportation systems in the face of rapid economic growth and accelerating motorization, and included planning, analysis, and design of projects on transit-oriented development, non-motorized transportation, and bus rapid transit. In this paper, we focus on two cases that exemplify...