Public Transportation

What’s the ‘Big’ Deal with Shared Micromobility? Evolution, Curb Policy, and Potential Developments in North America

Shaheen, Susan
Cohen, Adam
Broader, Jacquelyn
2021

Shared micromobility – or short-term access to shared bikes and scooters – provides a flexible alternative for households living in urban areas, individuals seeking first- and last-mile connections to public transportation, and those without access to a private vehicle trying to reach jobs and essential services. In this paper, the authors discuss the history, growth, and evolution of bike and scooter sharing in North America; summarize the demographics and impacts of shared micromobility; and explore shared micromobility policies and practices for managing devices and operations such as:...

Carsharing and the Built Environment: Geographic- Information System-Based Study of One U.S Operator

Stillwater, Tai
Mokhtarian, Patricia L.
Shaheen, Susan A.
2009

The use of carsharing vehicles over a period of 16 months in 2006-07 was compared to built environment and demographic factors in this GIS-based multivariate regression study of an urban U.S. carsharing operator. Carsharing is a relatively new transportation industry in which companies provide members with short-term vehicle access from distributed neighborhood locations. The number of registered carsharing members in North America has doubled every year or two to a current level of approximately 320,000. Researchers have long supposed that public transit access is a key factor driving...

Transit-Based Smart Parking: An Evaluation of the San Francisco Bay Area Field Test

Rodier, Caroline J.
Shaheen, Susan A.
2010

This paper presents an evaluation of the first transit-based smart parking project in the US at the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) District station in Oakland, California. The paper begins with a review of the smart parking literature; next the smart parking field test is described including its capital, operational, and maintenance costs; and finally the results of the participant survey analysis are presented. Some key user response results are: (1) most participants used the smart parking system 1–3 days a month for commute travel and (2) 37% of respondents had seen the...

China's Hangzhou Public Bicycle: Understanding Early Adoption and Behavioral Response to Bikesharing in Hangzhou, China

Shaheen, Susan A.
Zhang, Hua
Martin, Elliot
Guzman, Stacey
2011

Over the past 20 years, China has experienced a steady decline in bicycle use. To address this trend, China's central and local government for urban transportation created the "Public Transit Priority" to encourage public transport initiatives. As part of this effort, the Hangzhou government launched “Hangzhou Public Bicycle” in 2008. This service allows members to access a shared fleet of bicycles. As of March 2011, it operated 60,600 bicycles with 2,416 fixed stations in eight core districts. To understand factors leading to bikesharing adoption and barriers to adoption, the authors...

Shared Automated Mobility: Early Exploration and Potential Impacts

Stocker, Adam
Shaheen, Susan
2017

Automated vehicles, if shared, have the potential to blur the lines between public and private transportation services. This chapter reviews possible future shared automated vehicle (SAV) business models and their potential impacts on travel behavior. By examining the impacts of non-automated shared mobility services like carsharing and ridesourcing, we foster a better understanding of how current shared mobility services affect user behavior. This serves as a starting point to explore the potential impact of SAV services. Several key studies covering the topic are discussed. Although the...

Good Practices for Advancing Urban Mobility Innovation: A Case Study of One-Way Carsharing

Terrien, Clara
Maniak, Remi
Chen, Bo
Shaheen, Susan
2016

Transforming urban mobility requires integrating public with private services into a single transportation system. Local governments and private companies face the challenge of how to coordinate themselves. An emblematic example is one-way carsharing (shared use of a fleet of vehicles that are typically free-floating throughout an urban area). Surprisingly, good practices for public and private players driving this change remain relatively undocumented. This paper proposes a systematic and balanced public-private approach to foster transportation innovation management. We review both...

Chapter 3 - Mobility on Demand (MOD) and Mobility as a Service (MaaS): Early Understanding of Shared Mobility Impacts and Public Transit Partnerships

Shaheen, Susan
Cohen, Adam
2019

Technology is changing the way we move and reshaping cities and society. Shared and on-demand mobility represent notable transportation shifts in the 21st century. In recent years, mobility on demand (MOD)—where consumers access mobility, goods, and services on-demand by dispatching shared modes, courier services, public transport, and other innovative strategies—has grown rapidly due to technological advancements; changing consumer preferences; and a range of economic, environmental, and social factors. New attitudes toward sharing, MOD, and mobility as a service (MaaS) are changing...

Video Transit Training for Older Travelers: Case Study of the Rossmoor Senior Adult Community, Walnut Creek, California

Shaheen, Susan A.
Rodier, Caroline J.
2007

This study applied principles of social learning and marketing to develop a transit training video for residents of the Rossmoor Senior Adult Community in California. The video features familiar community members successfully navigating specific concerns and problems related to transit use in accessing key community destinations (shopping, health care, and the nearest San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District station). Residents were recruited to complete questionnaires before and after viewing the video to evaluate its effectiveness. Video messages that were aimed at educating viewers...

Public Transit Training: A Mechanism to Increase Ridership among Older Adults

Shaheen, Susan A.
Allen, Denise
Liu, Judy
2010

In the United States, the older adult community is forecast to more than double by 2030. Research is needed to address their increasing mobility needs and perceived public transit barriers. In this paper, researchers evaluate the effectiveness of the Rossmoor Senior AdultCommunity transit training class (Walnut Creek, California). In Summer 2007, surveys were implemented before-and-after transit training sessions to assess changes in attitudes and intended transit behaviors. Surveys also were administered to participants who had taken the trainingcourse over the past two years to identify...

“Three Ps in a MOD:” Role for Mobility on Demand (MOD) Public-Private Partnerships in Public Transit Provision

Lucken, Emma
Trapenberg Frick, Karen
Shaheen, Susan
2019

The growing number of public transportation agencies partnering with Mobility on Demand (MOD) or Mobility as a Service (MaaS) companies raises the question of what role MOD companies can, should, and currently play in the provision of public transport. In this article, we develop a typology reflecting 62 MOD public-private partnerships (MOD PPPs) in the United States and present lessons learned. We conducted 34 interviews with representatives from four MOD companies and 27 public agencies. The interviews spanned October 2017 to April 2018. The resulting MOD PPP typology consists of four...