Project number: PSR-17-03

Funding source: US DOT

Contract number: 69A3551747109

Funding amount: $55,483

Performance period: 1/1/2018 to 12/31/2018

Ideally, public transit, by moving more people using fewer vehicles, can play a major role in improving the sustainability of a transportation system. However, most transit systems in the US suffer low ridership and high operating cost, thus a significantly compromised mobility service to the transportation system users. Under current transit system design principles, such as service area requirements, inefficiency of resource usage is almost inevitable. We envision that to have a more significant role played by transit system in the new environment of mobility as a service, current transit system design principles need to be reevaluated and redefined. In this project, we propose an integrative approach to identify the most effective transit resource allocation strategies, in a system where public and private mobility service provides coexist. System performance will be measured by costs (including user cost and agency cost), social equity (impact on different user groups), and environmental benefit (measured by energy and emission savings per person-mile-traveled). A network-based multi-agent optimization model will developed to reflect different interests of public and private service providers and travelers of different soci0-economic backgrounds. A case study based on Santa Clara VTA data will be implemented to learn design and policy insights.

Link to report: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/77t6g3w4