Our Work

Community Engaged Travel Diary Data Collection

Travel diary data from household travel surveys play a critical role in transportation planning and serve as the primary source of data for travel model development, despite ongoing progress with leveraging “big data” in transportation planning. Yet concerns have been raised about the representativeness of various sub-groups in household travel surveys as some population segments are systematically less likely to be included in household travel surveys . Our work in this area develops, tests, and pilots data collection strategies for eliciting higher representation from disadvantaged communities.

Our lab works on a number of projects in the area, including:

Equity and Innovations in Travel Demand Analysis

Advancing equity  in transportation outcomes requires new frameworks that consider the conditions of vulnerable communities that link travel behavior measurement, transportation systems infrastructure, and policy. Travel Demand Models – which are computational tools for modeling and forecasting travel behavior – are widely used to evaluate the costs and benefits of transportation investments and are central tool in the transportation decision-making process. Yet, these models are not well positioned to support meaningful transportation equity analysis, due to some fundamental and practical short comings these models. Our work in this area focuses on extending the capacity of travel demand models to capture behaviors, needs, and circumstances the are distinct for vulnerable travelers and communities.

Our lab works on a number of projects in the area, including:

Evaluation and Measurement of Transportation Equity Outcomes

It is well understood that impacts of transportation systems and policies on a region will vary substantially, based on differences in initial transportation conditions: residential locations, access to travel modes, various travel constraints and barriers, desired travel activities, preferences, attitudes, and more). Further, it is well documented that transportation investments can have harmful impacts on vulnerable communities, such as inequitable allocations of transportation services and adverse pricing outcomes. Yet, few transportation evaluation tools are able to reflect the complexity of transportation behaviors and understand conditions that impact the range and complexity of outcomes from transportation investments. 

Our work in this areas focuses on development and testing of transportation equity analysis frameworks, measures, comparison evaluation strategies for understanding the connections between transportation investments (i.e. transportation systems designs, pricing policies, etc) and the complexity of transportation outcomes, for vulnerable community and among society.

Our lab works on a number of projects in the area, including: