Our multi-year study on automated transit fare collection offers a key finding that won't surprise you: Despite the convenience, the rush toward cashless fare systems has created barriers for lower-income riders seeking to use transit. Results from focus groups, surveys, and a review of current transit agency practices suggest that continuing to accept cash is a crucial way to keep transit accessible. However, dealing with cash has drawbacks: it’s time intensive and expensive. Using a detailed… Read More

This grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) will support research investigating how a real-time marketplace might be constructed to match freight shipments with available carriers. In such a system, freight shippers make a request to the system manager, and an automated service will match shipping jobs to carriers who are likely to accept them. The benefits of such a system include more efficient use of freight capacity (fewer empty miles) and reduced shipping prices, resulting in… Read More