Photo by Cait McCusker

NSF Collaborative Research: RAPID: Maintain Mobility and Reduce Infection Through a Resilient Transit and Micromobility System

Chris Cherry and Candace Brakewood, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

John MacArthur, Portland State University

The rapid spread of COVID-19 has changed the way most of the world moves through daily life, with many businesses having to temporarily close and students of all levels forced to transition to online courses.

Even so, grocery stores, medical facilities, and takeout restaurants remain open, requiring workers to commute to and from work. In metro areas, that can often mean taking some form of transit, potentially exposing workers in these vital areas to the disease. 

In a collaborative project between University of Tennessee at Knoxville and Portland State University, researchers Chris Cherry (UT), Candace Brakewood (UT) and John MacArthur (PSU) are studying the impacts of people’s travel decisions on transit, shared bikes and e-scooters, and it comes with backing from a National Science Foundation RAPID Award. 

These awards are granted for research with "a severe urgency with regard to availability of, or access to data, facilities, or specialized equipment, including quick-response research on natural or anthropogenic disasters and similar unanticipated events." Events like our current pandemic.

Moving forward, the research team is partnering with local public agencies WeGo Public Transit, TriMet, and the City of Portland’s Bureau of Transportation to look at commuting patterns in Nashville, Tennessee and Portland, Oregon. Bike share and e-scooter share companies Bird, Spin, and BIKETOWN as well as Transit app will also be providing support to track changes in ridership during recovery.

“Working closely with local and national partners will give us, and policymakers, a clearer picture of where transportation priorities and opportunities lie,” MacArthur said. “We’re hoping our models can help predict how city transit systems will recover for current and future public health crises.”

The main question they wanted to answer was whether widespread adoption of new modes of transportation, such as bike share and e-scooters, would offer workers a way to get to work without putting them in the close confines of other passengers on traditional transit, and whether people would even choose these modes in the first place.

“Transportation demand has dropped by 50-to-90 percent across all modes in the US, and transit has been particularly hard hit with micromobility modes like shared bikes and electric scooters also seeing large drops in use,” Cherry said. “As travel demand recovers, it is important to understand the role of all shared modes in restarting the economy and maintaining social distancing.”

One of the early findings is that answers to those questions vary greatly by city or region. In New York and Chicago, for example, bike share usage was up 65 percent from the same date the year before, but in Seattle and San Francisco, bike share use has plummeted. 

The answer as to why there is such a variance may lie with the cities themselves. 

“It, not surprisingly, is tied to the kind of response the city had to the virus,” Brakewood said. “In Seattle and San Francisco, there was a greater shutdown of activity and at a sooner date than in Chicago and New York. Where businesses stayed open longer, workers were required to report longer, but the good thing is that it shows that those workers at least tried to find methods of commuting that still allowed them to be better spaced from others.” 

Beyond Nashville and Portland, the team will also look at ridership trends across various modes of transportation, giving them a more robust understanding of how other U.S. cities and the workers within them respond to times of crisis, helping guide future decisions.

The Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University is home to the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI), and other transportation programs. TREC produces research and tools for transportation decision makers, develops K-12 curriculum to expand the diversity and capacity of the workforce, and engages students and professionals through education.

In 2018, Vision Zero was adopted as part of Portland’s Regional Transportation Plan for the first time. This content analysis explored how concerns about safety were expressed in the planning process—did they adhere to a Vision Zero perspective or did they express a conventional mobility paradigm? What were the top concerns? Furthermore, did different stakeholder groups subscribe to Vision Zero more than others? Kelly Rodgers, a PhD student in the Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning at Portland State University, explores paradigm conflicts around implementing vision zero in Portland.

Watch the interview with Kelly.

Kelly Rodgers is a PhD student in Urban Studies who is studying the use and influence of health indicators in transportation decision-making. She has been twice awarded the Dwight D. Eisenhower Transportation Fellowship and twice named a NITC Student Scholar. Kelly is also the Executive Director of Streetsmart, a non-profit organization developing an evidence-based platform that helps civic leaders integrate health, climate, and equity concerns into transportation. Kelly is the vice-chair of the Institute of Transportation Engineers' Health and Transportation Standing Committee, a member of the Transportation Research Board's Transportation and Public Health Committee, and is an advisory board member of the American Public Health Association's Center for Climate, Health, and Equity. Kelly also serves on the inaugural steering committee of Planning for Health Equity, Advocacy, and Leadership (PHEAL), a group of nearly 80 planning, public health, and other built environment practitioners who have written guiding principles that reaffirm health equity as a superior model for community planning. Kelly graduated with a Master in Landscape Architecture from the University of British Columbia and a Bachelor of Arts in Urban and Regional Planning from Miami University.

Photo by Michael Lander

Understanding Economic and Business Impacts of Street Improvements for Bicycle and Pedestrian Mobility - A Multi-City Multi-Approach Exploration

Jenny Liu, Portland State University

• Download the Final Report (PDF)
• Download the Project Brief (PDF)
• PeopleForBikes Summary Report of City Findings, City-specific reports, and a Street Improvement Study Guidebook
• Watch the October 6, 2020 webinar

Authored by PeopleForBikes

According to a new study released by Portland State University’s Transportation Research and Education Center in Oregon, bicycle lanes and infrastructure can produce tangible economic benefits for cities.

The National Street Improvements Study, conducted by PSU in conjunction with PeopleForBikes and consulting firm Bennett Midland and funded in part by The Summit Foundation, researched the economic effects of bicycle infrastructure on 14 corridors across six cities — Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Memphis, Minneapolis and Indianapolis. The study found that improvements such as bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure had either positive or non-significant impacts on the local economy as measured through sales and employment. 

For example, in 2012, bike lanes were installed on Central Avenue in Minneapolis by reducing the width of the travel lane and removing parking lanes. Retail employment increased by 12.64% — significantly higher than the 8.54% increase calculated in the control study area a few blocks away. The same corridor also recorded a dramatic 52.44% increase in food sales, which more than doubled the 22.46% increase in the control area. A protected bike lane along Broadway in Seattle that was completed in 2014 was accompanied by a significant 30.78% increase in food service employment compared to  2.49% and 16.17% increases in control areas.

“This study is an important resource to help cities make the case for building more bicycle infrastructure,” said Zoe Kircos, PeopleForBikes’ director of Grants and Partnerships. “PeopleForBikes knows that connected networks are key to encouraging more people to ride, and now the data shows that economic vitality often follows those investments. We’ll share these case studies far and wide, and encourage other communities to use this economic assessment guide to calculate the economic benefits of bike lanes on their own streets.”

While similar studies have been conducted in the past, notably by the New York City Department of Transportation in 2013 and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency in 2014, the National Street Improvements Study was the first of its kind in incorporating these unified research methods across multiple corridors and cities. The findings refute assertions made by bike infrastructure critics that new lanes hurt adjacent businesses by making car access less convenient.

PeopleForBikes is hopeful that the results of this study can further our mission of making biking better for everyone, and be used nationwide by policymakers and city planners as an analytical framework for future infrastructure planning, particularly relating to the positive economic impacts and safety benefits of non-motorized transportation infrastructure like bike lanes. 

“There is tremendous potential to expand on what we learned in this research project to additional cities and corridors, and to provide policymakers with the opportunity to evaluate street improvement projects before implementation or to collect additional economic/business metrics before and after implementation,” said Jenny Liu, associate professor in the Toulan School of Urban Studies & Planning at PSU.

The study found that the food service businesses benefited most from the addition of bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. Evidence of increased sales, employment and wages was observed in nearly all of the city corridors studied, even in cases in which a motor vehicle or parking lane was removed to install a bike lane. 

Learn more in a free webinar Oct 6 presented by lead researcher Jenny Liu. You can download additional resources here, including

• Summary Report
• Street Improvement Study Guidebook
• Aggregated Trend Comparison Template
• City Reports for Indianapolis
• City Reports for Memphis
• City Reports for Minneapolis
• City Reports for Seattle
• NITC Final Report: Understanding Economic and Business Impacts of Street Improvements for Bicycle and Pedestrian Mobility

This research was funded in part by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC). NITC is one of seven U.S. Department of Transportation national university transportation centers. NITC is a program of the Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University. TREC is home to NITC, the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI), and other transportation programs.

Authored by Tammy Lee, Transportation Data Manager, Portland State University

For a deeper dive into bicycle volume data, watch the May 8 seminar with Tammy Lee and Kristin Tufte: Creating And Using A Publicly Available Multimodal Transportation Data Archive. Also, check out her earlier blog post on motor vehicle traffic volumes.

The weather these past few weeks has been beautiful: sunny, not too hot, not too cold, cherry trees blossoming… the ideal biking weather marred by a less than ideal pandemic.

Are social distancing measures affecting bike trips in Portland, OR? Maybe. Personally? Yes.

First, let’s get a few things out of the way before we provide summary observations:

• Analyzing bike data is not as “easy” as evaluating vehicle traffic data: the infrastructure for monitoring bike (and pedestrian) data isn’t anywhere close to how vehicle traffic is monitored. There just aren’t many bicycle count detectors. So if one detector stops working then what little data that was available in the first place became that much littler.

• Evaluating bike data during the spring in Portland can be messy due to weather related effects (I hate riding my bike in the rain).

• We intend to provide a more thorough analysis at a later point when we have more temporal and spatially available data. This is just a snapshot of observations to get the conversation started.

So what are we observing so far?

We looked at the Tilikum Crossing and Hawthorne Bridge, key crossings in Portland,because continuous count data are available for January 2020 to now. (Figure 1). The first social distancing measure was announced on March 12 (schools closed), and the “stay-at-home” order was announced on March 23. The Hawthorne Bridge shows a decline in volume around the week of March 16, almost half the weekday volume compared to previous weeks. The Tilikum shows a decrease in volume about a week later (March 23), but then rebounds the week of April 6, to levels similar to pre-stay-at-home weeks. The seemingly different pattern in bike volumes might be due to differences in types of cyclists (commuters versus recreationalists), destination (Tilikum connects to the OHSU versus Hawthorne leading to multiple major downtown employers).

Figure 1. Daily bike volume across Hawthorne Bridge and Tilikum Crossing. NS = northside; SS = southside. The solid orange line (March 12) represents the closing of schools; the dotted orange line (March 23) represents the “stay-at-home” announcement.

If we use the week of February 22 as a reference, we get a slightly clearer picture of the changes in bike volume compared to each corresponding day of the reference week (e.g. Monday to Monday, Tuesday to Tuesday, etc.) (Figure 2), where post-stay-at-home, weekday bike volumes decline, but Sunday volumes increase, especially on the weekends (those sunny Sundays we’ve been having).

Figure 2. Change in daily bike volume using the week of February 22 as a reference week compared to each corresponding day (Monday to Monday, Tuesday to Tuesday, etc.) Only the north side of the Hawthorne Bridge and Tilikum crossing are shown because the south side of each bridge showed similar trends.

But wait, you’re probably wondering – what about comparing daily bike volumes to this time last year, instead of using the week of February 22 as a reference week? After all, we must look at seasonality effects; it’s April, now, doesn’t the weather explain what trends we’re observing more than the social distancing measures we’ve been following?

Maybe, maybe not.

Unfortunately, we’ve only been able to compare 2019 and 2020 bicycle volumes along the north side of the Tilikum Crossing because both sides of the Hawthorne Bridge and the south side of the Tilikum Crossing all have weeks of missing data around this time last year (perhaps the battery on the data logger died). If we just look at the north side of the Tilikum Crossing and compare bicycle volumes to this time last year, adjusting to the day of week, then it looks like there's been a decrease in bicycle volume since the first social distancing measure, except on recent Saturdays and Sundays (Figure 3).

Figure 3. Change in volume compared to same time last year along the northside of the Tilikum Crossing. 

How does this look if we compare the weather to this time last year? 

It also looks like weather is an influencing variable in the observed decrease in bicycle volume (Figure 4). But remember, correlation doesn't equal causation. There’s a huge increase in bike volumes on the past two weekends, though the temperatures were not that much different than the same days last year. This might indicate that more people are recreating on the weekends. This would coincide with the times after most state parks and federal lands were closed for recreation.

Figure 4. Change in temperature compared to this time last year.

At the moment we can’t say for sure what the effects of COVID-19 are on bicycle volume in Portland, Oregon. We can speculate and think something is going on based on personal observations and habits, but to make a definitive statement without enough data is wheelie bad and worse than my pun.

What we do want to say is that we’re looking into the effects of COVID-19 on bike volume and to start a conversation on the effects of COVID-19 on other modes of transportation. Our goal is to continue collecting and analyzing data, so that in a few months we’ll be able to tell a story backed up by data and sound science. Hopefully by then I’ll be back to riding my bike to work; if not, I’ll be one of those people contributing to the increased weekend bike riding.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tammy Lee, Ph.D.
Transportation Data Program Administrator

Tammy is working on a variety of projects for TREC, including documentation, data synthesis, analysis, and visualization supporting ongoing work with PORTAL and Bike-Ped Portal. Prior to joining TREC, she worked as a data scientist for a political digital media consulting firm.

The Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University is home to the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI), and other transportation programs. TREC produces research and tools for transportation decision makers, develops K-12 curriculum to expand the diversity and capacity of the workforce, and engages students and professionals through education. For resources and tools for remote teaching during the quarantine period, check out our TREC and COVID-19 resource page.

Image by Luije/iStock

Authored by Aaron Golub Director and Associate Professor, Nohad A. Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning at Portland State University. Join Aaron and John MacArthur on May 22nd for a PSU Friday Transportation Seminar sharing early results from the research presented here.

With many transit agencies across the country1 eliminating cash handling at ticket counters and on-board vehicles for obvious health and virus transmission reasons, one may wonder: who will be negatively impacted by this? 

Some riders can still use cash at ticket vending machines or at certain retail outlets, but for many, depending on where they live and which parts of the transit system they ride, this will be inconvenient. National data2 show clear disparities3 in access to alternatives to cash (credit and debit accounts) as well as the other tools needed to pay for things electronically (smartphones, cell data plans and internet at home and work). What these national data don't capture are the specific issues facing transit riders. 

An ongoing research project at Portland State University’s National Institute for Transportation and Communities4 is addressing this question directly. Using surveys of over 2300 transit riders in Denver, Colorado, and Eugene, Gresham and Portland, Oregon, the project is investigating how the long-term elimination of cash as a transit payment medium will affect riders, and what agencies can do to assist their most vulnerable riders to ease the transition. 

The project is ongoing, but preliminary results shown in the Figure below address the question raised above - who will be negatively impacted by the elimination of on-board cash payments? While the sample is not representative of riders in all contexts (no major metro areas or small town or rural transit systems were surveyed), the general results show there are some important disparities agencies should be ready to address if cash is eliminated on a longer-term basis after the COVID-19 pandemic situation passes:

• Access to smartphones and internet and comfort using cashless payment systems is lower for our older survey respondents.
• A significant number of respondents do not use the formal banking system and almost 30% still rely heavily on cash to pay their fare.
• More than 30% of our respondents rely on WIFI as their sole source of internet connectivity.
• Almost 10% of our respondents claimed they could no longer ride if cash payments on board were eliminated. 

1  https://www.silive.com/coronavirus/2020/03/mta-limits-cash-transactions-to-metrocard-machines.html

2 Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) (2018). 2017 National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households. https://www.fdic.gov/news/news/press/2018/pr18077.html 

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) (2018B). 2017 National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households – Appendix Tables.  

Pew Research Center (Pew) (2015) The Smartphone Difference. Available at: http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/04/01/us-smartphone-use-in-2015/

3 Banking and credit differences fall generally along dimensions of class (higher incomes have better access), while younger individuals have better access to and use of new technologies (smartphone, transportation network companies), though they lack the internet and data plan access of older individuals (likely due to wealth disparities).

4 Project Number NITC-RR-1268 “Applying an Equity Lens to Automated Payment Solutions for Public Transportation.” Project funded by a pooled fund from: City of Eugene, OR, City of Gresham, OR, Lane Transit District, Eugene, OR, Clevor Consulting Group, Regional Transportation District, Denver, and the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) at Portland State University. Project investigators: Aaron Golub, Portland State University, Anne Brown, University of Oregon, Candace Brakewood, University of Tennessee – Knoxville, John MacArthur, Transportation Research and Education Center, Portland State University, and Jenny Liu, Portland State University

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Aaron Golub, Portland State University

Aaron Golub is an associate professor in the Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning at Portland State University (PSU), moving to PSU after eight years at Arizona State University and ten years studying and working in the San Francisco Bay Area. His work focuses on the social contexts of urban transportation systems, explored in three ways: 1. the effects on social equity of current transportation planning practices – how people participate in planning, and who wins and loses from transportation plans, 2. planning, research and advocacy in support of alternatives to the automobile (especially public transportation and bicycles), and 3. the historical roots of automobile dependence in the United States. At PSU, Dr. Golub teaches courses on urban transportation policy, planning research methods, transportation finance and public transportation.

The Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University is home to the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI), and other transportation programs. TREC produces research and tools for transportation decision makers, develops K-12 curriculum to expand the diversity and capacity of the workforce, and engages students and professionals through education.

Authored by Tammy Lee, Transportation Data Manager, Portland State University

For a deeper dive into vehicle volume data, attend the May 8 online seminar with Tammy Lee and Kristin Tufte: Creating And Using A Publicly Available Multimodal Transportation Data Archive. At this seminar, the presenters will offer an updated data analysis that reflects the latest vehicles volumes.

Ask most Portland drivers and they’ll tell you that traffic has gotten worse over the past 10 years. And data from the Oregon Department of Transportation supports that feeling.  

But for now, temporarily at least, all that is in the past.

The first confirmed case of COVID-19 in Oregon was February 28; a little over a month after the first positive test in the US. Since that week, many have noticed differences in traffic on our streets. An analysis of data from PORTAL - our multi-modal transportation data archive for the Portland-Vancouver metropolitan region - reflects that drop in traffic. 

A number of articles have been published describing the effects of social distancing policies in other cities around the country. For example, The Mercury demonstrated how Bay Area traffic almost vanished after businesses asked employees to work from home in response to COVID-19. INRIX is publishing a weekly series about their observations on transportation-related trends around the country.

So how does Portland compare?

Since Oregon’s first confirmed case of COVID-19 was announced, a number of social distancing policies have been ordered: 

DATE

OREGON POLICY ANNOUNCEMENT

Friday, Feb 28

First case of COVID-19

Thursday, Mar 12

Closing all K-12 schools,
Moratorium on gatherings > 250 people

Monday, Mar 16

Ban of public gatherings >25 people

Monday, Mar 23

“Stay-at-home”, state park closures

Using publicly available data from PORTAL we looked to see if there were any noticeable trends and changes of daily volume from around the region since these social distancing policies were announced. (No fancy SQL queries needed, just data downloaded directly from the website.) PORTAL is a multimodal transportation data archive for the Portland-Vancouver region, hosted by TREC at Portland State University and supported by public agency partners, including Metro and the Southwest Washington Regional Transportation Council. 

Using the week of February 22, 2020, as a reference week, here’s what we’ve noticed:

(1) We looked at the percent change in average daily volume along I-5 in the Portland metropolitan region (Figure 1), comparing Monday to Monday, Tuesday to Tuesday, etc. The average daily volume declined beginning about a week after the first social distancing policy was announced (Mar 12) those policies were instituted.

Figure 1. Percent change of average daily volume along I-5 NB corridor in the Portland-Vancouver region. The solid orange line (Mar 12) represents the first social distancing measure of closing down public schools. The dotted line (Mar 23) represents the “stay-at-home” policy announcement.

(2) We also took a closer look at the percent change in volume based on vehicle length, because it provides an idea as to what type of vehicles are on the road (Figure 2). The data presented below is from the Marine Dr/99E to NB 1-5 on-ramp, a snapshot of one location along I-5 (unlike the previous figure which represents the daily average volume of the Portland metropolitan I-5 corridor). Passenger vehicles (top panel, 0 - 20 ft) show a consistent decline in volume compared to the reference week since the first social distancing measure. Commercial and long haul vehicles (bottom panels, 35 - 120 ft) showed an increase in volume for the first two weeks after the first social distancing measure before tapering off this past week. Although we don't know for sure what the long term outcomes will be, this suggests the movement of goods has remained steady (no need to hoard the flour or TP).

Figure 2. Percent daily change in volume binned by vehicle length, where the top panel (0 to 20 ft) typically represents passenger vehicles. The next three panels represent a range of commercial vehicles based on length. More information on what types of vehicles are represented in those size classifications can be found here. The solid orange line represents the first social distancing measure (Mar 12), the dotted orange line represents the “stay-at-home” social distancing measure (Mar 23).

We have a lot more data to explore and more weeks of this new travel-constrained world we are living in. We plan on providing more analysis and information regarding trends in transportation within the region. Next up we’ll share data on bicycle traffic changes during the pandemic using data from our BikePed Portal. We also know there will be a lot of new and interesting research looking at the effects of COVID-19 throughout the world, both short- and long-term. TREC intends to contribute to that body of knowledge as well as share and support those studies. 

If you’re interested in exploring the PORTAL data yourself, visit the website and check out some of the interactive visualization tools for the different archived data sources. We used the Vehicle Length, Highways, and Download pages. If you’re unsure how to use the tools, look for the “Tour” button on some of the pages to help you, or visit the documentation website for directions and additional information. For resources and tools for remote teaching during the quarantine period, check out our TREC and COVID-19 resource page.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tammy Lee, Ph.D.
Transportation Data Program Administrator

Tammy is working on a variety of projects for TREC, including documentation, data synthesis, analysis, and visualization supporting ongoing work with PORTAL and Bike-Ped Portal. Prior to joining TREC, she worked as a data scientist for a political digital media consulting firm.

The Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University is home to the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI), and other transportation programs. TREC produces research and tools for transportation decision makers, develops K-12 curriculum to expand the diversity and capacity of the workforce, and engages students and professionals through education.

The 11th annual Transportation and Communities Summit 2019, held at Portland State University (PSU) on September 19–20, drew attendees from 14 states across the U.S. Over 250 people joined us for the Summit day, and nearly 60 took part in the deep-dive workshop day. We hope the event offered new opportunities for collaboration and synergy between researchers, practitioners, and community members.

• Download the presentations
• See the full schedule
• See photos from the event

Peter DeFazio, the U.S. Representative for Oregon's 4th congressional district, kicked off the day with a video welcome message for the summit attendees, followed on the main stage by TREC director and urban planning faculty Jennifer Dill. 

At lunchtime Ben Wellington, the data storyteller behind the popular quantitative analysis blog IQuantNY, delivered the keynote address, "Shaping a City with Open Data." His driving message was the priority that agencies need to place on open data access, and how anyone can start to explore the story behind that data with some simple math. If you missed his keynote, you can watch his TedTalk here. His advice on data storytelling:

1. Connect with people’s experiences.
2. Focus on a single idea.
3. Keep it simple.
4. Explore the things you know best.
5. Figure out exactly what you are going to say.
6. Think outside the box, even what data sources you’re pulling from!

Over the course of two days, we offered nine breakout sessions and five hands-on workshops, giving attendees an in-depth look at topics in three main tracks: multimodal data, mobility in active transportation, and the intersection of transportation and affordable housing. All of the available TCS presentations can be found online here.

This year we also featured four alternative sessions to mix up the day:

• "Lightning Talks" offered a quick overview of a topic, with each speaker having to zip through 20 slides at 20 seconds per slide.
• A panel of local communication experts offered insights on character-rich storytelling driven by data.
• A transportation equity consultant held a short workshop on how to talk about equity.
• Twenty university students from NITC partner campuses presented their research in a student poster competition.

At the closing reception, TREC director Jennifer Dill awarded cash prizes to the winners of the student poster contest. Thank you to Student Poster sponsors Ride Report and Jacobs Engineering for supporting this program:

• MOST INNOVATIVE: Farah Naz of the University of Texas at Arlington took home a new prize offered for the first time this year for her poster "A Comparative Analysis Of Paratransit and On-demand Ridesharing: Riders and Their Travel Pattern."
• FIRST PLACE: Awarded to Sabina Roan of Portland State University for the poster "Ready Streets: Human Powered Mobility in the Post-earthquake Recovery Period." Other student authors included Kerry Aszklar, Jaye Cromwell, Bryan Nguyen, Joey Posada, and Sophie Turnbull-Appell of PSU's School of Urban and Regional Planning.
• SECOND PLACE: Kate Wihtol, a graduate of PSU's Master of Urban and Regional Planning program, presented "Living Streets: A Pathway Toward Inclusive, Equitable, and Accessible Pedestrian Streets."
• THIRD PLACE: Gabriella Abou-Zeid created the poster "Walkability in Tucson, AZ." as part of her capstone work at the University of Arizona.

 This event was sponsored by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), a national university transportation center housed at PSU and managed by the Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC). NITC is a six-university consortium–in addition to PSU, partners include the Oregon Institute of Technology, University of Arizona, University of Oregon, University of Texas at Arlington and University of Utah—and is one of seven U.S. Department of Transportation national university transportation centers. Check out the NITC researcher directory here.

CONTINUING EDUCATION CREDITS

All continuing education credits are self-reported by the attendee. All breakout sessions, the keynote, and workshops have been pre-approved for AICP credits, and if you're reporting AICP you must have signed in at the door to the session. There is no pre-approval process for PDH, and signing in is not required. If you need a certificate of attendance for any CEU's, contact us at asktrec@pdx.edu.

The National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) is one of seven U.S. Department of Transportation national university transportation centers. NITC is a program of the Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University. This PSU-led research partnership also includes the Oregon Institute of Technology, University of Arizona, University of Oregon, University of Texas at Arlington and University of Utah. We pursue our theme — improving mobility of people and goods to build strong communities — through research, education and technology transfer.

Photo by Halfpoint

The E-Bike Potential: How E-Bikes Can Improve Sustainable Transportation

John MacArthur and Michael McQueen, Portland State University; Christopher Cherry, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

• August 2020: Read the latest research paper with updated model & findings.
• Download the White Paper: Estimating the Effect of E-bikes On Person Miles Travelled and Greenhouse Gas Emissions (PDF)
• Download the White Paper: How E-Bike Incentive Programs are Used to Expand the Market (PDF)
• Upcoming Research Project: Novel approaches to model travel behavior and sustainability impacts of e-bike use
• Download the Project Brief (PDF)

There is an untapped potential for bicyclists in the people who self-identify as "Interested but Concerned," but hit barriers to jumping on a bike. Maybe they’ve got knee trouble, or they’re a parent toting children and groceries, or maybe they got pushed 15 miles out of the city center and don't want to arrive to work dripping with sweat.

Enter lane right: the e-bike.

Many U.S. cities have climate crisis goals for reducing automotive vehicles miles traveled (VMT) in order to reduce tailpipe emissions, so they make neighborhood greenways and car-free bridges hoping the choked arterials will be left behind. But that mass migration isn't happening. How do we reach the untapped potential for new bicyclists? Researchers behind the international LEVER Initiative, John MacArthur of Portland State University, PSU graduate research assistant Mike McQueen, and Christopher Cherry of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville found that wider adoption of e-bikes might be the answer.

They explore the potential effects of that mode shift, as well as how to incentivize widespread adoption of e-bikes in two new white papers:

• Estimating the Effect of E-bikes On Person Miles Travelled and Greenhouse Gas Emissions

• How E-Bike Incentive Programs are Used to Expand the Market

Related to ongoing studies supported by the National Science Foundation, People For Bikes and the Bicycle Product Suppliers Association, the authors also used data from their earlier national survey of e-bike owners. These studies are leading up to their next installment that will collect real-time behavior data from participating e-bicyclists - learn more about joining this research cohort in Summer 2019.

THE POTENTIAL OF E-BIKES TO ADVANCE CLIMATE GOALS

Following the lead of a UC Davis global analysis in 2014, MacArthur and Cherry found that car PMT and total transportation emissions in Portland could be significantly reduced as e-bike mode share increases. Findings from the white paper are consistent with the global high shift cycling scenario. Given a 15% e-bike mode share in Portland, Oregon — the city's CO2 emissions would be reduced by over 900 metric tons per day. The researchers conclude that the strategy of increasing e-bike mode share within a given region can be used confidently as a tool to help meet that region’s carbon emission reduction goals. In Estimating the Effect of E-bikes On Person Miles Travelled and Greenhouse Gas Emissions, the researchers provide tools and recommendations for your city to determine the most accurate performance measures for mode shift goals.

So the "why" is clear, but this poses the question—how do we get people on e-bikes?

FOUR TYPES OF E-BIKE INCENTIVE PROGRAMS

A key finding from a previous study found that the high cost of e-bikes was a barrier to entry. The second white paper, How E-Bike Incentive Programs are Used to Expand the Market, explores techniques to develop and structure e-bike incentive programs to reduce that barrier and identified four main program structures:

• Partial Purchase Subsidies The most common program, participants receive a purchase rebate funded by the program organizer.

• Vendor-Funded Discounts Instead of a government funded flat rate rebate, some programs offer a discount that is unique to each specific model at the point of purchase and is funded exclusively by preferred retailers.

• Employer-Sponsored Programs Employers can partner with an e-bike retailer to provide e-bikes for their employees to purchase or borrow.

• Government Sponsored Loans Governments can incentivize residents to buy e-bikes by offering interest-free loans.

Naturally, there are also hybrid versions such as the UK's unique "Cycle to Work" program, which enjoys both government backing and employer participation.

After an international inventory of existing programs, the researchers found that the most popular were partial purchase subsidies. For example, Austin Energy in Austin, TX has offered incentives for e-ride devices since 2007, including e-bikes, scooters, mopeds and motorcycles. They offer a flat rate based on the price of the vehicle. The program has seen relatively high levels of participation, averaging about 100 rebates per year since the program began, with almost all of the awarded rebates having been for e-bikes.

Case studies for all program types, including international examples, can be found in the white paper.

DO YOUR HOMEWORK: CHOOSE THE RIGHT INCENTIVE PROGRAM FOR YOUR REGION

Incentive programs are not a one-size-fits-all, and local surveying is the ideal first step to determining which program will be most effective for your region. For example, a case study in Hanoi, Vietnam discovered that a change in sales tax had a stronger effect on vehicle choice than an equivalent change in purchase price. Further investigation would be necessary to measure the magnitude of an American aversion to sales tax to determine if this is a viable strategy for the U.S.

How much are people willing to pay? It depends. Surveys can reveal the "target price" of an e-bike for a given region. An incentive could be developed which lowers residents' cost to an optimized value determined by a localized study.

IF YOU BUILD THE PROGRAM, WILL THEY COME?

Finally, the team identified a set of best practices in implementing the e-bike incentive programs. In all program types, they found that experience-based education was an important tool to increase participation.

Researchers asked what makes a successful e-bike incentive program. One program leader said, "When people hop on e-bikes, that’s when everything changes." Another program leader referred to the experience of riding an e-bike as "joyful." It seems that just getting people on the e-bike in the first place is an effective hook.

One format of such an experience-based campaign is Local Motion, an e-bike lending library in Vermont. This program lets you borrow an e-bike for one week. It saw 106 e-bike loans in a 9-month period, with a 6 to 12-month post-loan purchase rate of 17%. One participant noted, "I definitely wouldn't have gotten the cargo e-bike if I hadn't borrowed Local Motion’s first. Now I ride to commute every day with my sons in tow."

Details on other experience-based campaigns can be found in the white paper.

THE NEXT PHASE: REAL-TIME E-BIKE BEHAVIOR DATA

The research team has already started on their next study in partnership with Bosch E-Bike Systems, which will measure real-world travel behavior of e-bicyclists and assess sustainability impacts. The team is developing a platform that is easily deployable, non-invasive, and leverages computing resources enabled by e-bike technology and smartphone sensor capability. This novel approach, never done before, will create a large and rich dataset to support the growth of e-bike use as a transportation option. The more participants, the better: Join the E-Bike Travel Behavior Study in 2019.

This research was funded by the National Science Foundation, with additional support from the Bicycle Product Suppliers Association, People For Bikes, and LEVER.

RELATED RESEARCH

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Learn more about our work in e-bike research here.

Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC)

TREC at Portland State University is home to the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI), and other transportation programs. TREC produces research and tools for transportation decision makers, develops K-12 curriculum to expand the diversity and capacity of the workforce, and engages students and young professionals through education.

The Light Electric Vehicle Education and Research (LEVER) Initiative is a consortium of Light Electric Vehicle (LEV) researchers and educators that currently includes faculty and staff from University of Tennessee, Portland State University, and Monash University. LEVER started in 2014 to bring together some of the leading researchers in the field to collectively answer some of the biggest questions related to these emerging vehicles. The mission of the LEVER is to bring a collective focus through interdisciplinary research directed at LEV adoption, system integration, societal impacts, and related policy. UTK's LEVER center will initiate the formation an international cooperative research center on LEVs, bridging academia, industry, government, and nongovernment organizations.

Principal Investigator:  Sirisha Kothuri, Portland State University

BIKE/PED COUNT SURVEY: CALL FOR INPUT

Researchers at Portland State University, University of Texas at Arlington, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Toole Design Group are conducting a scan to identify locations where bicycle counts are taking place around North America, and hope to enlist your help! If you collect bike count data (or oversee counts) in your jurisdiction, please consider taking our quick survey to tell us a little bit about your count locations and data.

The survey can be accessed here: tinyurl.com/BikeCounterScan

THE NEW PROJECT

Active transportation modes such as bicycling are associated with benefits like lower congestion and emission levels, and improvements in public health. Many cities are interested in increasing bicycle activity, but in order to understand what works, cities require accurate accounting of bicycle traffic. This requires re-thinking the way we conduct estimation methods, data inputs, and modeling techniques.

To that end, a group of local agency partners pooled resources to fund the research project: Exploring Data Fusion Techniques to Derive Bicycle Volumes on a Network. With NITC matching funds, the project is supported by a pooled fund grant of $200,000. These partners include the DOT's of Oregon, Virginia, Colorado, Washington D.C. and Utah; Central Lane MPO, and the Cities of Portland and Bend, Oregon.

NITC POOLED FUND GRANT

Earlier this year the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) released an RFP for a collaborative project that addressed a group of partners' common needs. We ended up selecting two Pooled Fund projects for 2018, and the funds pooled by the agencies were then matched 1:1 by NITC. The research team for the second project, which will explore equity implications of automated transit fare collection methods, will be announced later next month.

THE RESEARCH TEAM

Once the project was chosen for funding, researchers from all six NITC campuses were invited to submit proposals to tackle it. The selected team:

Portland State University

• Sirisha Kothuri, Ph.D., Senior Research Associate
• Joseph Broach, Ph.D., Research Associate
• Nathan McNeil, Ph.D., Research Associate

University of Texas at Arlington

• Kate Hyun, Ph.D., Assistant Professor
• Stephen Mattingly, Ph.D., Associate Professor

THE ISSUE

To date, jurisdictions have often relied on observed counts of cyclists—either short-duration manual or longer-term automated counts—in a limited set of locations. Based on these limited datasets, models are then developed to extrapolate network-wide conditions. Recently, however, new sources of bicycling activity data have emerged from GPS-based smartphone apps—Strava, Ride Report, Map My Ride, and others—and GPS-enabled public bike sharing systems. These emerging data sources have potential advantages as a complement to traditional count data, since they are collected continuously and for larger portions of the bicycle network. However, the representativeness of these new data sources is still uncertain, and their suitability for producing bicycle volume estimates has yet to be rigorously explored.

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

The research team aims to evaluate, demonstrate, and document the potential of emerging data sources to inform network-wide bicycle volume estimates. Research questions include:

• What third-party bicycle volume and route data are available to augment conventional count data, and how have they been used to date?
• How can we evaluate these emerging data sources for factors such as accuracy, coverage, completeness, and representativeness?
• How can we combine emerging third-party and conventional data sources to estimate bicycle volumes across entire networks?
• What relative marginal value do different data sources and model forms add in predicting bicycle volumes relative to acquisition and processing costs?

ANTICIPATED OUTCOMES OF THE RESEARCH

• A review of existing bicycle volume estimation methods and a catalog of potential third-party data sources and applications to date;
• Evaluation of emerging third-party bicycle data sources as inputs into network-wide volume estimation;
• Demonstration of the development, application, and validation of models that combine multiple data sources to improve predict bicycle volumes network-wide;
• Comparison of the relative value of different data sources and modeling techniques in bicycle volume estimation; and,
• Documentation and packaging of methods developed for sharing and re-use by others, including making available scripts used in the analysis on GitHub or other open source repository.

WHAT’S NEXT?

This project stands to bring significant improvements to the completeness and reliability of bicycle counts, which will in turn help planners and engineers design routes and networks to best meet the needs of transportation system users. We will post updates over the next year or two, as the project unfolds.

This research was funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities, with additional support from Oregon DOT, Virginia DOT, Colorado DOT, Washington D.C. DOT, Utah DOT, Central Lane MPO, the City of Portland, Oregon and the City of Bend, Oregon; and from Portland State University and the University of Texas at Arlington.

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The National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), one of five U.S. Department of Transportation national university transportation centers, is a program of the Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University. The NITC program is a Portland State-led partnership with the University of Oregon, Oregon Institute of Technology, University of Utah and new partners University of Arizona and University of Texas at Arlington. We pursue our theme — improving mobility of people and goods to build strong communities — through research, education and technology transfer.

Principal Investigators: John MacArthur, Portland State University; and Christopher Cherry, University of Tennessee

If more drivers switched seats to a bicycle, there would be immediate and tangible benefits on the road. Widespread adoption of bike commuting could improve public health through increased physical activity and reduced carbon emissions, as well as ease the burden on congested roads. However different lifestyle demands, physical ableness, and varied topography create an unequal playing field that prevents many from replacing their car trips.

Electric bicycles (e-bikes) are a relatively new mode of transportation that could bridge this gap. If substituted for car use, e-bikes could substantially improve efficiency in the transportation system while creating a more inclusive biking culture for people of all ages and abilities.

A newly published NITC study by John MacArthur of Portland State University's Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) and Christopher Cherry of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville provides insight into the emerging realm of e-bike transportation.

Bicycling Magazine published a promising take on the study, E-Bikes Are Getting More People Out of Their Cars, and other sources are beginning to buzz about the new data as well. Read more coverage:

• As e-biking grows, U.S. cities consider easing rules on where the machines may be used (Washington Post)
• New Interbike podcast touches on e-bike research, retail growth, battery changes (Bicycle Retailer)
• Electric bike purchases pulling people from private cars, finds NITC study (Cycling Industry News)

MacArthur surveyed nearly 1,800 e-bike users in the United States and Canada, asking about their transportation behavior and experiences with e-bikes. Some important trends became evident, most notably that having access to an e-bike can overcome many barriers to biking. Three of the most common barriers are hills, lengthy distances to desired destinations, and not liking to arrive at destinations sweaty.

The majority of the respondents lived in family households with one or more children, and the ability to carry or ride with children was another commonly cited benefit of buying an e-bike. One respondent noted,

"I can take my kids all over the city without having to consider elevation gains, or parking."

Riders also reported feeling safer on their e-bikes than on a traditional bike. Other barriers to biking remain, however, such as a lack of comfortable bicycle infrastructure. See NACTO’s newest guide on Designing for All Ages and Abilities, a resource that seeks to address this issue.

The results of the study suggest three ways in which e-bikes stand to increase the total number of miles and trips traveled by bicycle:

1. Ebikes aid populations deterred from bicycling by physical limitations, topographic barriers and distance to cycle.
2. E-bikes support longer trips for both recreational and utilitarian pursuit
3. E-bikes can appeal to new audiences through enhancing perceived safety and the joy of riding.

These findings provide evidence that e-bikes can be a viable mode of transportation and recreation for those without previous experience riding a bicycle. E-bikes have the capacity to promote environmental and public health objectives; however, these benefits will not be fully realized in the absence of policies and regulations to support and protect the use of e-bikes.

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This study was funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities, Bicycle Product Suppliers Association (BPSA), and PeopleForBikes.

The National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), one of five U.S. Department of Transportation national university transportation centers, is a program of the Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University. The NITC program is a Portland State-led partnership with the University of Oregon, Oregon Institute of Technology, University of Utah and new partners University of Arizona and University of Texas at Arlington. We pursue our theme — improving mobility of people and goods to build strong communities — through research, education and technology transfer.