Navigating an unfamiliar place is uniquely challenging for people with disabilities. People with blindness, deafblindness, visual impairment or low vision, as well as those who use wheelchairs, can travel more independently in urban areas with the aid of effective wayfinding technology. A new report from the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) explores how to leverage low-cost methods to enable people to more easily move through public, urban indoor and outdoor spaces.

The study, led by Martin Swobodzinski and Amy Parker of Portland State University, used focus groups, two case studies, and an in-person structured wayfinding experience on the PSU campus to find the most helpful ways of getting around. Tactile maps were found to be a very useful resource, with an accessible mobile app also showing promise as an orientation and mobility aid.

The researcher will share more details about this project in a free webinar on December 15: Individual Wayfinding in the Context of Visual Impairment, Blindness, and Deafblindness.

WHY IS THIS RESEARCH IMPORTANT?

Environments and wayfinding tools that support safe, confident mobility have been linked with improved employment outcomes, more access to higher education, and better quality of life. The results from this study improve our understanding of how people with visual impairment and blindness find their way through the world. Researchers are hopeful that the insights from the study will support the development of standards and innovation in mobile wayfinding as it relates to the integration of indoor and outdoor wayfinding, and routing for visually impaired, blind, and deafblind pedestrian travelers.

Despite the proliferation of wayfinding apps that are meant to benefit travelers, the effectiveness of such tools remains limited. This study gave voice to the experience of diverse travelers who use wayfinding technologies to accomplish important life tasks. In addition to the findings discussed below, researchers hope the analysis of the remaining data will drive forward a better understanding of the information needs of visually impaired, blind, and deafblind pedestrian travelers.

RESEARCH METHODS

The project sought answers to three questions:

• What are the preference structures, information needs, and expectations of individuals with visual-impairment, blindness, and deafblindness towards wayfinding in public indoor/outdoor spaces?
• How can low-cost wayfinding technology (e.g., digital maps, spatial data, personal telecommunication devices, and low-energy beacons) be leveraged best to allow for the seamless wayfinding of pedestrian travelers with functional disabilities in public urban indoor/outdoor spaces?
• Which wayfinding technologies, data products, and technology platforms afford a sustainable, scalable deployment in a large academic institution?

College campuses are notoriously complex to navigate, particularly for travelers with visual impairments. One of the key barriers for culturally and linguistically diverse people in accessing higher education is seeing themselves as full members of a college campus community. As a public university situated in the heart of downtown Portland, the PSU campus was an ideal setting for this experiment as it affords realistic wayfinding scenarios and mobility challenges in a public urban environment. In addition, PSU’s commitment to community service, equity, and inclusivity align with the project's goals of promoting community participation and access.

The researchers began with a review of the existing literature on the topic: Wayfinding tools for people with visual impairments in real-world settings: A literature review of recent studies.

TWO CASE STUDIES

The team conducted an initial pilot case study with a single participant, an adult who is deafblind. Complete findings from that case study were published in Frontiers in Education: Seamless wayfinding by a deafblind adult on an urban college campus: A case study on wayfinding performance, information preferences, and technology requirements. The participant completed three routes on the PSU campus using either a mobile app, verbal directions, or a tactile map. For this participant, confidence and wayfinding performance were lowest for the mobile app, while the tactile map afforded the highest wayfinding performance, confidence and satisfaction, and the fastest completion time.

A second case study involved a traveler with combined vision and hearing loss, who also had professional experience as an O&M specialist serving those with visual impairments across multiple states. This participant’s occupational and personal experiences were helpful to the research team in further refining their testing protocol. The original goal of the project had been to compare three methods of wayfinding assistance: tactile maps, verbal directions, and "GoodMaps," an accessible navigation app for iPhone and Android. In accordance with the insights from this participant, the researchers eliminated verbal directions from the next phase of the experiment.

WAYFINDING EXPERIMENT

In a larger experiment, participants were invited to partake in a series of wayfinding tasks, navigating three short routes on campus with both indoor and outdoor elements. Accompanied by an experimenter with professional experience in Orientation and Mobility, participants were asked to travel two different routes while using one of two possible wayfinding supports: a tactile map for one route, and the GoodMaps mobile app for the other.

A total of 28 people participated in the main data collection phase of the study and completed the experiment: 21 adolescents (between the ages of 14 and 18) and seven adults. Participants included people of color, LGBTQIA+ individuals, and people with varying levels of visual impairments. The immediate next step for the research team is consolidating individual-level data for each of the 28 participants, and coding and assessing their observed wayfinding behavior and performance. While data analysis is still in progress for the 28 participants, early findings from the two case studies indicate that the tactile map afforded the most effective wayfinding support.

FOCUS GROUPS

The research team conducted two focus groups, one with eight blind or visually impaired adults who did not have any hearing loss, and another with nine deafblind participants who use Tactile American Sign Language or close-range visual American Sign Language. Collective themes from the two focus groups included both the hope and promise of wayfinding apps for offering greater environmental literacy during real-world travel, and the limitations of using such apps.

Both groups expressed the need for apps to be designed in collaboration with travelers with visual impairments, because of the apps’ unique limitations in dynamic travel conditions. A specific theme that emerged amongst visually impaired travelers was that they have to use multiple apps to complete a single route, because each app is useful for a subset of wayfinding tasks.

Further description of the findings from the focus group with deafblind participants is provided in the open-access Frontiers in Education article: The use of wayfinding apps by deafblind travelers in an urban environment: Insights from focus groups.

COLLABORATION ACROSS DISCIPLINES

This study is a product of several innovative partnerships. The lead researcher on the project, Martin Swobodzinski, is an associate professor of geography at PSU specializing in human wayfinding, spatial knowledge acquisition, accessibility, and human-computer interaction. In 2017 he and Amy Parker of PSU's Special Education Department began this work by collaborating on a NITC Small Starts project: Electronic Wayfinding for Visually Impaired Travelers: Limitations and Opportunities. The current project expands upon that research.

Parker is the coordinator of PSU's Orientation and Mobility Program, a program for preparing orientation and mobility (O&M) specialists which launched in 2017. The program has spearheaded several initiatives including interactive O&M workshops in partnership with TriMet and a new conference in Portland, the Mobility Matters Summit, held for its fifth year in 2022.  

The collaborative research team included Swobodzinski, Parker, and graduate students in Geography and Special Education, as well as Elizabeth Schaller and Denise Snow of the American Printing House for the Blind. GoodMaps, the mobile wayfinding app used in the study, was created by the American Printing House for the Blind. GoodMaps engaged with developers at Intel to refine the accuracy of spatial information.

In May 2021, the GoodMaps team began scanning PSU's Smith Memorial Student Union onsite using Lidar equipment. In November of that year, GoodMaps collaborated with PSU's Disability Resource Center to host interested students and staff with visual impairments to informally evaluate the technology installation within SMSU. In December 2021, the refined version of the GoodMaps installation was ready for research participants to evaluate.

The Digital City Testbed Center (DCTC) at Portland State University works towards establishing a network of campuses in the Pacific Northwest where smart city technologies can be tested before being deployed in communities at large. DCTC’s support of this project allowed the hiring of a graduate research assistant, Julie Wright, who contributed to the achievement of project milestones and the creation of project deliverables.

This research was funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities, with additional support from Portland State University, the PSU Digital City Testbed Center, and the American Printing House for the Blind.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

Pedestrian Wayfinding Under Consideration of Visual Impairment, Blindness, and Deafblindness: A Mixed-Method Investigation Into Individual Experiences and Supporting Elements

Martin Swobodzinski and Amy Parker, Portland State University

• Download the Final Report (PDF)
• Download the Project Brief (PDF)
• Register for the Dec 15 Webinar: Wayfinding by Individuals with Functional Disability in Indoor and Outdoor Spaces

RELATED RESEARCH

To learn more about this and other NITC research, sign up for our monthly research newsletter.

• A Comprehensive Examination of Electronic Wayfinding Technology for Visually Impaired Travelers in an Urban Environment
• Developing Strategies To Enhance Mobility And Accessibility For Community-Dwelling Older Adults
• The Role of Bus Stop Features in Facilitating Accessibility

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.

Researchers Ivis Garcia, Sadika Maheruma Khan, and Kevin Fagundo-Ojeda of the University of Utah with Miriam Abelson and Nicholas Puczkowskyj of Portland State University have published a new article in the November 2022 issue of Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment.

Scholarship on gendered mobilities has shown that women experience transit differently than men do, particularly regarding personal safety. The article, "Harassment of low-income women on transit: A photovoice project in Oregon and Utah," makes a unique contribution to this body of literature because it shows that women feel targeted also based on their racial or ethnic identity and not only their gender. The article discusses women’s actions every day to increase their sense of safety.

Research has shown that low-income women who are transit-dependent experience unique disadvantages while riding, waiting, or trying to access public transit. In response to harassment, women might increase car dependency, which has negative environmental and public health impacts.

Given the importance of women feeling safe when using public transit to quality of life, public health, and ecological and economic sustainability, this research has implications for the planning and administration of public transit systems. Highlights from the findings include:

• Past policies like redlining result in unsafe spaces today.
• Truly safe spaces must account for experiences of low-income women of color.
• The research participants suggest some societal and transit agency changes to improve safety, including police, monitors next to businesses, additional lighting and safety booths with phones at light rail stops.

The paper is based on the in-progress project Marginalized Populations’ Access to Transit: Journeys from Home and Work to Transit, led by Marisa Zapata of Portland State University and funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC). The research employs a photovoice methodology which includes in-depth interviews and phone texting with 22 low-income women of color who ride transit at least a few times a month in Oregon and Utah.

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.

Students at Hood River Middle School in Hood River, Oregon, will get some hands-on transportation experience next spring as they participate in the redesign of bike and pedestrian infrastructure around their school. Members of the (tentatively named) "Better Blocks Club," a new after-school extracurricular club, will get the chance to observe infrastructure, go on field trips by bike, learn urban planning best practices, and be involved in implementing a pilot safety project.

They'll be helping to plan and install new pop-up pedestrian and bike facilities at the intersection of May Street and 17th/18th Streets, a dogleg intersection adjacent to their school. The intersection design, which will include a protected intersection near the school and pop-up mobility lanes on the approaching streets, was created by PSU civil engineering students as part of the Better Block PSU program.

After the 6-month pilot demonstration is complete, the project will undergo community feedback and design modifications before infrastructure is permanently installed by the City of Hood River.

Left: Intersection of 17th/May St (Google Street View, 2022). Right: Map of the project location.

HOW DID THIS PROJECT COME ABOUT?

The project is led by Megan Ramey, Hood River County School District's Safe Routes to School Manager and founder of a bike tourism site, Bikabout, which encourages families and new riders to wander by bike in North America. In 2020 Ramey, then a parent of a 4th grader at May Street Elementary, organized a Bike Parade for National Walk & Roll to School Day. Inspired by the pandemic, an everyday Bike Train (a variation of the Walking School Bus) began as a permanent feature in March 2021 when the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) granted funding to support the bike train and add a walking bus.

• Related: A similar bike bus made headlines this year in Portland, led by Alameda Elementary School PE teacher Sam Balto. Balto has been involved with Better Block PSU before too, heading up a Safer Route to the César Chávez School project in 2021. Ramey said of Balto: "We're rousers, partners in crime, and it's so wonderful because we're showing what can be done, both in a rural setting and a city setting, for bike train and bike bus; and hopefully inspiring a bunch of people around the country to do it."

The Bike Train was a catalyst for this project. Aware of the need for safety improvements at the intersection in front of the middle school, where her daughter is now a student, Ramey submitted a proposal to Better Block PSU, a partnership program between the volunteer-led group Better Block PDX and Portland State University. The project was selected to move forward, with PSU transportation students working to provide design and consulting services for the safety improvements.

"There's a couple of things that this project is doing. One is engaging the actual users of the design before it goes in the ground – So, the students. And second, it's engaging young people from the very beginning of a project, which is rarely ever done," Ramey said.

In the spring of 2022, PSU students Ashley Arries, Atiporn Huayhongtong, Ahmad Alateeqi, Ali AlQaatri, and Reem Almoumen prepared five design alternatives for Hood River Middle School Gateway bike/ped improvements at the May/17th/18th street intersection. The project analysis and creation of alternative facility designs were part of their coursework for Project Management and Design, a Civil & Environmental Engineering capstone course. May Street currently has no stop sign on the eastbound approach to the school, and the existing bike lane ends right before reaching the school. In front of the middle school is a high-use crosswalk with low visibility and no curb ramp. In fact, many pedestrian approaches to the middle school are lacking curb ramps. The design options provided by the students aim to improve bicycle and pedestrian safety and accessibility in what is currently a high-risk area for students.

The six-month pilot demonstration is supported by an ODOT Safety Grant. With the relatively inexpensive popup project, "we're bridging the gap between no infrastructure and one million dollar infrastructure," Ramey said.

STUDENT-LED DEMONSTRATION PROJECTS BRING SAFE ROUTES TO LIFE

The momentum and enthusiasm for active transportation safety in Hood River continues to build. Ramey gave a presentation about this project to a meeting of the Transportation Options Group of Oregon (TOGO) on Friday, September 30. Watch a recording of that presentation (starts at 59:30, passcode is w!m^B#&1 to access the Zoom), or view the presentation slides.

In addition to funding the bike train and walking bus, ODOT is also supporting a "safety rodeo" to add walking and biking curriculum to physical education classes, and a "Free Bikes 4 Kids" program, a partnership with Anson’s Bike Buddies where people can donate used bikes to be refurbished and provided to underserved children and their parents (around 100 bikes have been donated so far). In March and May of 2022, Ramey led safety rodeos at May Street and Mid Valley Elementary Schools, where "about sixty kids learned how to ride bikes from scratch."

The new pop-up project will be built in June or July of 2023, and the Better Blocks Club will be on the scene. Members of Hood River Middle School's new Better Blocks Club will be actively involved in the planning process for the intersection redesign, helping to brainstorm creative, low-cost materials and ways to implement the design. 

"Students will be installing it alongside the fire department, the police department, and the city public works department all together, and then it will be in the ground for five or six months. The students will take before-and-after travel counts and observe the behavior of both their peers and the local residents that are using it," Ramey said.

At the end of the year, members of the Better Blocks Club (or whatever the students end up naming it – Ramey wants them to have ownership of the club and their mission) will have the opportunity to become certified in responsible bicycling behavior. Tentatively called the bike ethics & safety certification, this certificate will be the first of its kind in the U.S., modeled after bike safety education programs in the Netherlands for 11 to 12 year olds.

Future goals, for Ramey, include launching an "E-biker’s Ed" class for high school students in Hood River. (Read "Dawn of the 'Throttle Kids'", a BikePortland article written by Megan Ramey in July 2022.)

In a 2018 Safe Routes to School survey, just 14% of middle school parents said they would let their kids walk or bike to school, despite saying they strongly support safe walking or biking access to school.

In May 2022, the Hood River City Council officially adopted a Safe Routes to School Plan.

Portland State University's Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) is home to the U.S. DOT funded National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI), PORTAL, BikePed Portal and other transportation grants and programs. We produce impactful research and tools for transportation decision makers, expand the diversity and capacity of the workforce, and engage students and professionals through education and participation in research.

Researchers Jennifer Dill, Jiahui Ma, Nathan McNeil, Joseph Broach and John MacArthur of Portland State University have published a new article in the November 2022 issue of Transportation Part D: Transport and Environment. The open-access article, "Factors influencing bike share among underserved populations: Evidence from three U.S. cities," examines bike share use and interest among lower-income residents and people of color in New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia.

There is evidence that lower-income and people of color (POC) in the U.S. do not use bike share as much as higher-income and white people. Using data from residents living near bike share stations in New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia, the paper examines reasons for these disparities. Researchers looked at many factors that might explain bike share use and interest in lower-income, racially diverse, traditionally underserved neighborhoods. They focused on residents who live near bike share stations, so that proximity would not be a barrier.

A few key findings:

1. People who are not members, but are interested in using bike share, including POC, are motivated to use bike share for fun, recreation, and social reasons (as opposed to utility).
2. Knowledge of bike share and receiving information from interactive sources (for example, bike share ambassadors) are associated with bike share use.
3. Cost is a barrier for people who are interested in using bike share, but are not members. Discounted memberships are one solution, but survey results indicate that many people do know know about them.

Some reasons for not using bike share among people of color and lower-income people may also be related to reasons for not bicycling, generally. These include concerns about traffic safety as well as personal safety.

Some of the barriers to bike share reported by low-income respondents of color in a 2017 survey

This paper is an analysis of data collected in a "Breaking Barriers to Bike Share" project funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) and the Better Bike Share Partnership (BBSP). Read more about the original study and explore some of the products to come out of this research, including a set of ten bike share equity briefs to help operators establish equity programs based on what's been shown to work.

Portland State University's Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) is home to the U.S. DOT funded National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI), PORTAL, BikePed Portal and other transportation grants and programs. We produce impactful research and tools for transportation decision makers, expand the diversity and capacity of the workforce, and engage students and professionals through education and participation in research.

When the COVID-19 pandemic first swept across North America and led to emergency shutdowns during the spring of 2020, the way people acquired food and household necessities was dramatically impacted. As stay-at-home orders minimized personal travel, transit services were reduced and many stores and restaurants either closed or modified their operations. 

Some of the gaps were filled by online retailers and delivery services. However, access to goods and services varied substantially depending on people's age, income level, and ability.

A new multi-university study funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), the U.S. DOT-funded university transportation headquartered at Portland State University, and the National Science Foundation (NSF) captured how households responded as local, state, and federal governments imposed and lifted restrictions, brick-and-mortar establishments closed and reopened, and e-commerce and delivery services adjusted to the changing conditions.

The findings of this research are critical for emergency planning, but also for understanding the ever-changing mechanisms used to access retail and service opportunities (whether in person or online). The research identifies opportunities for future interventions to remedy barriers to accessing food, which will remain relevant even after the pandemic recovery.

THE RESEARCH

The project was led by Kelly Clifton of Portland State University (now a professor at the University of British Columbia's School of Community and Regional Planning), Kristina Currans of the University of Arizona, and Amanda Howell and Rebecca Lewis of the University of Oregon. The research team also included Paula Carder, director of PSU's Institute on Aging, and graduate students Max Nonnamaker and Gabriella Abou-Zeid. Nonnamaker used information from the focus groups to complete his masters degree in public health. Abou-Zeid, now a transportation data specialist at ICF, wrote her master's thesis on the adoption and use of e-grocery shopping in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which she presented at TRB 2022. Learn more: PSU Graduate Gabby Abou-Zeid Explores Implications of E-Grocery Shopping during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The researchers used a mixed-methods approach to evaluate the extent to which people modified their shopping behavior during the COVID-19 crisis and following recovery. They administered four waves of cross-sectional online surveys to households in Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Oregon, and Washington, from September 2020 through November 2021. These surveys were designed to understand: 

• How have people accessed essential goods during the pandemic crisis and recovery periods?
• What barriers have certain subgroups faced in accessing essential goods?
• And to what extent do/can online platforms help meet demand?

The four waves of surveys in five states produced a unique and rich dataset documenting the grocery shopping behaviors, preferences, and attitudes of consumers during important phases of the pandemic, including: the initial economic reopening in 2020; the loosening and tightening of restrictions through fall and winter of 2020; the emergence of the vaccine in January 2021; and the surge of cases associated with the Delta variant in summer and fall of 2021. Data from the surveys have been made publicly available for future use by researchers. Access the dataset here: Data from "Consumer Responses to Household Provisioning During COVID-19 Crisis" and "Recovery and Accessing Opportunities for Household Provisioning Post-COVID-19.

To complement the survey data, the researchers conducted interviews and focus groups with a subset of the population—older adults, and friends and family members who had helped them order online—to learn how they adjusted to the conditions of COVID19 in their grocery shopping. Researchers chose to focus on older adults because they are more likely to experience mobility barriers, COVID vulnerabilities, and lack of digital resources or knowledge.

KEY FINDINGS

Findings indicate that in-store food shopping is a mainstay for household provisioning and will likely remain so into the future. Yet, during the pandemic, many households experimented with online shopping and reported a high level of satisfaction with it. Even as people returned to stores, online shopping did not drop off and instead showed a gradual increase over the four waves of the survey. Survey respondents predicted that they will continue to use online shopping at the same or higher rate in the future.

Shoppers mainly drove to retailers to acquire food, but there were changes in mode shares over the course of the pandemic. Walking, cycling, transit, and ridehailing all saw increases in usage over the four waves of the survey.

The biggest limitations to the future growth of e-commerce in the food sector are the inability to inspect items for quality, and delivery fees. While some barriers to online grocery shopping persist, it is clear that it can and does fill important gaps for people. It is a valued option in situations where people have mobility limitations, are quarantining or are sick with COVID, facing time pressures, or stores are not easily accessible.

When asked about barriers to food access, more people cited mobility barriers—such as not owning a vehicle or having a mobility-limiting condition—than technological ones, such as access to smartphones or broadband internet. The focus groups with older adults provided more context. Most respondents rated their digital acumen as high, and they were mostly confident in their technology skills. Being on fixed incomes, their desire to minimize costs, utilize coupons, and shop sales reinforced their preferences for in-store shopping.

"Online ordering can help overcome mobility barriers. However, both our quantitative and qualitative data results point to the idea that many people still want to be able to inspect food items for quality and freshness, and this isn’t something that is going to be easily solved by technology. I think this points to the continued importance of making sure we’re filling mobility gaps and using all the tools available in the practitioner toolbox to incentivize local stores in every neighborhood. These don’t have to be large grocers, but just places that offer a variety of fresh foods which can supplement the dry/bulk items and other household items that people are more comfortable ordering online. No doubt this is easier said than done, but I think it’s important to always come back to this idea that technology is a tool but not a solution unto itself," said Howell.

IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTITIONERS

These results have implications for planning for food access into the future, including widespread emergency events such as the pandemic, as well as changes in circumstances that individuals may experience.

"Practitioners—whether they work in public, private, or advocacy institutions—require evidence and data to both identify opportunities to tailor their services to those most in need and to support funding requests that enable them to provide new or different services. One of the biggest contributions of this work is the data itself, capturing behavior across a multitude of built and social environments over the course of one year," said Currans.

Understanding the impacts of the pandemic on food access and the adoption and use of e-commerce platforms has benefits to transportation planners and urban planners (the results can likely inform the provision of parking, land use, road capacity, and internet connectivity), as well as public health professionals. The popularity of ordering online but picking up in-store indicates that people value the time savings but do not want to pay delivery fees. Should this increase in the future, the amount of parking needed at these stores may be reduced, as there may be shorter dwell times and higher turnover.

The research offers insights about who lacks access to food resources, who is adopting technology, how new behaviors intersect with old ones, and the potential "stickiness" of these behaviors as we recover from the pandemic.

This research was funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities and the National Science Foundation, with additional support from  Portland State University, the University of Arizona, and the University of Oregon.

ABOUT THE PROJECT 

Accessing Opportunities for Household Provisioning Post-COVID-19

Kelly Clifton, Portland State University; Kristina Currans, University of Arizona; Amanda Howell, University of Oregon

• Download the Final Report (PDF)
• Download the Project Brief (PDF)
• Access the Public Dataset: Data from "Consumer Responses to Household Provisioning During COVID-19 Crisis" and "Recovery and Accessing Opportunities for Household Provisioning Post-COVID-19.

RELATED RESEARCH

To learn more about this and other NITC research, sign up for our monthly research newsletter.

• The Impact of Ride Hail Services on the Accessibility of Nonprofit Services
• Emerging Technologies and Cities: Assessing the Impacts of New Mobility on Cities
• Life-Space Mobility and Aging in Place

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.

Travel time reliability – or the consistency and dependability of travel times from day to day, and at different times of day – is a key metric that significantly affects people’s travel behavior. Since businesses rely heavily on transportation systems, an unreliable transportation network can also impact the economic competitiveness of urban areas. As such, reliable travel times are important for transportation agencies to promote economic stability within a community. Having accurate methods to evaluate reliability is important for both transportation practitioners and researchers.

A new report from Portland State University offers an improved method for determining the confidence interval of travel time reliability metrics. Researchers Avinash Unnikrishnan, Subhash Kochar and Miguel Figliozzi of PSU’s Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science used a highway corridor in Portland, Oregon as a case study to evaluate their method, and found that it compared favorably with other methods of evaluating the confidence interval of travel time reliability metrics.

"Traffic engineers can apply this method to come up with a range of estimates for the unknown true travel time reliability metric. The travel time reliability metrics calculated by traffic engineers and transportation planners will have variability due to factors such as road and mode type. The methods proposed in this research can be used to make inferences on travel time reliability metrics which accounts for this variability. Traffic engineers can apply the methods to attach statistical guarantees to the travel time reliability metrics," Unnikrishnan said.

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

This research is timely because the COVID-19 pandemic and consequent changes in traffic levels have highlighted the need to quickly compare and better understand the behavior of most commonly used traffic reliability measures.

One challenge for the research team: there is a general lack of consensus on the population distribution of travel times. Depending on the study and the context, a wide variety of distributions have been found to be appropriate. To overcome this difficulty, the researchers developed confidence interval procedures that are general because they are independent of the type of travel time distributions, and can work for a wide range of distribution shapes. This makes the evaluation method more flexible and able to be applied in different situations.

The methods they developed can be used to arrive at practical estimates of changes in traffic, which can help transportation agencies maintain consistent travel times across a roadway network. The outcomes of this project can also help transportation researchers to test other travel time reliability measures, and conduct before-and-after travel time reliability evaluation studies with improved accuracy.

PORTLAND, OREGON CASE STUDY

Next, researchers applied these approaches to a real-world case study. The data for the case study came from the Portland, OR metropolitan region and was originally collected and analyzed as part of an earlier NITC project, Understanding Factors Affecting Arterial Reliability Performance Metrics. In that project, Unnikrishnan worked with PSU civil engineering researchers Sirisha Kothuri and Jason Anderson to understand the temporal variation in travel time reliability metrics on three major arterials in Washington County. 

Map of the study corridor; a stretch of Tualatin-Sherwood road from OR 99W to SW Nyberg Street.

Using the data from one of those three arterials—Tualatin-Sherwood Road from OR 99W to SW Nyberg Street—the research team of the current study estimated confidence intervals for three different travel time reliability metrics: buffer index, modified buffer index, and the relative width of travel time distributions. 

Where a travel time index is the average additional time required during peak times as compared to times of light traffic, the buffer index represents the additional time that is necessary above the average peak travel time. In this project, researchers considered two forms of buffer index. First, the ratio of 95th percentile travel time to sample average travel time minus one. The modified buffer index refers to the ratio of 95th percentile travel time to median travel time minus one. 

The relative width of travel time distributions is defined as the ratio of the range of travel times in which 80% of the observations around the median fall into the median travel time. In another NITC project focused on buses, PSU researchers Travis Glick and Miguel Figliozzi used a similar metric for understanding transit reliability using speed data. 

The research team compared their new methods against several existing methods and found that they worked well: Numerical tests showed a positive performance and high statistical power for analyzing the available travel time data. More details about the process can be found in the final report.

Photo courtesy of Google Streetview

This research was funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities, with additional support from the Oregon Department of Transportation.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

Statistical Inference for Multimodal Travel Time Reliability

Avinash Unnikrishnan, Miguel Andres Figliozzi and Subhash Kochar; Portland State University

• Download the Final Report (PDF)
• Download the Project Brief (PDF)
• Access the Dataset

RELATED RESEARCH

To learn more about this and other NITC research, sign up for our monthly research newsletter.

• Understanding Factors Affecting Arterial Reliability Performance Metrics
• Data-Driven Mobility Strategies for Multimodal Transportation
• Using High-Resolution Bus Detection Data to Improve Travel Time Prediction and Identify Urban Congestion Spots

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.

A group of nine transportation students traveled to Denmark and Sweden this past summer, to meet with planners and engineers and get a feel for on-the-ground transportation in Copenhagen and Stockholm. They explored the area by rail, foot, bike and boat, in between presentations and tours led by professionals. 

Portland State University's Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC)'s associate director, Hau Hagedorn, and sustainable transportation program manager, John MacArthur, led the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI) Study Abroad program. See photos from the trip.

In past years they've traveled to the Netherlands to experience the Dutch approach to cycling infrastructure and multimodal travel. This year, they decided to expand the mission. Copenhagen, like Amserdam, is sometimes referred to as the cycling capital of the world. Stockholm, along with some of the world's most progressive congestion mitigation policies, also boasts a robust multimodal public transportation system that includes ferries. 

Why host a study abroad program on sustainable transportation? Seeing infrastructure up close and personal, using it, is much more impactful than studying it any other way.

"One thing that we really pushed this year was that the time in-country was about experiencing the place, riding the roads, using the system, watching people on the system and talking with experts. The streets were our classroom," MacArthur said.

Some of the trip's highlights included: 

• A presentation and meeting with Lars Ekman, senior advisor of traffic safety at the Swedish Transport Administration. He spoke to the group about Vision Zero, which was pioneered in Sweden.
• A bike ride led by Henrik Söderström and Theo Bratt, with Stockholms Stad (City of Stockholm);
• A presentation on public transit by Mattias Lundberg of the City of Stockholm Transport Department;
• The Traffic Garden (Trafiklegepladsen), a playground financed by the city of Copenhagen to educate kids and adults on real-world traffic navigation;
• The Park 'n' Play, a parking garage with a playground on top, located in one of Copenhagen’s newly redeveloped boroughs, Nordhavn, which the group heard more about from architect Charlotte Algren;
• A guided bike tour to the Norrebro section of Copenhagen with Tina Saaby, a former sustainability architect with the City of Copenhagen;
• The Amager Resource Center (ARC), a power plant that generates energy for much of Copenhagen using recycled waste;
• A presentation from the manager of transportation planning and the cordon pricing policy for the City of Stockholm, followed by a trip to see the electric autonomous shuttle buses currently being tested in the suburb of Barkarbystaden;
• The Stockholm Transport Museum and the Vasa Museum, with its preserved 17th century sunken ship;
• A bike infrastructure and Levande “pedestrian streets” tour of Stockholm with city planners. 

"Lars Ekman, senior advisor of traffic safety at Swedish Transport Administration, talked to us about Vision Zero. He showed us intersection renovations that reduce fatal accidents. It’s all about reducing speed and impact, so that crashes aren’t fatal," said PSU student Tanja Olson.

The group also toured Copenhagen's canals by boat, explored urban art installations and green spaces, and visited Stockholm's Royal Palace and Seaport and the Stockholm Transport Museum. Speaking with the planners and engineers that made those areas possible offered unique perspectives.

"Because they have limited road space, they have to think differently and creatively. In Sweden, they put snow-melting conduits in their sidewalks. A student went out on a walk and took a picture of the conduits in the road. We were all blown away! It's all framed under the larger umbrella of sustainability and climate change," Hagedorn said.

In addition to guided tours, students got to test out the transportation system by roaming around on their own. On their final day in Copenhagen, MacArthur sent the students on a scavenger hunt to find various transportation easter eggs: a child riding alone, unique transportation features from a neighborhood, or a tiny pedal-powered coffee cart. Among other things, they found many urban-dwelling trolls, all made using recycled and sustainable materials by artist Thomas Dambo. 

The study abroad program, administered through IBPI, was supported in part by a grant from the Scan Design Foundation, which made it possible to offer scholarships to underrepresented students.

"Learning from others, experiencing other places and experimenting with new ideas are the foundation of the transportation profession. I often hear, we can't be like Copenhagen or the Netherlands in terms of cycling. Well, when you go there you see that the cities in Europe are in many ways like US cities – people, streets, buildings. You find out that these cities didn't always have high cycling rates but with the right will, policies, and some good design they created interesting and vibrant communities," MacArthur said.

The program is open to students from any university, not just PSU. This year's cohort consisted of five PSU students, two from Oregon Tech, one from the University of Arizona and one from San Jose State. University of Arizona Master of Science in Urban Planning student Zsalina Allen's participation was highlighted recently in UA news. The students came from both planning and engineering backgrounds. One PSU participant, Phil Armand, is also an engineering associate at the Portland Bureau of Transportation. 

"I wanted to see Scandinavia’s multimodal sustainable infrastructure in action, to increase my knowledge so I can improve transportation design in my work as an engineer. ... What I found was a biking paradise in Copenhagen and a pedestrian's dream in Stockholm. From biking to and from the suburbs to five-minute cities; a train every three minutes to e-bike share; a power station run off of recycling, and so many ways to be sustainable. I found that the public transportation system was accessible to all, sustainable, and reliable," Armand said.

Accessible transportation is a primary factor contributing to the quality of life enjoyed by western Europeans, according to Cameron Bennett, PSU engineering masters student.

"As I have become more aware of the societal and cultural factors supporting a high quality of life, I have realized that an effectively-managed land use and transportation system is a major reason why life seems so good in Western Europe," Bennett said. 

Caroline Schulze, a civil engineering student at Oregon Tech, agrees that a multimodal transportation system improves city life: "By focusing on the humans instead of the cars, transportation will have to work for people instead of around them," Schulze said.

The two-week study abroad, from June 18–July 2, 2022, was an extension of a spring course, Sustainable Transportation in Copenhagen & Stockholm, available as part of the civil engineering as well as urban studies & planning course catalogs. Interested in potentially studying abroad in 2023? Sign up here to be notified about future study abroad opportunities.

Portland State University's Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) is home to the U.S. DOT funded National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI), PORTAL, BikePed Portal and other transportation grants and programs. We produce impactful research and tools for transportation decision makers, expand the diversity and capacity of the workforce, and engage students and professionals through education and participation in research.

Researchers Rob Hemphill, John MacArthur, Jennifer Dill and Philip Longenecker of Portland State University; Garima Desai of the University of California, Santa Cruz; Lillie Nie of the University of Southern California; and Abbey Ibarra of California State Polytechnic University-Pomona have published an article in the August 2022 issue of the Journal of Transport and Land Use.

The article, "Congested sidewalks: The effects of the built environment on e-scooter parking compliance," offers recommendations for policymakers and future research around the impacts of the built environment on electric scooter (e-scooter) parking.

With the proliferation of e-scooters in cities across the world, concerns have arisen about users parking them on sidewalks and in other public spaces. Research has looked at e-scooter parking compliance and compared compliance to other mobility devices, but until now, research had not yet examined the impacts of the built environment on parking compliance. Using a field observation dataset in Portland, Oregon, and novel GIS data, the authors attempt to understand the spatial distribution of e-scooter parking and the impact of built features on parking compliance.

The results of the study show that 76% of e-scooters observed fail at least one of Portland’s parking compliance requirements and 59% fail at least two criteria. However, compliance varies spatially and by violation type, indicating that parking compliance (or non-compliance) is dependent on features of the built environment. In particular:

• Parking compliance is significantly higher on blocks with designated e-scooter parking than blocks without designated e-scooter parking.
• A statistically significant relationship is observed between the amount of legally parkable area on a city block and parking compliance.
• Parking compliance increases with larger percentages of legally parkable area. 

These findings can help policymakers prioritize dedicated e-scooter parking for blocks with limited legally parkable area.

Three of the paper's co-authors (Ibarra, Desai and Nie) were past fellows in the Transportation Undergraduate Research Fellowship (TURF) program at Portland State University.

Portland State University's Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) is home to the U.S. DOT funded National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI), PORTAL, BikePed Portal and other transportation grants and programs. We produce impactful research and tools for transportation decision makers, expand the diversity and capacity of the workforce, and engage students and professionals through education and participation in research.

We are proud to introduce four new transportation scholarship recipients at Portland State University for the 2022/23 academic year. Congratulations to Peter Domine, Lise Ferguson, Kyu Ri Kim, and Valeria Tapia, all students in the Toulan School of Urban Studies and Planning!

Scholarships are made possible by the generosity of donors who want to invest in the future of Portland State students. PSU students work on real transportation system projects with partners in our community. Through scholarships, we can support students in overcoming barriers to funding as well as acknowledging those who go above and beyond in advancing transportation. Learn more about PSU transportation funding opportunities and read about past transportation scholars.

Peter Domine

Recipient of the Walter H. Kramer Endowed Transportation Fellowship

I am a lifelong Oregonian and Salemite. I love history, which is where much of my interest in urban planning came from. I am fascinated by many subjects and that is also why I enjoy urban planning so much, because it touches on so many interrelated topics. I’ve worked most of my young adult life in a variety of jobs, mostly bartending for the past few years. Working as a bartender at a local downtown restaurant was a great way to connect with my community and gave me a deeper appreciation for my city. This perspective has been deeply influential in my pursuit of a planning degree and my future profession. This was also a great way to make ends meet while still having a lot of freedom and flexibility to explore things that interested me, such as cycling. I took up road cycling about five years ago and that has been a great outlet for exercise, exploring my community, and traveling. I’ve done a few long-distance trips by bike and hope to do more, especially around the Northwest.

Connect with Peter on LinkedIn.

Lise Ferguson

Recipient of the Walter H. Kramer Endowed Transportation Fellowship

I graduated from the University of Washington in 2013, where I got a degree in Environmental Studies, but the jobs I ended up getting were lackluster administrative positions for environmental-adjacent companies. I moved to Portland soon after graduating because I loved how fun and interactive the city was, and because I really liked riding my bike here! Because the jobs I found myself working were unrewarding, I began volunteering with some solid organizations that better aligned with my passions: The Street Trust, City Repair Project, and BikeLoudPDX. It was through working with these groups that I started to understand the ways in which planning defines a city, and how it can improve or hurt the lives of the people living in it. I was already spending so much of my time  talking and thinking about bike lanes and car-free plazas and road diets that I decided I might as well go back to school and try to make some changes from a position where I would have more power, and here I am!

Connect with Lise on LinkedIn.

Kyu Ri Kim

Recipient of the Alta Planning and Design Scholarship

As a Ph.D. student of Urban Studies at the College of Urban and Public Affairs, I am a student representative participating in monthly faculty meetings for the 2021-2022 academic year and I also have had the opportunity to participate in the following projects of TREC at PSU with Dr. Jennifer Dill: a research review for AASHTO Council on Active Transportation Research Roadmap, and descriptive analysis for the Active Transportation Return on the Investment project. At PSU, learning various statistical programs such as SPSS, R, and Mplus and geographic information systems such as ArcGIS Pro and using them in research related to active transportation makes me a more productive and efficient researcher. Before coming to PSU, I worked in Korea Environment Institute as a researcher after achieving my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at Yonsei University in Seoul.

Read more about Kyu Ri's award on the Alta Planning Blog.

Valeria Tapia

Recipient of the IBPI Innovation in Active Transportation Endowed Scholarship

I am an emerging planner and a first-year student in the Master of Urban and Regional Planning. I'm passionate about community development, active transportation, equity, and environmental planning. I desire to advance active transportation initiatives that are inclusive and promote safety. With a Bachelor of Science degree in  Community Development, I am a community advisory member on the South Portland Historic Guidelines Committee with the Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability. I am also an intern at the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability on Portland's Lower Southeast Rising Project. The project is a partnership between the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability and the Portland Bureau of Transportation. My recent experience has continued to ignite my passion to find solutions for communities living in east Portland.

Connect with Valeria on LinkedIn.

Portland State University's Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) is home to the U.S. DOT funded National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), the Initiative for Bicycle and Pedestrian Innovation (IBPI), PORTAL, BikePed Portal and other transportation grants and programs. We produce impactful research and tools for transportation decision makers, expand the diversity and capacity of the workforce, and engage students and professionals through education and participation in research.

How can community members become more engaged in transportation decision making?

Individuals and groups can learn to effect powerful change, but success requires some familiarity with how civic processes work. Community Transportation Academies, or CTAs, provide a basic technical understanding of how a city or region’s transportation system operates, along with the decision makers and decision-making processes that determine how the system is shaped.

Supported by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), the new Wasatch Transportation Academy (WTA) at the University of Utah was piloted in 2022 in the Salt Lake City region. The research team developed a course vision, topics, and logistics for the WTA by interviewing stakeholders in the Utah Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget, the Utah Department of Transportation, the Utah Transit Authority, Salt Lake County, Salt Lake City, and the Wasatch Front Regional Council. Led by Nathan McNeil of Portland State University and Keith Bartholomew of the University of Utah, the WTA used the established Portland Traffic and Transportation class in Portland, Oregon as a framework. 

As part of an earlier NITC project in 2015, McNeil had developed a Course Curriculum and Implementation Handbook based on the Portland class. Now the handbook has been updated to include lessons from the Wasatch course so that other cities and counties looking to start a transportation academy in their community can learn from those examples. Access the new Community Transportation Academy: Course Curriculum and Implementation Handbook here (PDF). The researchers will share more about this work in an October 20 webinar.

FOSTERING A MORE INVOLVED COMMUNITY

Community transportation academies provide community members the knowledge and tools to get involved and help make the transportation system a reflection of their input and values. 

“This is an investment in community capital [in the Salt Lake City region], and that's how we are thinking of it. Like most investments, the rewards are substantial, but they are built off of a long arc,” Bartholomew said.

Thinking far into the future means there is no shortage of possibilities. Andrea Olson, Planning Director of the Utah Department of Transportation, encourages community members to become proactively involved in transportation projects in the early stages: "As a resident, the earlier on you can get involved, the more influence you can have on what a transportation project looks like. The further you get along in the life of a project, the less opportunity there is for changing it. It can be hard to get people engaged in a 30-year planning process, but once they understand that's really where everything is on the table, that provides some motivation," Olson said.

Olson, who was an instructor in this year's WTA, says she hopes the course continues to grow in popularity. "I want to see people out at transportation meetings and open houses. One of the things I encouraged the course participants to do was, get on your planning commission or get elected, because that's a great way to really have some say in what's happening," she said.

 In addition to instructing students on how transportation decision-making works behind the scenes, transportation academies let community members work on their own transportation problems. The WTA included community-led project presentations and an in-person field trip of a local transportation project in the process of being implemented.  Feedback showed a high degree of satisfaction, with around 40 percent of participants indicating that they were, or would be in the near future, more engaged in various transportation-related community activities after taking part in the academy.

“The biggest takeaway for me was the level of coordination between agencies that is required for these projects, especially when different agencies may have different goals or metrics for success. It was also helpful to learn that getting involved earlier in the planning process can have a greater impact on the final form a project takes on than just responding to plans that have been put out,” shared one WTA participant.

Ted Knowlton, deputy director of the Wasatch Front Regional Council, served as an advisor on the project and believes that increasing the number of advocates in the region is one key function of the academy. "Advocacy punches above its weight – it's way more effective than you would guess from the number of people involved. Those residents that are opinion leaders, that show up to public meetings, that volunteer on committees or what have you: When that component of the population is knowledgeable, it tends to elevate the quality of the dialogue and ultimately the quality of the outcomes in planning. Because they have a high level of knowledge, they're pushing the state of the practice towards generally good ends," Knowlton said.

As the WTA moves into its second year, we look forward to seeing the real-world impacts of projects in Utah. Bartholomew and McNeil spoke about that hope on an April 2022 episode of The Brake, a Streetsblog USA podcast.

REPLICATING THE TRANSPORTATION ACADEMY

The WTA course was held on Monday evenings for eight weeks during January-March 2022 (view class recordings here), reaching 49 community members.  Taking notes from the locally-focused Portland course, the Utah team gave the Wasatch academy a broader regional focus. Using a online format facilitated this, as students could attend from anywhere.

“The curriculum handbook documents the structure of this sort of class and offers a set of potential topics that you could cover, along with some advice and wisdom from the places that have done it before. Drawing on the experiences of Portland and Salt Lake, it gives you the outline. You still have to do the work, and you still have to find the champions and the supporters, but it is important to learn from those that have done it,” McNeil said.

The Course Curriculum and Implementation Handbook (PDF) offers an overview of the key elements of a CTA, as well as class assignments that help participants develop an idea for a transportation improvement in their community. The handbook also includes: 

• Feedback from previous course graduates;
• Guidance for practical items like establishing a budget, finding presenters, developing course materials and recruiting students;
• Detailed outlines for ten class sessions covering topics like transit planning, active transportation, how to be involved in decision-making, transportation equity, and the history of transportation in your city or area;
• Advice to get the ball rolling for a new academy. An important first step is finding a “champion,” someone willing to fight to get funding and rally leadership to support the class. Other key operating principles include recruiting top agency staff to participate, building an advisory network, fostering communication between community members and agency staff, and establishing a neutral setting for the course, such as a university or community center.

“The WTA is going to be more fully integrated as part of the master's curriculum here at the University of Utah. It's becoming a practicum in community engagement for master planning students as well as being a community class open to the public." Bartholomew said. Establishing more communication between existing CTAs is also part of his vision for the future. The final report introduces a few CTAs beyond Portland and Utah, including the Surrey Transportation Talks Program in the City of Surrey, Canada and the Tampa Bay Citizens Academy on Transportation, launched by the University of Southern Florida and the City of Tampa in the fall of 2021.

Matthew Ryan, a second-year masters student in UU's College of Architecture + Planning, worked on the project as a graduate research assistant, digging deeper into the Portland surveys and examining other academies around the country. One goal of this work, which the authors hope to share at the 2023 annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board (TRB), is taking a deeper look at the intersections between emerging transportation academies, and how those connections might be further leveraged to improve and expand the reach of CTAs.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

Launching the Wasatch Transportation Academy

Nathan McNeil, Portland State University; Keith Bartholomew, University of Utah

• Download the Final Report (PDF)
• Download the Curriculum and Implementation Handbook
• Download the Project Brief (PDF)
• Register for the Oct 20 Webinar

This research was funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities, with additional support from the University of Utah, Utah Transit Authority, Wasatch Front Regional Council, Utah Department of Transportation, Salt Lake County, Salt Lake City Transportation Division, and the Portland Bureau of Transportation.

RELATED RESEARCH

To learn more about this and other NITC TREC research, sign up for our monthly research newsletter.

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• Educate the Educators: Diffusing the SCYP University-Community Partnership Model
• Collaborative Regional Planning: Tools and Techniques for Teaching Collaborative Regional Planning to Enhance Livability and Sustainable Transportation

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.