Jennifer Dill, director of Portland State University's Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC), has been named the inaugural editor-in-chief of the Transportation Research Record (TRR). The TRR—the flagship journal of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Transportation Research Board (TRB)—is one of the most cited and prolific transportation journals in the world, offering wide coverage of transportation-related topics.

While maintaining her current role as the director of TREC, Dill will begin her duties at TRR on July 15, collaborating with the TRR team and TRB volunteers to enhance the journal’s role in improving the nation's transportation system through high-quality research.

"The Transportation Research Record and TRB have played key roles in my scholarly and professional career. My very first peer-reviewed journal article was published in TRR based on research I did as an undergraduate student with my mentor, Dr. Dan Sperling. That opportunity opened my eyes to the possibility of being a researcher and professor," Dill said.

Prior to entering academia, Dill worked as an environmental and transportation planner at the federal and regional levels. When she first started as an assistant professor at Portland State University, she was inspired by an article in TRR to start a new thread of research focused on bicycling. This has shaped her career ever since: Dill today leads TREC, a national center in the field of active transportation research, while her own research continues to advance the state of practice around sustainable, multimodal transportation. Her work focuses on decision-making at both the individual and institutional levels, with a particular interest in multimodal and active transportation and the impacts of these choices on health, equity, infrastructure, and the environment.

"I have continued to publish in TRR... because I want my research to reach a particular audience—practitioners who can use the findings to make better decisions, like I did early on in my career," Dill said.

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. To get updates about what's going on at TREC, sign up for our monthly newsletter or follow us on social media.

The need for improving active transportation safety and mobility is clear: Nationally, since 2004, the share of all road user deaths that are pedestrians has risen from just under 11% to nearly 17% in 2020. Cyclists’ share of all fatalities has also increased over the past decade, from 2.1% in 2011 to 2.4% in 2020.. In many cases, solutions are also clear: for example, there are numerous evidence-based approaches to making walking and bicycling safer and more comfortable through improved infrastructure. So if the needs and solutions are clear, why are we not progressing more quickly toward improved road safety and better active transportation options?

In many ways, walking, bicycling, and rolling have not been a top priority for state departments of transportation (DOTs). Changing agency practice is essential: DOTs need research to help them better implement active transportation effectively and seamlessly.

This is the objective of a newly launched project, funded by the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP). Over two years, researchers will create an active transportation institutionalization guide to help state DOTs change their culture and processes and integrate active transportation into every stage of their work, from program development and project funding to project delivery, operations and maintenance.

The research team is led by Jennifer Dill of the Transportation Research and Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University (PSU), along with Nathan McNeil and John MacArthur. Project partners include Erin Flanigan at Applied Research Associates (ARA), who has pioneered the application of the Transportation Systems Management and Operations (TSMO) CMM assessment framework at multiple transportation agencies, and Kelly Rodgers at Streetsmart Planning.

WHAT WILL THE NEW PROJECT DO? 

The objective of this project is to provide a framework for state DOTs to institutionalize active transportation. The guide produced by the research team will include a capability maturity model (CMM) for organizational assessment of readiness. 

The framework and guide will also include:

• examples of successful implementation practices;
• models for partner and stakeholder coordination and public engagement;
• considerations for organizational structure, policy, process, and procedural changes needed to embed and integrate active transportation into program development, project funding, project delivery, operations, and maintenance; and
• strategies for overcoming barriers to implementing and institutionalizing transportation improvements to equity, access, safety, and health.

Read more about the new project: NCHRP 08-164: Institutional Integration of Active Transportation

Photo by ArtMassa/iStock

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. To get updates about what's going on at TREC, sign up for our monthly newsletter or follow us on social media.

Transportation decision-makers typically use benefit-cost analysis (BCA) to evaluate the tradeoffs of transportation projects. However, it is difficult to produce state-specific measures that are multimodal and can consistently evaluate the full range of public and private benefits and costs for Oregonians.

Supported by a $200,000 grant from the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT), Jenny Liu of Portland State University will lead a research effort to develop an Oregon-specific, multimodal framework for transportation benefit-cost analysis.

Having a framework specifically tailored to Oregon can help ODOT make informed decisions on infrastructure, policies and support programs based on information about the economic and societal impacts of each transportation mode.

Launched in May 2024, the project, "Mode-Based Benefit-Cost Analysis Calculator" aims to create an easy-to-update Oregon BCA framework to compare transportation benefits and costs for better policy, program, and investment assessments. The research will also develop a methodology that incorporates equity and distributional assessments into the multimodal BCA framework. This will contribute to ODOT’s Strategic Action Plan priority of equity and inclusion.

The primary outcome of this project will be an easy-to-use, quantified assessment tool for transportation costs. Knowing public and private costs based on locally-specific and well-sourced data will help ODOT make financially sustainable decisions, as well as apply for federal discretionary funding. 

Findings from this research will have broad application in ODOT, supporting the agency’s greenhouse gas reduction goals and incorporating equity and distributional considerations. 

For example, "VisionEval" is a version of Oregon's statewide GreenSTEP model, which was developed by the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) to conduct long- range strategic planning. VisionEval modeling has a social cost parameter that can be used to assess the cost of a scenario. The project team will collaborate with the ongoing research project Development Of A New Visioneval Land Use Model And Applications To Evaluation Of Climate Strategies In Oregon, in which PSU's Liming Wang is working to update the VisionEval land use models and applications, to identify how the BCA framework might best be integrated into future developments.

The new project will also support communication around tolling and road usage charges by providing an accessible assessment of the cost of subject modes, and guide efficient decision-making about transportation system development by demonstrating economically efficient modes. An interactive dashboard will be developed to help ODOT users further integrate the new BCA framework into ODOT practice.

Photo courtesy of the Oregon Department of Transportation

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. To get updates about what's going on at TREC, sign up for our monthly newsletter or follow us on social media.

Shared micromobility (including shared electric scooters and bikes provided by private companies) is one of the newest transportation options that has come to cities in the last several decades. A new report explores the different ways cities charge shared micromobility companies to operate, and how these funds are used.

In the newly released report, John MacArthur of Portland State University, Kevin Fang of Sonoma State University and Calvin Thigpen of Lime examine data from 120 cities in 16 countries around the world. They also conducted a survey of cities’ shared micromobility program managers, with responses representing 33 jurisdictions in North America.

Download the report: "Taxing shared micromobility: assessing the global landscape of fees and taxes and their implications for cities, riders, and operators (PDF)"

"This study builds our understanding of a topic that is near and dear to the hearts of cities, riders, and micromobility operators: how to run a system that is affordable for riders while also remaining financially sustainable for micromobility operators. In the last 6 months alone, the industry has seen substantial upheaval through mergers, bankruptcies, and closures. So as cities revisit their program regulations, we hope they take into consideration that the industry has matured substantially since fees were initially established - with safer vehicles, better operations, and closer city collaboration - as well as the role shared micromobility can play in achieving sustainability and equity goals," Thigpen said
 

Digging into how each city made the decision of what to charge, the researchers find that taxes and fees vary dramatically from city to city and may not always reflect the city's stated policy goals.

"Though cities are using fees and taxes to mitigate the cost of program administration, which is very understandable given local budget constraints, these additional costs to riders can be at odds with a city’s broader goals for supporting sustainable and equitable transportation," MacArthur said.

The findings also reveal a trend of cities charging less for shared bicycles than for shared scooters. The notable exception to this pattern is Denver (which has both e-bikes and scooters), where the city does not differentiate between vehicle types and charges no program fees.

"One concern sometimes raised about shared micromobility are user fares. To the degree fees increase the cost of business and get passed along to riders, cities have a say in fares with their fee levels," Fang said.

Four Key Findings

1) Fees vary dramatically between cities. Some cities do not impose program fees at all, in line with municipal transportation goals. In cities that do assess program fees, the common types are per-trip, per-vehicle, flat annual, and flat one-time fees. There are large differences in the fee amounts that cities charge – for example, the highest per-vehicle fee is over four hundred times higher than the lowest.

"Fee levels were consistently inconsistent. In some cases, cities had zero permit fees. On the other end they could be a dollar or two for every trip," Fang said.

2) Shared micromobility is taxed twice—via sales tax and program fees—and these revenues can be substantial. On average, cities charging an annual fee received over a third of a million USD each year. If sales taxes/value added taxes (VAT) are included with fees, the average shared micromobility trip generates a fee + tax revenue of $0.70 USD per mile or $0.89 USD per trip. This means that globally, shared micromobility programs bring in an average rate of 16.4% of revenue from user fares in taxes and fees.

3) Shared micromobility taxes and fees are higher than most other modes of transportation, especially driving and ridehail. The research team found that fees and taxes on shared micromobility are significantly higher compared to other travel modes, being 23 times higher per mile than personal cars and over 5 times higher than ridehail trips.

"On average, fees and taxes on shared micromobility were quite a bit higher than charges on personal driving or ride-hail trips. This seems counter to many cities' goals of promoting alternative modes of travel," Fang said.

4) When deciding on fees, cities are especially concerned with covering administrative costs as well as influencing operator behaviors. The primary use of fee revenue is to cover program administration costs, rated as the top consideration by 77% of respondents (see chart below). Ensuring financial feasibility for scooter companies or lowering rider costs were less prioritized, even though both would benefit the shared micromobility system.

While cities’ concerns over budget are understandable, this consideration can be at odds with cities’ broader goals for supporting alternative transportation.

"After the boom of shared micromobility in 2017, cities looked at fees as a way to react to this new mode. We see that cities are still setting fees to cover program administration costs, but also as a way to influence operator behavior of how they operate their systems in the public rights-of-way," MacArthur said.

Download the report (PDF) for details about the research, including the survey that was distributed to shared micromobility program staff and the methods used to calculate taxes and fees for other modes of transportation. The report's appendix includes a complete summary of program fees in each jurisdiction as well as shared micromobility program fee revenues in 2022.

Who Can Use This Research?

Fees and taxes are relevant to all three of the major "stakeholders" in the shared micromobility field: cities, private micromobility companies, and travelers.

There have been numerous studies on cities’ shared micromobility policies around parking, ridership, safety, equitable distribution of vehicles, and sustainability. By contrast, there has been little research on the taxes and fees levied on shared micromobility systems and how they work to advance or deter municipal goals for shared micromobility.

The researchers provide case studies of cities taking different—and evolving—approaches to illustrate how different cities weigh tradeoffs. The information provided in this report can help inform cities who are working with shared micromobility companies to align program fee structures with their goals around climate, equity, congestion and more.

In a section offering rationales for lowering (or not charging) fees, the report notes that the shared micromobility landscape has changed since e-scooters first swept the world in 2017 and 2018. The shared micromobility industry no longer deploys at-will in city streets, but rather works through formal procurement processes to serve cities.

"Considering the newness of shared micromobility, it is not that surprising that approaches to fees have varied so widely initially. Today, though, cities are mostly on the same page with what they want with micromobility operations, so greater alignment on fees probably makes sense," Fang said.

Shared scooters and bikes are no longer just pilots; most cities now have multi-year permits with established operators. Both cities and companies are aware of the risks of poorly managed systems and have developed technologies and programs to address equity and operational challenges. This research offers a comprehensive look at how cities around the world are approaching the question of what to charge, and offers strategies to ensure that a city's fee structure supports transportation policy goals.

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. To get updates about what's going on at TREC, sign up for our monthly newsletter or follow us on social media.