Researchers Aaron Golub, John MacArthur and Sangwan Lee of Portland State University, Anne Brown of the University of Oregon, and Candace Brakewood and Abubakr Ziedan of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville have published a new journal article in the September 2022 volume of Transportation Research: Interdisciplinary Perspectives

Rapidly-evolving payment technologies have motivated public transit agencies in the United States to adopt new fare payment systems, including mobile ticketing applications. The article, "Equity and exclusion issues in cashless fare payment systems for public transportation," explores the challenges facing transit riders in the U.S. who lack access to bank accounts or smartphones, and potential solutions to ensure that a transition to cashless transit fares does not exclude riders. Learn more about the project and read an open-access version of the final report.

The study asks: who is most at risk of being excluded by the transition to new fare payment systems and how would riders pay transit fares if cash payment options were reduced or eliminated? Researchers answer these questions using intercept surveys of 2,303 transit riders in Portland-Gresham, OR, Eugene, OR, and Denver, CO.

The article's authors explore existing research on emerging fare payment systems, as well as research on disparities in access to the various pieces of the new payment ecosystem, including credit and banking, Internet and smartphones. They then present qualitative and quantitative analyses used to investigate this topic, and conclude with a discussion of results and implications for policy and planning. The paper is based on a pooled-fund study supported by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC). Read more about the original study: Applying an Equity Lens to Automated Payment Solutions for Public Transportation

Photo courtesy of TriMet

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.

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Low-income residents, immigrants, seniors, and people with disabilities – these are people who stand to gain the most from new tools and services that reduce transportation costs and travel time. However, issues of affordability, technology adoption, banking access or other barriers can limit access to these new mobility opportunities.

In the latest report funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC), New Mobility For All: Evaluation of a Transportation Incentive Program for Residents of Affordable Housing in Portland, OR, Portland State University researchers Nathan McNeil, John MacArthur and Huijun Tan worked with the City of Portland’s Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) to evaluate a local pilot program: the Transportation Wallet for Residents of Affordable Housing. This program provides a set of transportation incentives for low-income participants, including:

  • a $308 pre-paid US Bank Visa card which could be applied to public transit or other transportation services,
  • a free BIKETOWN bike share membership, and
  • access to discounted rates on several services.

Researchers surveyed the program’s participants to understand how they used the Transportation Wallet and how it helped them use different modes to get around Portland, OR. The goal was to identify which aspects of "new mobility" services (e.g. Uber/Lyft, bike share and e-scooters) appeal to different underserved groups. Drawing on the survey results, the researchers developed potential strategies to expand the reach and value of these transportation services, and consider how to implement more programs to realize these benefits. 

"The research highlights a specific group of individuals and families who are historically underserved, who often have limited access to services and jobs, and lack mobility options. The Transportation Wallet program is an innovative approach to address their mobility needs. This research focuses on evaluating the pilot program, but there is still so much to learn and understand how cities, transit agencies and mobility providers can assist the people living in affordable housing communities," MacArthur said.

The research team shared insights from the findings in a February 2021 paper in Transportation Research Record: "Evaluation of a Transportation Incentive Program for Affordable Housing Residents."

HOW DID PEOPLE USE THE WALLET?

"The Transportation Wallet provided funds for participants to use on transportation services, but it didn't prescribe specifically how they should use it. We ended up seeing a real variety. Some used it exclusively for public transit for daily needs, others for the occasional Uber or Lyft trip, and some people explored new services like our shared e-bike system or e-scooters. We also heard from a lot of participants that the program made them feel more independent in terms of being able to get around the city, as well as having less stress about if they or their children would be able to get home in the event of a missed bus or ride," McNeil said.

The research team found some key findings on how the Transportation Wallet was used:

  • A majority of the low-income participants were already users of TriMet –Portland’s public transit agency. Nearly half of the respondents indicated that they tried to use new modes that they never used before with the Transportation Wallet, which was correlated with increased sign-ups and usage of ride-hail, e-scooter and bike share services.
  • Participants appeared to use each mode more than they would have otherwise.
  • The flexibility and convenience of the program were highlighted in survey comments by participants. Responses also indicate that the program reduced stress related to how people might meet their basic travel needs or get around in the case of unexpected or emergency travel needs, all while reducing financial stress as well.
  • Although TriMet and ride-hail were the most used among the available services, it is still notable that 28% to 29% of participants signed up for e-scooter and bike share services, even if many did not proceed to use them. This highlights the potential of such a program, but also speaks to the need for programs to engage further in helping transition people from signing up for a service to actually using that service.

IMPLEMENTING A SIMILAR PROGRAM

RECRUITING PARTICIPANTS AT TRANSPORTATION FAIRS

"For anyone providing this type of service, keep in mind the value of Transportation Fairs. Attendees at these in-person events were much more likely to sign up for services, including discounted TriMet fares. Hosting the fairs near people’s homes was seen as very important by both the people we surveyed and the partner housing agencies," McNeil said.

To the extent possible, researchers recommend that participants should leave the Transportation Fairs "ready to walk out the door and start using the Transportation Wallet." Having activated cards to distribute at the fair (or providing credit to participants through a mobile app) could help to encourage program participation generally, and help in further promoting some of the services that participants may not have previously tried.

OPPORTUNITIES TO IMPROVE

Input from participants suggests that several aspects of the Transportation Wallet can be improved:

  • Improve the way information about the program and new mobility usage is conveyed, specifically for those who never use phone apps to travel around.
  • Explore participants’ experiences when using different services. For instance, safety concerns about bike share and e-scooter share services and age-related barriers (e.g., physical ability) was a challenge. This is consistent with previous studies about safety concerns as a barrier for using new mobility. Transportation agencies may be limited in their promotion of these modes without further strategies to address the different perceptual and objective barriers.
  • Address problems through an enhanced level of ongoing assistance. This could include help with activating their Transportation Wallet cards, transferring funds into their service accounts, and navigating the challenge of prepaid cards which were sometimes not an acceptable form of payment. This type of further assistance could also help to address the gap between the number of people who sign up for various services and those who actually use those services.
  • Increased opportunities to actually test out services (use the apps, ride the e-scooters and bike share bikes). Some participants could benefit from lessons and practice in using e-scooters, bikes, ride-hail, and transit. Having tried it once in a supportive environment could be all it takes to give someone the confidence to use a new mode going forward.

Cities interested in implementing similar transportation programs can use the insights from this report on the Portland pilot study. Overall, the message from the Transportation Wallet program is one of empowerment: it did make it easier for many transportation-disadvantaged participants to get around, and gave them a new freedom of choice between different modes they hadn't explored before. For those who want to replicate this experiment, this report offers detailed guidance and a positive model to build upon.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

New Mobility For All: Can Targeted Information And Incentives Help Underserved Communities Realize The Potential Of Emerging Mobility Options?

Nathan McNeil and John MacArthur, Portland State University

This research was funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities, with additional support from Metro, the Portland Bureau of Transportation, and Portland State University.

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

Photo by Cait McCusker

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.

If you could securely pick up your packages on your commute by public transit, from any carrier—be it USPS, FedEx, UPS or other companies, would you? Transit agencies could be missing a potential strategy to increase ridership by offering common carrier parcel lockers at transit facilities. 

Mitigating the demands on our urban transportation networks by consolidating parcel deliveries at high trafficked transit facilities could also benefit retailers, logistics and carrier companies, and consumers. But how do we ensure the equitable distribution of these sites for disadvantaged populations, while keeping accessibility in mind?

Using real world data from the Portland, OR region, a new study from researchers at Portland State University (PSU) offers a multiple-criteria approach using accessibility and equity metrics, including ridership, mode of transportation, spatial distribution, and sociodemographic profiles of coverage areas. 

Limited Free Access: The article in Transportation Research Record, "Accessibility and Equity Analysis of Transit Facility Sites for Common Carrier Parcel Lockers," by Katherine Keeling, Jaclyn Schaefer and Miguel Figliozzi, will be free to access for two months.

“There are multiple types of transit facilities that could work well as host sites for parcel lockers, but the accessibility and equity tradeoffs are complex,” shared Miguel Figliozzi, PSU engineering professor. “Transportation practitioners and policymakers have a lot to consider when prioritizing locations.”

Who could benefit from a common carrier parcel locker at transit facilities?

A lot of people stand to benefit from implementing common carrier parcel lockers at transit facilities: consumers, transit users, logistics and shipping companies, and the retailers.

If offered as a one-stop location for packages from different couriers, consumers could have the convenience of picking up multiple packages while getting on or off public transit. This is easily integrated into trip chaining–including spots near their home, workplace, or frequent errands. An added benefit is that an automatic/unmanned parcel locker system can offer 24-hour operations and more security than a porch drop-off.

Fragmentation and inefficient routing in delivery drives up the cost of last-mile logistics, especially to residential areas. Sometimes, older multi-unit complexes lack adequate space for receiving packages. Consolidation of multiple deliveries to one locker offers efficiencies of scale for delivery operations. Being less energy and time intensive, this could both lower carbon emissions and labor costs.

More efficient shipping options can reduce the costs that retailers absorb when they promote “free” shipping. Secure parcel lockers can also prevent profit losses due to order replacements or refunds to cover stolen packages.

Where do people ride transit, and is it accessible?

The ridership evaluation identified transit facilities with high levels of potential locker users. Researchers looked at a wide variety of transit facilities in Portland, OR–including: bus stops, light rail stops, bus + rail stops, transit center (bus only), transit center (bus + rail), park-and-rides (PaR), transit center + park-and-rides, and transit mall segments. 

Ultimately, the case study indicated that most of the high-ridership transit facilities are within the city center, where PaR facilities are absent. In fact, over half of the 20 highest ridership locations are segments of the downtown transit mall.

The accessibility by mode was extended not only to study equity issues but also because most research on transit-oriented lockers assumes that the catchment area for transit riders is constrained by the distance they are willing to walk with a parcel. However, transit riders that drive their personal vehicle to PaR facilities will not be inhibited by ‘‘willing to walk’’ estimates, and similarly, those who access transit via bicycle are not best represented by ‘‘willing to walk’’ estimates.

Keeping in mind the geometric design of the transit facility, consideration should be given to a loading/unloading zone that could accommodate heavy freight vehicles without interfering with transit activities. Turning radii and sight lines need to be safe for these delivery vehicles. Accessible design is also important for people with mobility impairments and/or and wheelchair users in the facility.

What method was used to determine equitable distribution of the parcel lockers?

“Immediately prior to this work, I had co-written a paper looking at the equity and environmental justice policy implications in home deliveries,” shared Figliozzi. “Disadvantaged groups are less likely to adopt home deliveries, and there are apparent barriers. That got me interested in considering how locating parcel lockers at transit facilities could potentially overcome some of those barriers.”

Some of the equity metrics they looked at included mode of transportation, population, where employers are located, and other key socioeconomic aspects (income, race, education level, and internet access). This was then compared among the twenty highest ridership transit facilities. 

The study demonstrated that there are complex tradeoffs between spatial coverage, type of facility, and equity metrics. There will always be budget constraints, and outside the scope of this research they must be considered alongside the design (and limitations) of the sites when looking at real-world implementation of lockers.

Implementing pilots at transit malls and suburban park-and-rides

Based on the data collected, a common carrier parcel locker system could take advantage of the high number of riders and foot traffic at the transit malls. It offers consolidated parcel collection points at the densest area of the city’s employment and transit networks. Another good option is at suburban PaR facilities which improves spatial equity and coverage, but also has the potential to serve a much greater population given the accessibility to drivers.

If cities and transit agencies are proactive in attracting public-private partnerships with delivery companies, a common carrier locker system could start with a pilot. Implementing a small number of locations and applying an equity-first approach would offer incremental growth of the program that is cost efficient, reaches a large population, and also covers areas serving disadvantaged populations.

Questions remain around how to best design accessible locker sites, and how to plan for the safety of parcel carriers and consumers. “Looking beyond the convenience of these parcel lockers, they should be considered when talking about the evolution of equitable transit-oriented development,” said Figliozzi. “This is one tool we could use in reducing the environmental impact of the last mile in freight delivery.”

About the Research

This article, “Accessibility and Equity Analysis of Transit Facility Sites for Common Carrier Parcel Lockers”, by Katherine Keeling, Jaclyn Schaefer, and Miguel A. Figliozzi and published in Transportation Research Record (TRR), will be free to access for a limited time.

Photo courtesy of TriMet

The research is funded by the Freight Mobility Research Institute––a U.S. DOT university transportation center. 

The Freight Mobility Research Institute (FMRI), housed in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatics Engineering within FAU’s College of Engineering and Computer Science consists of a consortium of experts from universities across the nation with expertise in freight transportation, network modeling, sustainability, and intelligent transportation systems. http://eng.fau.edu/ 

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Dr. Huajie Yang, who graduated in 2020 with a PhD in Urban Studies and Planning from Portland State University, devoted his doctoral research to studying the impacts of light rail transit. His dissertation, "Short-term and Long-term Effects of New Light Rail Transit Service on Transit Ridership and Traffic Congestion at Two Geographical Levels," quantitatively examines the effect of new Light Rail Transit (LRT) services on transit ridership and traffic congestion over time.

Connect with Huajie Yang on LinkedIn

Yang examined light rail's impacts at two different geographic levels. At the corridor level, he conducted case studies of two light rail lines in the Portland, Oregon region (TriMet's Green and Orange MAX lines). At the regional level, he used a synthetic control method to construct a control Urbanized Area that closely approximates the counterfactual transit ridership and traffic congestion scenario - in the absence of light rail projects - in three urbanized areas across America.

The results of the corridor-level study suggest that both the Green and Orange lines increased transit ridership in the short and long term, and relieved traffic congestion in the short term, while having no statistically significant effect on traffic congestion in the long term, likely due to induced traffic demand. Results of the regional-level study suggest that, while new light rail transit services contributed to transit ridership in most urban areas, they did relieve traffic congestion in a limited number of urban areas, and that the effect changed over time and varied across places. The comprehensively temporal and geographical analysis will provide a better understanding of the impacts of new light rail transit services on transit ridership and traffic congestion, and hence provides policy makers insightful suggestions for building light rail projects to be more sustainable and to more effectively attract riders from former automobile drivers.

Photo courtesy of TriMet

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.

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We're proud to announce the publication of a new NITC dissertation: "Methodologies to Quantify Transit Performance Metrics at the System-Level," by Travis Glick of Portland State University.

Performance metrics have typically focused at two main scales: a microscopic scale that focuses on specific locations, time-periods, and trips; and, a macroscopic scale that averages metrics over longer times, entire routes, and networks. When applied to entire transit systems, microscopic methodologies often have computational limitations while macroscopic methodologies ascribe artificial uniformity to non-uniform analysis areas. These limitations highlight the need for a middle approach. This dissertation presents a mesoscopic analysis based around timepoint-segments, which are a novel application of an existing system for many transit agencies.

In the United States, fix-route transit is typically defined by a small subset of bus stops along each route, called timepoints. For this research, routes are divided into a consecutive group of bus stops with one timepoint at the center. Each timepoint-segment includes all data collected in that segment during one hour of operation. Visuals for congestion and headway performance, based on the aggregated datasets, are designed to examine transit performance along a route, between routes, and for specific segments. These visuals are a potentially useful tool for evaluating performance along routes and for identifying areas that may require a closer examination.

The methodologies for data cleaning, regression modeling, and performance visuals, provide a foundation for how timepoint-segments may prove useful to researchers and agencies.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

Methodologies to Quantify Transit Performance Metrics at the System-Level

Travis Glick, Portland State University

Photo by jorgeantonio/iStock

RELATED RESEARCH

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

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.

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Our multi-year study on automated transit fare collection offers a key finding that won't surprise you: Despite the convenience, the rush toward cashless fare systems has created barriers for lower-income riders seeking to use transit. Results from focus groups, surveys, and a review of current transit agency practices suggest that continuing to accept cash is a crucial way to keep transit accessible. However, dealing with cash has drawbacks: it’s time intensive and expensive. Using a detailed cost-benefit model, the researchers explored the costs for agencies to maintain some cash options and found that some simple approaches can be quite effective. The best bang for the buck? Cash collection on board buses.

Launched in 2019, the research project "Applying an Equity Lens to Automated Payment Solutions for Public Transportation" was supported by a Pooled Fund grant program from the National Institute for Transportation and Communities (NITC) and conducted at three universities: Portland State University (PSU), the University of Oregon (UO), and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK). The other funding partners were City of Eugene, OR, City of Gresham, OR, Lane Transit District, Clevor Consulting Group, and RTD (Regional Transportation District) Denver.

Aaron Golub of PSU served as the principal investigator, with co-investigators Anne Brown of UO, Candace Brakewood of UTK and John MacArthur of PSU.

WHY STUDY CASHLESS TRANSIT FARE?

Automated payment technologies can smooth operations and improve data collection, but the added convenience for the agency and some riders comes at a price: those systems require riders to have access to private internet, smartphones, and banking/credit services. Access that is decidedly not universal. What happens to the riders who are left behind?

Fare payment systems have a long history in significant equity challenges - both in fare amounts, but also in how and where fare can be purchased and stored. The final report “Applying an Equity Lens to Automated Payment Solutions for Public Transportation” (PDF) is a detailed exploration of how transit riders pay for their fare, based on 2,303 intercept surveys and three focus groups with transit riders in Colorado and Oregon. Researchers looked at the use of cash, and focused on riders who may be excluded if cash options are removed as new fare payment systems are implemented in the coming years. The research team also interviewed employees at ten transit agencies to find out how their fare payment has been modernized in the past 5 years, how those agencies have evaluated the equity implications of these changes, and what programs they have deployed to mitigate the equity impacts.

Andrew Martin, Development Planner at Lane Transit District, served on the project's technical advisory committee. "Around the same time as this study, we were in the middle of purchasing and implementing our first electronic fare collection system. We had already decided to take a more customer-centric approach: instead of going completely cash-free, we determined that we were going to take on the costs of making sure our service remained accessible to all riders. It was good to see, in the research, a lot of the things that we were intuitively feeling turned out to be true. The cost-benefit analysis shows that the cost isn't as great as you think; by doing the equity mitigations, you might end up with higher ridership and offset the revenue loss," Martin said.

SOME KEY FINDINGS

Researchers found that a significant number (around 30%) of transit riders still rely heavily on paying cash on-board buses. Older and lower-income respondents had less access to smartphones and internet. 

Of those who do own smartphones, many are concerned about reaching data limits, and some depend solely on public Wi-Fi for internet connectivity. 

A small but significant number of riders (around 7%) have no access to formal banking services.

The researchers worked with transit organizations in three case cities: Eugene, OR (population 247,421); Denver, CO (population 2,374,203); and Portland, OR (population 1,849,898). The cost-benefit model can be used by any size agency to implement new fare payment technology.

"One thing that would be really helpful to a lot of agencies is the cost modeling [the researchers] did. It estimates the general cost to put new technologies out there, like ticket vending machines. A lot of smaller agencies may not have things like that, and they're really useful for customers. So even aside from the equity focus, there is a lot of good info on costs of implementing a system," said Martin.

COST BENEFIT MODEL

Researchers constructed a quantitative cost-benefit model that combines first-year capital investments along with 10 years of maintenance, operations and capital replacement into a single total cost estimate. This approach creates an overall reflection of the lifecycle costs of the fare payment system, meaning it enables us to understand the total cost from both the initial costs, as well as the recurring annual costs.

They then used the model to explore and compare four scenarios along with an additional base (no-cash) case. Scenarios are based on the feedback received from transit agencies and a review of best practices nationally: 

  • Base - (No cash accepted anywhere)
  • Scenario 1 - No cash anywhere, adds retail network
  • Scenario 2 - Cash on board, not at TVMs, no retail
  • Scenario 3 - Cash only at TVMs, no retail
  • Scenario 4 - Cash accepted everywhere

"The heart of this cost-benefit model is, how many riders cannot ride under the different scenarios? We were able to study more than 2,000 riders, and, in the fully no-cash base case, we knew that about 8% of riders could not ride, based on our surveys. Their answers to how they would  ride with different configurations of ticket vending machines and cash on board informed this model," Golub said.

SELECTING MITIGATION STRATEGIES

Any of the above scenarios 1-4, above the no-cash baseline, can mitigate some of the equity implications of going cashless. Which scenario is best for a particular setting depends greatly on how many riders are potentially excluded by a cashless fare system, and on which options those riders would most likely use, given the opportunity to pay with cash. Based on the results of the cost-benefit analysis for each of the three case cities, researchers developed some general principles that agencies should keep in mind, when choosing strategies to help keep transit accessible. 

"When you're looking at 10 different systems and you've got to justify to the board, the general manager, the community, why you're spending money a certain way – it's really helpful to have research like this that shows that the costs are not some huge amount. When equity is cheap to obtain, it's really easy to justify doing that," Martin said.

Larger agencies spend less to collect fare. This impacts the cost-benefit calculation of adding additional capabilities. Small agencies, the researchers suggest, should seriously consider going fare-free. The Eugene case study (the smallest agency) shows that, across the board, fare collection consumes a large part of fare revenues - in the full cash scenario, about 40% of revenue is spent on collecting fare. 

Retail is a low-cost option: Accepting cash payments at retail locations is by far the lowest cost option to add cash capabilities in terms of total cost, net costs, and in terms of cost to accommodate potentially excluded riders. It is also the most commonly used mitigation, according to interviews with agencies. However, the retail network still poses significant geographical barriers for many riders, and does not offer the kind of coverage and access that cash collection on-board would offer.

Simple cash collection on buses could be an important bridge: According to the ridership survey data, in addition to being a low-cost option for agencies, this mitigation also added significant ridership. Accepting cash at ticket vending machines was found to be much more expensive than accepting cash on board.

When larger numbers of riders are excluded, equity mitigations are cheaper. The larger number of riders that are excluded, the bigger impact equity mitigations have and the cheaper they are per additional rider, and per additional fare collected. The Portland-Gresham case study showed relatively few riders were excluded when cash was eliminated compared to the other properties. That meant that adding retail cash collection cost $0.27 per new boarding. In Denver and Eugene, larger populations of riders were potentially excluded by cashless fare, and adding retail capabilities only cost 14 and 1.9 cents per boarding, respectively.

"Within the 10-year transition, some of the worst effects could be avoided by using some of these mitigations,” Golub told NextCity in a May 25, 2021 article: What Happens When Cash Fares Are Eliminated?

This research was funded by the National Institute for Transportation and Communities; the City of Eugene, OR, City of Gresham, OR, Lane Transit District, Clevor Consulting Group, and RTD (Regional Transportation District) Denver.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

Applying an Equity Lens to Automated Payment Solutions for Public Transportation

Aaron Golub and John MacArthur, Portland State University; Anne Brown, University of Oregon; Candace Brakewood, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Photo courtesy of TriMet

RELATED RESEARCH

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

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.

Projects
1268
Researchers
agolub@pdx.edu

In June 2019, the City of Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) launched a new incentive package aimed at making transportation more accessible for low-income households. In the "Transportation Wallet for Residents of Affordable Housing" pilot program, people living in affordable housing developments received access to free transportation options like transit passes, bike or scooter share memberships, rideshare and carshare credits.

Portland State University researchers evaluated the pilot program to find out how participants used the Transportation Wallet and how it helped them use different transport modes to get around.

A February 2021 paper in Transportation Research Record by Huijun Tan, Nathan McNeil, John MacArthur and Kelly Rodgers presents insights into the implementation and effectiveness of a transportation financial incentive program for low-income populations. Access the paper: "Evaluation of a Transportation Incentive Program for Affordable Housing Residents."

Main findings include:

  1. The financial support of this program encouraged some participants to use new mobility services (including Uber/Lyft, bike share, and e-scooter) that they had never used before.
  2. The program increased access for participants, helping them make more trips and, for some, get to places they otherwise could not have gone.
  3. Transportation fairs, where participants could learn about services and talk to providers, promoted both mode sign-up and mode usage, particularly for new mobility services and a reduced fare transit program.

The article is part of a larger research effort underway, funded by the National Institute for Transportation & Communities, Metro, and PBOT: "New Mobility For All: Can Targeted Information And Incentives Help Underserved Communities Realize The Potential Of Emerging Mobility Options?" This project explores underserved communities' access to new mobility programs such as ride-hailing, car-sharing, and micromobility. Researchers surveyed participants of PBOT's Transportation Wallet pilot, as well as a program of Oregon Metro designed to provide personalized transportation planning services (trip planning, education, outreach) in combination with free ride or drive credits from ride-hail and car share services to help connect residents to travel opportunities. An update on the project will be given in an upcoming Friday Transportation Seminar:

Friday, April 16, 2021: Friday Transportation Seminar: Evaluation of a Transportation Incentive Program for Affordable Housing Residents

In the seminar, Huiun Tan, Nathan McNeil and John MacArthur of PSU along with Roshin Kurian of PBOT will share findings from their survey of participants in PBOT's pilot program, and draw connections to how a transportation demand management program like the Wallet could be implemented to provide incentives and financial benefits to low-income populations.

ABOUT THE RESEARCH

New Mobility For All: Can Targeted Information And Incentives Help Underserved Communities Realize The Potential Of Emerging Mobility Options?

Nathan McNeil and John MacArthur, Portland State University

Photo by Cait McCusker

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.