SCC-PG: Empathy and AI: Towards Equitable Microtransit

公共微交通最近成为连接郊区和农村交通弱势群体到就业和其他重要目的地的一种有希望的解决方案。作为一种公共交通服务，微型交通通常提供较低的固定出行率，并且不依赖于动态定价等定价机制来平衡供需。虽然避免高费率和动态定价特别适合低收入弱势群体，但它可能导致上午和下午高峰期间的严重延误，对用户造成严重后果，例如错过医疗预约和工资。工作和医疗旅行有时间限制，但其他旅行可能更加灵活，可以在非高峰时期进行，以减少服务延误和错过关键旅行。为了实现智能互联社区（Smart and Connected Communities, S&amp；CC）的愿景，该规划拨款侧重于技术支持和社区支持的解决方案，以公平的方式分配按需公共交通服务的出行需求，而不是专门使用甚至主要使用传统的定价激励措施。一个由教师和研究人员组成的跨学科团队将与北卡罗来纳州的社区合作，这些社区已经试点了微交通系统，以推进这项研究，并更好地了解社区的需求、偏好和能力。这笔赠款有可能导致加强公共微交通模式，减少错过或延迟的关键行程，并改善交通劣势的生活质量。本研究将促进我们对公共微交通中支持和激励亲社会行为的可行性和权衡的理解，包括自愿改变自己的出行时间以适应他人、拼车、与其他用户合作以改善用户群体的结果、优先考虑交通弱势用户或关键行程。它将研究如何通过减少用户的认知负担，将人工智能应用于促进出行计划环境中的亲社会行为。在规划拨款期间，小组将举办工作坊，向各持份者，包括规划和运输机构及社区组织，收集知识。与社区成员组成的焦点小组将进行半结构化访谈，并收集有关与其他用户共享乘车和信息的意愿，全天安排的灵活性以及关于其他用户的信息类型，这些信息将引起同情和亲社会行为。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Publicly owned microtransit has recently emerged as a promising solution for connecting suburban and rural transportation disadvantaged populations to employment and other important destinations. As a public transportation service, microtransit typically provides low, fixed trip rates, and does not rely on pricing mechanisms such as dynamic pricing to balance supply and demand. Although avoiding high rates and dynamic pricing is particularly appropriate for low-income, vulnerable population groups, it can lead to significant delays during the morning and afternoon peak with important consequences on the users, such as missed medical appointments and wages. Work and medical trips have time constraints, but other trips may be more flexible and could happen in off-peak periods to reduce service delays and missed critical trips. Fulfilling a Smart & Connected Communities (S&CC) vision, this planning grant focuses on technologically enabled and community-supported solutions for distributing travel demand over time for on-demand public transportation services in an equitable manner, without the exclusive or even primary use of traditional pricing incentives. An interdisciplinary team of faculty members and researchers will engage with communities in North Carolina that have piloted microtransit systems to advance this research and gain a better understanding of the community needs, preferences, and capacities. This grant has the potential to lead to an enhanced public microtransit paradigm, with fewer missed or delayed critical trips and quality-of-life improvements for the transportation disadvantaged. This research will advance our understanding of the feasibility of, and tradeoffs involved in enabling and incentivizing prosocial behavior in public microtransit, including volunteering to shift one’s trip time to accommodate others, share a ride, cooperate with other users to improve outcomes for the user community, and prioritize a transportation disadvantaged user or a critical trip. It will investigate how artificial intelligence can be applied in facilitating prosocial behavior in a trip scheduling environment by reducing the cognitive burden placed on users. During the planning grant period, the team will organize a workshop to gather knowledge from various stakeholders, including planning and transportation agencies and community-based organizations. Focus groups with community members will be assembled to conduct semi-structured interviews and collect information on willingness to share rides and information with other users, flexibility of schedule throughout the day, and the type of information about other users that would evoke empathy and prosocial behavior.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.