SCC-CIVIC-PG Track B: Novel shared transportation services to improve rural-urban commutes

虽然人口密集的城市地区是美国的核心就业中心，但仍有很大一部分人口生活在农村/郊区社区，这些社区的特点是地理面积大，人口密度低。这就造成了人们居住和工作的空间不匹配，而城市的低住房供应和高房价又加剧了这种不匹配。农村公共或共享交通服务对于运输机构来说，提供和维护效率不高，因为它们每辆车的载客量通常比城市服务少。由于地理上的需求分散，此类服务还存在频率不高和停站间隔长等问题。这迫使通勤者（主要）依赖单人私家车。这种通勤路程对低收入农村居民来说代价高昂，对环境极具破坏性，不成比例地造成拥堵，并对处境不利和/或脆弱社区产生负面影响。该项目旨在确定和试点创新的共享交通解决方案，以提高城乡通勤者的机动性和可达性。它将把重点放在宾夕法尼亚州哈里斯堡郊区佩里县的通勤者身上，作为美国这个更大、更有问题的问题的一个案例研究。研究结果可以作为其他与通勤问题作斗争的农村社区的一个模型，帮助交通官员确定在他们所在地区可以成功的类似策略。该项目将通过对农村通勤者的调查、对雇主的访谈和现有数据来源，创造关于已确定的不同共享交通选择的可行性要求的知识。它还将通过试点测试评估研究区域最可行的解决方案的有效性。在第一步，规划项目将评估农村地区潜在的出行需求和对共享出行选择的总体需求，并考虑到人们对拼车的态度。届时，将为城乡通勤设计和探索多种创新和灵活的共享交通解决方案，将传统的交通系统结构（例如，移动枢纽、干线与分支或通勤集群）与乘车匹配服务和实时信息系统相结合，专门克服为农村社区服务的地理挑战。比较不同的交通策略将促进对城乡通勤每种策略的成本和收益的理解。这些解决方案的实施可以改善弱势群体的通勤选择，使他们更容易加入劳动力大军，并通过减少单人车辆来减少拥堵和排放，从而为社会带来重大利益。该项目是公民创新挑战赛的一部分，该挑战赛由国家科学基金会、能源部车辆技术办公室、国土安全部科学技术局和联邦紧急事务管理局合作完成。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。

While dense urban regions serve as the core employment centers in the United States, a large fraction of the population still lives in rural/suburban communities that are characterized by large geographic areas and low population densities. This creates a spatial mismatch between where people live and work, which is exacerbated by low housing supplies and high housing prices in cities. Rural public or shared transportation services are not efficient for transit agencies to provide and maintain, as they generally carry fewer passengers per vehicle than urban services. Due to a geographically dispersed demand, such services also suffer from infrequency and long stop spacings. This forces commuters to rely on (primarily) single-occupant private automobiles. Such commute trips are expensive for low-income rural residents, are extremely damaging to the environment, disproportionately contribute to congestion, and negatively impact disadvantaged and/or vulnerable communities. The project aims to identify and pilot innovative shared transportation solutions that can enhance mobility and accessibility of rural-urban commuters. It will focus on commuters in Perry County, a suburban of the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania region as a case study for this larger, problematic issue in the United States. The results can serve as a model for other rural communities that struggle with the commuter problem, helping transportation officials identify similar strategies that can be successful in their areas. The project will create knowledge on the feasibility requirements of different identified shared transportation options through surveys of rural commuters, employer interviews and existing data sources. It will also evaluate the effectiveness of the most viable solution for the study area via a pilot test. In the first step, the planning project will assess latent travel demand in rural areas and overall demand for shared mobility options, taking attitudes toward ride sharing into account. Multiple innovative and flexible shared transportation solutions for the rural-urban commute will then be designed and explored, combining traditional transit system structures (e.g., mobility hub, trunk with branches or commute clusters) with ride-matching services and real-time information systems to specifically overcome the geographic challenges of serving rural communities. Comparing different mobility strategies will advance the understanding of the costs and benefits of each strategy for rural-urban commutes. The implementation of such solutions can provide significant benefits to the society by improving commute options for disadvantaged populations and enabling them to join the labor force more easily, and by lowering congestion and emissions through the reduction of single-occupant vehicles. This project is part of the CIVIC Innovation Challenge which is a collaboration of NSF, the Department of Energy's Vehicle Technology Office, and the Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate and Federal Emergency Management Agency.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.