Towards a better understanding of the determinants and satisfaction of travel among different groups in major Canadian Cities.

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

In a fast-changing world, understanding, measuring, and modelling the determinants and benefits of active transport (public transport, cycling and walking) is one of the biggest challenges faced by practitioners. The long-term goal of my program is to continue to generate valuable research that will support the uptake of sustainable transport modes to increase the quality of life of individuals. Our previous research has been adopted by many transport agencies in Canada (Metrolinx - Toronto, Société de Transport de Montréal (STM)- Montreal, Translink - Vancouver) and abroad by the Brookings Institution (Washington, DC) and the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy: ITDP. My new NSERC-discovery program builds on my previous record of generating ready-to-implement research, it includes 5 projects that will support and train students with the goal of making them competitive in a fast-changing job market. The first project consists of developing accessibility measures for active transport modes to better model land use and transport interactions, and their effect on mode choice. The second project assesses the impacts of improvements in STM's public transport operations, namely electric buses and next arrival system on public transport operations and customer satisfaction. The third project geographically assesses trip satisfaction among active transport users while controlling for personal attitudes and habits to achieve higher ridership retention. The fourth project seeks to better understand the behavior and motivations of car users to develop and recommend strategies for transit agencies to attract them and gain a bigger market share. It will also seek to understand the factors that motivate transit users to stop using transit. The fifth project aims to identify biases in travel survey, to better model travel behavior. The proposed research program is expected to have various impacts in the transport field. Firstly, by annually funding three PhD and two masters' students, it will strengthen my efforts towards training highly qualified personal, by providing adequate funding for them so they can concentrate on learning and research. Such approach has been successful with my former students, as it helped them in securing jobs at various transport firms across Canada or even start their own transport firm after graduation. Secondly, this research agenda attempts to answer several research questions that are not only important for transport researchers, but are of utmost importance to practitioners in Canada (Engineers and Planners) as they are striving to provide better transport systems to Canadians. Similar to my previous NSERC program, we will be disseminating the results to local, national, and international groups through conferences and workshops, as well as through making all of our research open and accessible on our website, without violating any copy rights.