Sustainable mobility in Canadian cities: Towards an integrated measurement and understanding of the performance of land use and transport systems and their impacts on travel behavior

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The realm of transport is undergoing significant changes with the growing awareness regarding the need for efficient, sustainable, and equitable transport networks. In this rapidly evolving landscape, transport engineers are expected to develop and adopt new approaches to measure the performance of transport networks, while accounting for the land use systems in which they are implemented as well as the changing lifestyles and preferences of users. My proposed research program seeks to better understand, measure, and model the performance of land use and transport systems and their impacts on travel behavior and satisfaction, in order to contribute to the development of sustainable urban transport networks in Canada. To do so, I intend to (i) build a strong interdisciplinary research group that will provide transport engineers and planners in Canada with improved tools and methods to support integrated land use and transport planning, and (ii) train highly qualified engineers with the skills and tools required to transform urban mobility. I will address three interrelated research objectives, with a focus on Canadian cities. First, I will develop an integrated R-ArcGIS tool to calculate and visualize local and regional accessibility (the ease of reaching destinations) via sustainable modes (walking, cycling and public transport) in six large- and medium-size Canadian metropolitan regions. Within the proposed tool, I will develop a new methodology to model accessibility by bicycle. The tool will also be used to model travel behavior as a function of accessibility, thereby enabling accessibility-based modelling. Second, I will propose a methodology to identify the barriers to the use of sustainable modes among car drivers in Montreal. Through the design and dissemination of a large-scale survey, I will conduct a market segmentation that integrates both spatial and personal factors. Last, I will develop a methodology to assess the impacts of changes in active and public transport networks on travel behavior and satisfaction in Montreal, using big data (smart card and satisfaction surveys) and in-person surveys. The proposed research program will significantly contribute to the training of HQP by providing adequate funding to two PhD and three master students that will work full-time on this program, in addition to funding five bachelor students through research internships. Furthermore, the research agenda will provide Canadian cities with new methods and tools to better plan investments in active and public transport, while addressing several key questions that practitioners, transport authorities and cities are currently dealing with to design efficient, sustainable and equitable transport networks in Canadian cities. As I have done in the past, our work will be disseminated to researchers and to local, national and international actors through conferences and presentations.