Excellence in Research: Interoperable Transportation Service Roaming System for Transportation Disadvantaged Populations

这项卓越研究将通过支持对新型互操作交通服务漫游（ITS-R）系统的基础研究，促进社会平等，改善数百万交通不便的美国人的交通可达性。这个ITS-R系统使独立的移动服务提供商能够自愿分享他们的车队和需求信息，以降低他们的运营成本，提高他们的乘客的服务质量。一个由来自两所HBCUs（佛罗里达农工大学和摩根州立大学）的研究人员组成的多元化研究团队将进行各种研究任务，从服务优化到旅行行为建模。研究成果也将被纳入佛罗里达农工大学和摩根州立大学的本科和研究生课程。将开发根据研究任务改编的在线教育游戏，以激励K-12学生攻读工程学位。与交通软件公司的合作也将为学生提供实习机会，进一步吸引他们在交通运输行业发展。研究的核心假设是，通过组织（服务提供商）和个人（乘客）层面的协调决策，可以减轻TD移动服务中的类型间和提供商间的障碍。为了验证这一假设，我们将进行五项具体的研究工作，包括：(1)设计一套机制，使独立的辅助交通服务提供商愿意分享需求信息和车队，并使个人TD乘客在适当的外部激励下改变他们的出行计划；(2)开发和测试新的车辆路线和调度算法，以考虑需求交换、车队共享和包容性自动驾驶汽车（IAVs）的可用性；(3)评估车队自动化对辅助交通运营的影响，并设计分配和操作iav的优化算法；(4)了解ITS-R系统运行时组织（服务提供者）和个人（乘车者）的行为并建立模型；(5)通过基于实际数据的计算实验，整合各系统模块，验证ITS-R的有效性。这些研究任务的成功完成将产生一套新的机制、优化方法和行为发现，这对TD人群从ITS-R系统中受益至关重要。研究结果也将为辅助交通管理机构制定有效的财务和运营政策提供参考。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。

This Excellence in Research will promote social equality and improve transportation accessibility for millions of transportation-disadvantaged (TD) Americans by supporting fundamental research on a novel Interoperable Transportation Service Roaming (ITS-R) System. This ITS-R system enables independent mobility service providers to willingly share their vehicle fleets and demand information in order to reduce their operational costs and improve service quality for their riders. A diverse research team consisting of researchers from two HBCUs (Florida A&M University and Morgan State University) will conduct various research tasks ranging from service optimization to travel behavior modeling. Research findings will also be integrated into undergraduate and graduate courses taught at Florida A&M and Morgan State. Online education games adapted from the research tasks will be developed to motivate K-12 students to pursue engineering degrees. The collaboration with a transportation software company will also provide internship opportunities for the students to further attract them to pursue their careers in the transportation industry.The central research hypothesis is that inter-type and inter-provider barriers in TD mobility services can be mitigated through coordinated decision-making at the organizational (service provider) and individual (rider) levels. To test the hypothesis, five specific research tasks will be conducted, as follows: (1) To design a set of mechanisms for independent paratransit service providers to willingly share demand information and vehicle fleets, and for individual TD riders to shift their travel plans when appropriate external incentives are given; (2) To develop and test new vehicle routing and scheduling algorithms that account for demand exchange, fleet sharing, and availability of inclusive autonomous vehicles (IAVs); (3) To evaluate the implications of fleet automation on paratransit operations and design optimization algorithms for allocating and operating IAVs; (4) To understand and model the organizational (service provider) and individual (rider) behaviors when the ITS-R system is operational; and (5) To integrate various system modules and demonstrate the effectiveness of ITS-R through computational experiments based on real-world data. The successful completion of those research tasks would yield a set of new mechanisms, optimization methods, and behavioral findings that are critical for TD population groups to benefit from the ITS-R system. The research findings will also inform paratransit regulatory agencies in making effective financial and operational policies.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.