The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has undeniably changed our normal routines and established practices. These changes, along with ongoing advancements in technology, may present opportunities to offer better mobility options to a wider segment of the American population than ever before.
If carefully combined with public transit and substantially scaled up, the concept of offering consumers access to a combination of modes through a smartphone app to plan, reserve, and pay for transportation known as Mobility as a Service (MaaS) shows potential to further mobility, equity, and sustainability.
The background of this new mobility is laid out and steps are offered for making local, state, and regional transportation systems more cohesive in a new report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine,
The Role of Transit, Shared Modes, and Public Policy in the New Mobility Landscape.
Adoption of the report’s recommendations will help offer multimodal transportation options that reduce carbon and other emissions and improve equity as well in our new normal.
Realizing the potentially transformative benefits of shared services and transit will require
(1) providing platforms to give customers much more complete options;
(2) integrating tickets and payment across services to greatly simplify the process of arranging and paying for multiple modes for a single trip; and
(3) overcoming fragmented management across modes and jurisdictions to facilitate such outcomes.
Focusing on consumer choice
If anything, the pandemic has shown the value of meeting customers where they are comfortable and adapting to change. A focus on the traveler will be expected of both public transit and private mobility options.
Without information about the availability, duration, cost, carbon emissions, and other factors, travelers will continue to rely on single-occupancy vehicles, which dominates travel in the United States. But with the advent of shared mobility services, consumers have more choices for more sustainable, equitable, and efficient travel. The report highlights five capabilities needed in a multi-modal system and then recommends implementation strategies.
Recommendations include the creation of publicly available platforms that integrate and share information from all sources to consumers about regional transportation options and their cost, duration, and emissions. Changes should also be made in legislation to require complete reporting about service availability while protecting consumer privacy and proprietary information.
In 2018, two of TRB’s Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) reports looked at the relationship between new mobility options and transit and found benefits for travelers and society as a whole if the options aligned more closely.
Private Transit: Existing Services and Emerging Directions found that these services could reduce single-occupancy vehicle trips as a complement to public transit.
Broadening Understanding of the Interplay Among Public Transit, Shared Mobility, and Personal Automobiles noted that ridehailing, in particular, was used only occasionally to replace these trips, not routinely. While both routine travel and mobility have changed since the reports, the emphasis on scaling up has not.
In moving towards transit-oriented communities, TRB is
offering a webinar in February that will look at how development impacts travel behavior, real estate prices, residential location, urban form, and community life.
Integrated tickets and payment apps
Most North American transit agencies use electronic fare cards and some offer payment by smartphones linked to credit cards or by smartphone app. The apps developed by ridehailing companies have made payment quick, convenient, and simple. They are examples of what could be possible, although it is still tricky to coordinate this for trips that span multiple agencies, parking, transit, and shared mobility.
Some agencies already have precursor systems in place. For example, the Bay Area’s Clipper Card works on trips across all transit agencies and the For GoBike bikesharing system. Washington, D.C.’s SmartTrip card allows a single card to pay transit fares as well as parking in its garages.
TCRP’s
Multimodal Fare Payment Integration documents practices and experiences of transit agencies dealing with the complexities of multimodal fare payment convergence. Nearly all transit agencies are seeing potential benefits to multimodal payment convergence. However, many agencies find that implementing necessary upgrades is cost-prohibitive. Cost is the biggest barrier to full adoption.
MaaS can take to the air as well. For example, TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) notes the importance of airport operators investing in data sharing for passengers. ACRP’s
Transportation Network Companies (TNCs): Impacts to Airport Revenues and Operations—Reference Guide again mentions the Bay Area Rapid Transit’s partnership allowing passengers to purchase discounted public transit ground transportation tickets to access the two area airports.
Overcoming fragmentation to cross jurisdictions
To garner the most reward from new mobility,
The Role of Transit, Shared Modes, and Public Policy in the New Mobility Landscape’s recommendations can be most readily adopted by core cities and transit agencies and then expanded regionally.
The most populated metropolitan areas in the U.S. have, on average, three different transit agencies responsible for a defined jurisdiction. Both Philadelphia and Dallas-Ft. Worth have six. Los Angeles has 21. Miami has 23 different agencies. This degree of fragmentation makes coordination difficult and makes it less likely that all of the relevant entities will have the same goals and priorities. To ignore the challenges of government fragmentation, although they can be significant, is too short-sighted for a world that requires resilience. It is easier said than done, but the report offers guidance for moving forward.
Transit agencies working in close collaboration with a large central city or urban county could set and share examples of success for other jurisdictions to follow. Metropolitan Planning Organizations could play a convening role in establishing a regional vision and an information-sharing role on the regional scale. States could encourage and incentivize jurisdictions and agencies within metro areas to cooperate toward common goals.
As early as 2016, TRB noted some of the largest challenges to making better use of innovative transportation services in the U.S. marketplace.
Between Public and Private Mobility: Examining the Rise of Technology-Enabled Transportation Services notes the need for consistency in policy setting and regulations of for-hire transportation services across jurisdictions. To set effective regulations, ridehailing companies are called on to share more information about the volume, frequency, and types of trips provided to allow for informed regulation and planning of transportation services.
Rural regional services fall in the middle of intercity bus service and rural public transportation. The TRB National Cooperative Highway Research Program’s (NCHRP)
Best Practices in Rural Regional Mobility offers lessons on cross collaboration by addressing the role of state transit program policies and regional planning agencies in developing rural regional services.
When transit agencies share their internal data sets, customer satisfaction, revenue, and service performance improve, according to TCRP’s
Data Sharing Guidance for Public Transit Agencies – Now and in the Future. Public transit isn’t alone. As the world becomes more connected through technology, all modes of transportation are exploring what data sharing can do for them.
Transit intersects jurisdictions, but also with the overall sharing economy. TCRP’s
Shared Mobility and the Transformation of Public Transit from 2016 examines the relationship between transit, shared mobility and the economy. It also looks at issues, opportunities, and challenges as they relate to technology-enabled mobility services, including suggesting ways that transit can learn from, build upon, and interface with these new modes.
To take full advantage of the benefits offered by a collaboration between transit and other mobility services, each region will have to find its own governance solutions given the great disparity of how governments are organized across the country, but regional planning organizations can help facilitate this process.
Bus network redesigns continue to trend
While it’s not a new concept, bus network redesigns have been a hot trend for transit agencies of all sizes to better match bus service with today’s travel needs–both before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. They may also be a good starting point for further incorporating new mobility into public transit. TCRP’s
Redesigning Transit Networks for the New Mobility Future summarizes and identifies best practices for bus network redesigns from planning to implementation as well as how transit agencies have incorporated new mobility into their planning processes.
Take part in the mobility revolution with TRB
Join TRB and the National Academies online this summer to delve deeper into understanding changing how we get around also impacts our environment. We will explore existing and needed research on the environmental health challenges related to emerging transportation services expected in the next decade at a
July 2021 event.
Over the past year, TRB offered webinars on the research and current events affecting shared mobility. In May, Susan Shaheen of University of California, Berkley discussed the impacts of
COVID-19 on shared mobility. In November, another webinar highlighted methods of
advancing innovative research used in both public and private sectors in the field.
Become a friend of TRB’s
Standing Committee on Transportation Demand Management or Standing Committee on Accessible Transportation and Mobility or
Standing Committee on Innovative Public Transportation Services and Technologies. Friends of committees receive updates on and can volunteer to participate in committee activities.
Get involved in this work with the Cooperative Research Programs. Look for
ongoing information on new projects, requests for proposals, or to nominate yourself or others to serve on a project panel. Submit problem statement research ideas and find new announcements in
TRB’s weekly newsletter or on the homepages for the
ACRP,
NCHRP, and the
TCRP.
Most immediately, sessions at TRB’s 100th Annual Meeting will focus on
transportation network modeling, the planning and adoption of
new mobility in developing countries, and a
poster session on MaaS. Full meeting registrants will be able to access Annual Meeting session recordings through March 18, 2021.
TRB reports cited in this article:
TRB committees cited:
TRB events cited:
Additional TRB resources:
Contact:
Beth Ewoldsen, Content Strategist
Transportation Research Board
202-334-2353;
bewoldsen@nas.edu
Published January 25, 2021
This Summary Last Modified On: 2/11/2021