Browsing by Author "DeBruin, Hannah"
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Item GIS-Based Comprehensive Shared Micromobility Station Siting Optimization for Small Urban Areas(2023) DeBruin, HannahShared micromobility travel modes such as dockless e-scooters and bikeshare programs have become increasingly popular in the United States in the last decade because of their potential to improve multi-modal accessibility within communities. Smaller urbanized areas with lower population densities and fewer resources for system planning, operation, and maintenance present unique challenges with siting optimal station/service area locations. This research develops a comprehensive GIS-based methodology for optimizing micromobility stations/service area locations using available and rasterized geospatial data to capture bikeshare demand indicators. Inputs are prioritized by overall importance according to the results of a survey of transportation professionals, with weights calculated by an analytic hierarchy process. These different factors are combined to create a new spatial index value to identify hotspots for candidate station/service area locations, which can be further analyzed to choose optimal locations based on the budgeted quantity of station/service area locations and ideal spacing between stations/service areas. The case study of the methodology is presented on a bikeshare station siting study in Iowa City, Iowa using data from the Metropolitan Planning Organization of Johnson County. This research seeks to improve shared micromobility station/service area planning to better orient service to a variety of transportation goals including regular/commuting use, recreational use, equity, first/last mile connection to transit, and operational partnership opportunities. Multimodal travel times and job accessibility in the study area are evaluated both before and after the introduction of bikeshare, and both greatly improve with the introduction of optimal stations. Public agencies could expect to benefit from this comprehensive methodology because it uses easily obtainable data sources and provides the flexibility to weight the importance of factors differently in order to fit their communities’ specific transportation goals.Item Survey and Interviews on Contactless Payment for Western Minnesota Rural Transit(2024-06-27) Khani, Alireza; DeBruin, Hannah; akhani@umn.edu; Khani, Alireza; University of Minnesota Transit LabThe survey focuses on access and demographic disparities in the use of contactless fare payment and comfort/discomfort in using it in rural areas. Questions about passenger acceptance of technology, biases, and monetary capability were included to assess the magnitude of these challenges. Specifically, survey questions were developed to assess transit usage patterns throughout the pandemic, attitudes about COVID-19-related safety concerns, and fare payment. The first section of the survey includes questions about the frequency of transit use for different periods. This is then followed by questions about access to a smartphone, mobile data plan, and internet, along with the questions asking for sociodemographic information of respondents. The interviews focused on transit users' experience during and after the implementation of contactless fare payment. The passenger interview focused on the attitude towards the contactless fare payment.