Research Projects | National Institute for Transportation and Communities

Seamless Wayfinding by Individuals with Functional Disability in Indoor and Outdoor Spaces: An Investigation into Lived Experiences, Data Needs, and Technology Requirements

Principal Investigator: Martin Swobodzinski

Co-Investigator: Amy Parker

Human wayfinding and navigation allow human beings to fully participate in the environment and are essential elements for leading healthy, economically sustainable, and full lives. People with disabilities, including individuals with blindness, deafb ... Read More

Is Transit-Oriented Development Affordable for Low and Moderate Income Households (in terms of H+T)?

Principal Investigator: Reid Ewing

Co-Investigators: Nicole Iroz-Elardo , Arlie Adkins

The transportation and land use planning paradigm is shifting away from segregated uses connected by highways and roads to more compact, mixed-use developments connected by high quality transit. This new paradigm has brought transit-oriented developm ... Read More

Methodologies to Quantify Transit Performance Metrics at the System-Level

Principal Investigator: Travis Glick

Performance metrics have typically focused at two main scales: a microscopic scale that focuses on specific locations, time-periods, and trips; and, a macroscopic scale that averages metrics over longer times, entire routes, and networks. When applie ... Read More

National Scan of Bike Share Equity Programs

Principal Investigator: John MacArthur

Co-Investigators: Nathan McNeil , Joseph Broach

As bike share systems around the United States have grown in number and size in recent years, there has been an increasing effort to ensure that those systems are accessible to all residents, particularly those who have the fewest resources or have b ... Read More

Pedal the Old Pueblo: A Naturalistic Study on Bicycling in Tucson, AZ

Principal Investigator: Joey Iuliano

Concerns for the environment and personal health have made bicycling an increasingly popular mode of transportation in the US. Understanding how bicyclists move through the built environment is critical to designing infrastructure that promotes safe ... Read More

Optimizing Housing and Service Locations to Provide Mobility to Meet the Mandated Obligations for Former Offenders to Improve Community Health and Safety

Principal Investigator: Anne Nordberg

Co-Investigators: Stephen Mattingly , Jaya Davis

Roughly 2,000 inmates return to communities each day in the U.S. Unsuccessful re-entry jeopardizes community safety, promotes re-incarceration, and increases costs to taxpayers to support the criminal justice apparatus. Research indicates that stron ... Read More

LRT/BRT/SCT/CRT Development Outcomes FINAL PHASE

Principal Investigator: Arthur C. Nelson

Co-Investigators: Kristina Currans , Nicole Iroz-Elardo

This project will be the FINAL PHASE of a genre of NITC-sponsored research that includes previous NITC contracts 547, 650, 763. and 1103. As background, contracts 547 and 650 were used to build station area databases for 12 light rail transit (LRT) s ... Read More

Scooting to a New Era in Active Transportation: Examining the Use and Safety of E-Scooters

Principal Investigator: Kristina Currans

Co-Investigators: Reid Ewing , Nicole Iroz-Elardo

The modern transportation paradigm is an ever-shifting target, and most recently, micro-mobility options such as electric shared scooter systems (e-scooters) have been contributing to local municipalities’ ability to adapt. Although several agencie ... Read More

Data-Driven Mobility Strategies for Multi-Modal Transportation

Principal Investigator: Yao-Jan Wu

Co-Investigators: Xianfeng Yang , Sirisha Kothuri

By using various modes (e.g., walking, cycling, automobile, public transit, etc.), multi-modal transportation systems are effective in increasing people’s travel flexibility and reducing congestion. Hence, it is critical to understand how roadway s ... Read More

Green Waves, Machine Learning, and Predictive Analytics: Making Streets Better for People on Bike & Scooter

Principal Investigator: Marc Schlossberg

Co-Investigator: Stephen Fickas

In a prior NITC project that ended in early 2019,we successfully built and deployed a hardware and software ‘product’, called ‘Bike Connect’, that allowed people on bike to give hands-free advance information to an upcoming traffic signal bas ... Read More

Rethinking Streets for Physical Distancing

Principal Investigator: Marc Schlossberg

Co-Investigator: Rebecca Lewis

Re-designing cities and streets to make them safer, more comfortable, and ultimately more used by people on bikes has been undergoing tremendous growth in cities across the country as well as in transportation research, yet we have witnessed a signif ... Read More

The Impact of Ride Hail Services on the Accessibility of Nonprofit Services

Principal Investigator: Dyana Mason

Nonprofit organizations are responsible for providing a significant level of social services across the United States, often in collaboration with government agencies (Smith & Lipsky, 1993). In this work, they address some of the most pressing issues ... Read More