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Description
The past two decades have been marked by disruptions in the way transportation is provided to society. Examples are carsharing, ridehailing services, and electric scooters. Understanding how sensitive travel behavior is during transportation disruptions is a key part of planning for the future of transportation. While the effects of people's attitudes and perceptions on travel behavior and choices have been studied in the past, their role in response to disruptions remains under explored. This dissertation explores the effect of attitudes on travel behavior and perceptions for two distinct disruptions: the advent of autonomous vehicles (AVs) and the COVID-19 pandemic. Before diving into such elaborate relationships, it is important to understand how attitudinal data is collected and measured. Thus, a study of the effects of different survey methods on the collection of attitudes towards transportation disruptions is performed. This dissertation finds that having a favorable perception of AVs is the most important factor in defining one’s willingness to use them. More importantly, those who only heard about AVs without knowing much about them were actually less likely to have a favorable perception when compared to those who never heard of AVs prior to the survey, reinforcing the need for thoughtful education and awareness initiatives. Additionally, gender also played an important role in expectations about the AV Future: not only are women less interested in using AVs as a pooled ride service, but also that the effect of attitudes on defining that choice was different for men and women. Regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, two different attitudes towards COVID were identified: concern about the effects of the COVID-19 response, and concern about the health effects of the coronavirus. Both shaped the ways people traveled, and how often they did so. These findings reinforce the need for the broad collection of attitudinal data and the incorporation of such parameters on future travel forecasting.
ContributorsCapasso da Silva, Denise (Author) / Pendyala, Ram M (Thesis advisor) / Khoeini, Sara (Thesis advisor) / Salon, Deborah (Committee member) / Thompson, Marilyn (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
With high potential for automobiles to cause air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, there is concern that automobiles accessing or egressing public transportation may cause emissions similar to regular automobile use. Due to limited literature and research that evaluates and discusses environmental impacts from first and last mile portions of transit trips, there is a lack of understanding on this topic. This research aims to comprehensively evaluate the life cycle impacts of first and last mile trips on multimodal transit. A case study of transit and automobile travel in the greater Los Angeles region is evaluated by using a comprehensive life cycle assessment combined with regional household travel survey data to evaluate first-last mile trip impacts in multimodal transit focusing on automobile trips accessing or egressing transit. First and last mile automobile trips were found to increase total multimodal transit trip emissions by 2 to 12 times (most extreme cases were carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds). High amounts of coal-fired energy generation can cause electric propelled rail trips with automobile access or egress to have similar or more emissions (commonly greenhouse gases, sulfur dioxide, and mono-nitrogen oxides) than competing automobile trips, however, most criteria air pollutants occur remotely. Methods to reduce first-last mile impacts depend on the characteristics of the transit systems and may include promoting first-last mile carpooling, adjusting station parking pricing and availability, and increased emphasis on walking and biking paths in areas with low access-egress trip distances.
ContributorsHoehne, Christopher G (Author) / Chester, Mikhail V (Thesis advisor) / Salon, Deborah (Committee member) / Zhou, Xuesong (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016