On Mobility Equity and the Promise of Emerging Transportation Systems

TL;DR

This paper proposes a new mobility equity metric (MEM) to evaluate fairness in multi-modal transportation systems, and develops a routing framework to optimize this metric, promoting equitable access across diverse populations.

Contribution

It introduces the MEM for assessing fairness in transportation, and presents a routing framework to optimize mobility equity in multi-modal networks.

Findings

MEM effectively characterizes transportation fairness across cities.

Routing optimization improves equitable access for diverse social groups.

Simulation results demonstrate the framework's potential to enhance mobility equity.

Abstract

This paper introduces a mobility equity metric (MEM) for evaluating fairness and accessibility in multi-modal intelligent transportation systems. The MEM simultaneously accounts for service accessibility and transportation costs across different modes of transportation and social demographics. We provide a data-driven validation of the proposed MEM to characterize the impact of various parameters in the metric across cities in the U.S. We subsequently develop a routing framework that aims to optimize MEM within a transportation network containing both public transit and private vehicles. Within this framework, a system planner provides routing suggestions to vehicles across all modes of transportation to maximize MEM. We evaluate our approach through numerical simulations, analyzing the impact of travel demands and compliance of private vehicles. This work provides insights into designing transportation systems that are not only efficient but also equitable, ensuring fair access to essential services across diverse populations.