This Smart and Connected Communities Planning Grant (SCC-PG) will support the development of next-generation transportation planning models that incorporate mobility service providers (e.g. Uber and Lyft) and connected automated vehicle technology. While mobility service providers have significantly improved mobility and accessibility in metropolitan regions over the last ten years, they have also significantly increased traffic congestion and harmful vehicle emissions. The eventual deployment of automated vehicles within mobility services is likely to exacerbate these societal benefits and negative societal outcomes. Through identifying effective transportation policies, this planning grant will help communities harness the benefits and avoid (some of) the negative outcomes associated with mobility services and connected automated vehicle technology. Moreover, the planning grant will support the deployment of automated vehicles on public roadways through models that identify infrastructure upgrades that benefit the community.

The overarching goal of this research is to improve sustainability, livability, and mobility throughout entire metropolitan regions via supporting transport planning, specifically infrastructure upgrades and transport policies, to capture the potential benefits of automated vehicles and mobility services. To meet this goal, the project will prototype multi-resolution agent-based regional transport system modeling tools that are sensitive to transport policies (e.g. congestion pricing) and infrastructure investments (e.g. protected left-turns, lane striping) and also explicitly capture the behavior and system impacts of mobility service providers and connected automated vehicle technology. The project will also involve prototyping optimization models to support proactive infrastructure investments that maximize the community benefits of new mobility/vehicle technologies such as connected and automated vehicles, rather than reactively upgrading infrastructure. Additionally, the planning phase of the project involves: working closely with community partners to identify their specific modeling needs; forming the best team of interdisciplinary researchers; and further refining the methodological approach. The research team will work closely with its main community stakeholder, the San Diego Association of Governments, other regional planning agencies, and cities who will implement infrastructure upgrades.