This S&CC project in southwest Houston establishes a collaborative process with community and commercial technology partners with an overall aim to leverage early Electric Vehicle (EV) adopter regional markets to accelerate equitable development of accessible fast charging infrastructure and EV ownership for low income families. The novelty of the project lies in a community-driven participatory approach that integrates both social and technical dimensions bringing transformational change to EV ownership and electrification of smart public transportation. This will be achieved by a data-driven model that integrates of real-time data for micro-transit, fixed-route transit, and carpooling services can predict and overcome the uncertainties of traffic conditions resulting in uncertain travel times and poor reliability. An engaging process establishes collaborative relationships, identifies adopter indicators, and incentives for equitable EV ownership and transit ridership. The project will result in a templet and framework for implementing smart transit hubs that can be reapplied at other Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County (METRO) facilities or to other transit systems as best practices.

Greater access to new electric mobility technologies requires reduction in economic barriers to EV ownership and transportation services. Communities need to proactively plan for transportation technologies to improve the lives of low-income communities while lowering emissions, increasing transit use, and reducing congestion. The intellectual merits include application of emerging data analytics, smart technologies, and machine learning to tackle a national challenge of equitable access to EV ownership and electric mobility. The project builds a model using artificial neural networks to capture complex, non-linear phenomena and parameterize data for real-time decision making. The broader project impacts include developing a digital ecosystem and incentive programs reflecting the national need to stimulate equitable access to EV ownership; regional policy impact demonstrating collaborative partnerships between cities, EV companies, fast charging developers, and ridesharing services; and research that opens up opportunities to use the data for EV impacts on the energy grid and future smart grid research. This project will identify how the deployment of smart technologies can improve the reliability, comfort, and affordability of transit services.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.