Understanding and Improving Energy Efficiency of Regional Mobility Systems

This initiative examines inexpensive, replicable data from multi-modal transportation networks to develop a simulation framework identifying energy inefficiencies across infrastructure, vehicles, and passenger systems. The research concentrates on solo driving, ride-sharing, and parking within regional mobility contexts.

The project recognizes that parking availability, accessibility, and prices are central to travel behavior, and that cruising for parking generates unnecessary energy consumption. A novel modeling framework captures passenger and vehicular flows across roadway-parking networks, incorporating data from traffic, parking systems, and vehicle inspections.

Three management strategies are evaluated: vehicle electrification, demand management via incentives and information for ride-sharing and parking, and roadway/parking infrastructure modifications. Performance metrics include travel time, vehicle-miles traveled, energy consumption, emissions, accessibility, and mobility-energy productivity (MEP) — a metric combining energy and user costs with accessibility benefits.

An optimization framework improves system efficiency and MEP in the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh regions.