The colonias along the Texas-Mexico border are one of the most rapidly growing areas in Texas. Because of the relatively low income of the residents and an inadequate availability of transportation services, the need for basic social activities for the colonias cannot be properly met. The objectives of this study are to have a better comprehension of the status quo of these communities by examining the potential demand for an improved transportation service and evaluate the capacity and optimum service time interval of a new demand responsive transit "feeder" service within one representative colonia, El Cenizo. A comprehensive analysis of the results of a survey conducted through a questionnaire is presented to explain the existing travel patterns and potential demand for a feeder service. The results of this thesis and work from the subsequent simulation analysis showed that a single shuttle would be able to comfortably serve 150 passengers/day. It further showed that the optimal cycle length between consecutive departures from the terminal should be between 11-13 minutes for best service quality. This exploratory study should serve as a first step towards improving transportation services within these growing underprivileged communities especially those with demographics and geography similar to the target area of El Cenizo.

Autonomous vehicles are predicted to disrupt the current landscape of urban mobility.Many studies have investigated how autonomous vehicles, either operated as a serviceor as private cars, could compete against public transport and even replace it. Fewerstudies have investigated how autonomous vehicles could actually be an opportunityfor the public transport sector, as a new type of offer that would cover specific needsalong traditional modes such as buses or metros.The aim of this project is to quantify the effect of replacing part of the public transportnetwork of Uppsala by demand-responsive autonomous fleets. This is achieved bybuilding a transport model based on the traditional four-step transport model andcalculating the total cost of the network both from the passenger and the operator’sperspective.The study shows that autonomous vehicles can slightly improve the performance of thenetwork and work best when combined with traditional bus lines. However, they alsoincrease the traffic and have a risk to cause congestion.