The Atlanta region will soon be faced with a choice as to how it will go about planning for and implementing its next regional fare collection system that will replace the current BREEZE system. In 2006, MARTA became the first transit agency in the United States to implement an all contactless smartcard for use on its services. However, there have been many advances in new technologies and the consumer payment preferences have evolved since the initial implementation. These developments, coupled with the rapid consumer adoption of smartphones and changing attitudes within the financial payments industry towards transit properties, have recently led four major transit agencies within North America to implement new fare collection systems based on open payments, the development of mobile ticketing applications, or a combination. This research uses a case study methodology to answer several questions related to the planning and implementation of regional fare collection systems in Chicago (CTA), Dallas (DART), Philadelphia (SEPTA) and Toronto (TTC). Based on the experience of the case study agencies, the implementation of Atlanta's next fare collection system is sure to be a long and arduous process. However, by utilizing the lessons learned from DART, CTA, SEPTA and TTC, MARTA and the other regional operators (Cobb Community Transit, Gwinnett County Transit and the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority) will be better poised to provide their patrons with additional means of paying fares while, at the same, minimizing the disruption to the existing fare collection system during the transition period.

Since the beginning of the 21st Century, the world has seen the rapid development of the so-called "sharing economy" or collaborative consumption (Botsman, 2010). One of the first areas affected by the shared economy is vehicle ownership. With the emergence of several new providers of mobility services, such as Uber and car2go, there has been the promise of changes to the traditional way of owning and using a vehicle (Wong, Hensher, & Mulley, 2017). One potential consequence of shared mobility services is the reduction in vehicle ownership. At the same time, cities are trying to anticipate these changes by reducing the amount of space dedicated to parking, including parking requirements for residential developments. This thesis aims to assess the extent to which new shared mobility services (specifically, carsharing, bikesharing, and ridehailing) and travel demand management strategies (especially parking requirements and transit pass availability) relate to vehicle ownership among residents of multifamily dwellings. To do this, we use a web-based survey targeted to residents of multifamily apartments from Portland, Oregon. With these data, we built a multinomial logistic of the number of the vehicles owned as a function of socio-demographics, built environment, parking supply, transit passes, and three forms of shared mobility services. Results suggest that there is a strong association between shared mobility use and car ownership. However, it is not as significant as the effects of income, household size, distance to work, transit pass ownership, or even parking availability. Carshare use was negatively associated with the number of household vehicles, suggesting that it may be a useful tool in reducing car ownership. For respondents with higher education and income levels, increased carshare use was associated with fewer cars. Ridehail use, however, was not as clearly associated with reducing vehicle ownership and the effect was much smaller than that of carsharing. Parking availability in the building also has a significant and positive association with vehicle ownership. In sites with no parking available, there is an increased chance of the household owning less than two or more vehicles. However, this effect seems to disappear with the increased use of shared mobility. For all income levels, monthly use of ridehail and carshare between two and three times may decrease the odds of owning two or more vehicles. The use of both options, relaxing parking requirements and shared mobility availability, seems the best strategy to reduce vehicle ownership. In the short term, it is an alternative to those residents that decide to get rid of one or all cars but still are not ready to give up using cars. For the long term, a new relationship with vehicle ownership can be built now for the younger generation.