The percentage of older adults residing in America’s auto-oriented suburbs is projected to grow significantly in the coming decades. When these individuals are no longer able to safely drive themselves, they may seek alternative modes of transportation in order to maintain their independence. In many metro areas, robust public transit exists in the urban core but can be relatively sparse in suburban areas, thus creating a service gap. At the same time, a growing number of elder-service nonprofits have begun to offer transportation services for older clients, leveraging unique staff expertise with elder-care issues in order to fill the service gap. The potential for partnerships between nonprofits and public transit agencies is on the rise, fueled primarily by federal grants and skyrocketing demand for transportation. This dissertation examines the state of affairs in elder-service transportation in the suburbs of three American cities from three perspectives: The elder-service nonprofits innovating programs, the transit agencies partnering with these nonprofits, and the older adults who use these services in order to age in place. The investigation relies on interviews, focus groups, and document analysis as source material. Using a process of axial coding and pattern matching, analysis focuses on the ways in which providers function, partner, and meet the needs of suburban older adults. The results show that these nonprofit innovators are delivering specialized and elder-conscious services that are quite popular with riders, while also often remaining deliberately independent of taxpayer support. Interagency partnerships, although viewed positively by managers in both agency types, are thus limited to short-term contracts that dissipate as the nonprofit matures and secures local funding. Where partnerships do occur, results show a need for simplified reporting of designated outcomes and better information-sharing between agencies. Taken together, the results indicate a rich and varied network of resources being committed to address this critical mobility challenge. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Urban and Regional Planning in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2018. / March 1, 2018. / Nonprofit Management, Older Adults, Partnerships, Rider Perspective, Suburbia, Transportation / Includes bibliographical references. / Jeffrey R. Brown, Professor Directing Dissertation; Ralph S. Brower, University Representative; Rebecca Miles, Committee Member; Michael Duncan, Committee Member.

In Mexico, transportation planning deals with unique social, political, financial and cultural elements when promoting mobility solutions. These elements include the opportunity costs of public investments, institutional barriers and changes in the political agenda. Other important element is the influence of existing private bus operator. Bus provision is offered by a disproportionate number of small private enterprises, single concessionaries and unregulated providers. Today, many of these entities have gained political power and, often, resist attempts to improve public transportation. The recommended solution to overcome political problem created from the opposition from private providers includes the introduction of franchise systems. Franchising systems under strict institutional regulations support the incorporation of current private providers in the proposed projects. However, incorporating bus operators into any form of system under franchise system implies major changes in private providers’ business and routines. Franchising implies moving from concession-owner-driver to simple employee or shareholder of the new system. Franchising also results in having to change routines associated with the operation. Understandably, these changes generate resistance, delaying implementations. In this thesis it is argued that a framework from which the influence of these private providers on transport improvements may be evaluated is critically important. This framework can contribute to knowledge about the political feasibility of projects. Private bus operators can exert an influence on system technology and on the selection of areas for improvements. Based on qualitative and quantitative methods, this thesis frames, analyzes, formalizes and quantifies the impact of private bus operators in government attempts to improve transit provision. A fieldwork methodology was employed to identify the factors that influence private bus operators’ reactions to transit improvements. Using a logistic regression, these factors are statistically evaluated. Results show that several variables in which the government exert a direct influence (that related with trust, the legal recognition to operate and taxation) on private bus operators’ willingness to participate in transit improvements. Other important variables include those associated with the (i) characteristics of private bus operators; (ii) the nature of the business activity; and (iii) private bus operators’ perceptions about business having created for extensive period of time. Rationalizing the influence of private bus operators’ influence on the planning process of transit improvements contributes to maximizing the political feasibility of completion.

Thesis (M. Soc. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 1984.

published_or_final_version / Urban Planning and Design / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

In Mexico, transportation planning deals with unique social, political, financial and cultural elements when promoting mobility solutions. These elements include the opportunity costs of public investments, institutional barriers and changes in the political agenda. Other important element is the influence of existing private bus operator. Bus provision is offered by a disproportionate number of small private enterprises, single concessionaries and unregulated providers. Today, many of these entities have gained political power and, often, resist attempts to improve public transportation. The recommended solution to overcome political problem created from the opposition from private providers includes the introduction of franchise systems. Franchising systems under strict institutional regulations support the incorporation of current private providers in the proposed projects. However, incorporating bus operators into any form of system under franchise system implies major changes in private providers’ business and routines. Franchising implies moving from concession-owner-driver to simple employee or shareholder of the new system. Franchising also results in having to change routines associated with the operation. Understandably, these changes generate resistance, delaying implementations. In this thesis it is argued that a framework from which the influence of these private providers on transport improvements may be evaluated is critically important. This framework can contribute to knowledge about the political feasibility of projects. Private bus operators can exert an influence on system technology and on the selection of areas for improvements. Based on qualitative and quantitative methods, this thesis frames, analyzes, formalizes and quantifies the impact of private bus operators in government attempts to improve transit provision. A fieldwork methodology was employed to identify the factors that influence private bus operators’ reactions to transit improvements. Using a logistic regression, these factors are statistically evaluated. Results show that several variables in which the government exert a direct influence (that related with trust, the legal recognition to operate and taxation) on private bus operators’ willingness to participate in transit improvements. Other important variables include those associated with the (i) characteristics of private bus operators; (ii) the nature of the business activity; and (iii) private bus operators’ perceptions about business having created for extensive period of time. Rationalizing the influence of private bus operators’ influence on the planning process of transit improvements contributes to maximizing the political feasibility of completion.

Master of Regional and Community Planning / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional & Community Planning / Gregory Newmark / Personal automobile use is commonly recognized as impacting public health, environmental sustainability, land use, and household expense. Car use is closely tied to car ownership rates, and fewer cars per household could indicate greater utilization of alternative modes of transportation. Most car ownership and active transportation research focuses on urban areas. However, much of the United States remains rural, and different factors may impact car ownership in less-densely populated areas. This research examines car ownership trends in rural counties to identify communities with lower than expected rates of car ownership considering demographic factors. 2,285 counties in the continental United States were identified as rural according to guidelines found in the Agriculture Act of 2014. These counties were grouped into five regions based on U.S. Census Bureau definitions. To identify counties of interest, an Ordinary Least Squares regression was created for each region that incorporated data from the 1990 Decennial Census and 2014 5-year American Community Survey. Two counties from each region were selected and studied for policies that may be correlated with car ownership rates: a county with a lower-than-expected car ownership rate change and a county with a typical car ownership rate change to serve as a control. Local professionals were interviewed and relevant policies summarized.

As states continue to consider taking on more responsibility in transportation, a major issue State Departments of Transportation (DOTs) face relates to financing future transportation investments. At present, many state transportation policymakers and State DOT administrators are considering alternative financing approaches to generate future revenue sources for transportation investments. This dissertation focuses on several user fee based approaches currently being considered by state transportation policymakers and administrators in the U.S. Examples of such approaches include: increasing the current fuel tax and indexing the fuel tax to inflation; implementing an odometer based vehicle miles traveled (VMT) fee approach through vehicle inspection programs in selected states; establishing a global positioning system (GPS) based VMT fee approach for heavy vehicles where privacy and implementation costs are less of a concern; and increasing existing tolls and charging tolls on existing roads that do not have tolls, preferably with open-road tolling (ORT) and all-electronic toll (AET) payment systems. Meanwhile, major questions of interest relate to the potential impacts or consequences of such financing approaches. Central to this dissertation is the development of a conceptual framework and analytical methods to aid state transportation policymakers and administrators in the planning and formulation of alternative financing approaches suitable for consideration in their state. The application of the framework and methods is illustrated in a case study. This case study includes an evaluation of alternative toll scenarios on a section of Interstate 93 in the Boston Metropolitan area where at present tolls are not charged. A major conclusion of the case study is that placing tolls along interstate highways where tolls are not currently collected has the potential to provide a significant source of revenue for State DOTs but that other impacts including route diversion, privacy, and equity need to be considered and addressed in the decision-making process. It is expected that the results of the dissertation will be of interest to state transportation policy makers as well as State DOT administrators currently involved in the development of a comprehensive transportation finance policy.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the effect of environmental and traffic-related factors on the frequency and severity of highway crashes with a focus on different age groups including the aging populations. Existing studies in the traffic safety have not specifically focused on aging driver-involved crashes. Aging drivers are more vulnerable to the roadway crashes than other adult age groups due to their cognitive, physical and health limitations. This problem becomes more challenging due to the drastic variation in the traffic patterns that especially happen on the major highways. In this thesis, several data sets from different sources, such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Florida Automated Weather Network (FAWN), the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) and the United States Naval Observatory (USNO), are collected, refined and combined. With the aid of statistical correlation analysis and logistic regression, a top down analysis is performed in order to analyze the occurrence of crashes via a case study application on the I-95 highway corridor in the State of Florida. Using logit curves, a sensitivity analysis is carried out to quantify the effect of traffic volume on the crash frequency. In addition to the crash frequency analysis, factors influencing the crash severity are also analyzed in an integrated manner for two metropolitan areas in the City of Jacksonville and Miami, Florida. Both frequency- and severity-focused analyses have led to several important conclusions. Results suggest that the variation in the hourly traffic volume significantly affects the crash occurrences for both aging and non-aging drivers depending on the geographical location; however, the crash occurrence for aging drivers is less sensitive to the flow than other age groups in congested locations. Results indicate that crash severity for all other age groups decrease on roadways with narrower shoulders and at night unlike those of aging drivers. Furthermore, driving at night on I-95 in Jacksonville seems to be problematic for both age classes whereas that risk is less for Miami locations. Higher roadway surface width also appears to increase the chance of having a severe crash for aging drivers. The DUI-influenced crashes have also been detected considerably high on the I-95 highway corridor in the City of Miami, Florida. This problem seems critical both in terms of crash frequency and severity. The proposed methodology can help transportation officials to understand the nature of the aging driver-involved crashes, and formulate better safety-oriented decisions. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. / Summer Semester 2016. / July 12, 2016. / Aging Populations, Crash Analysis, Logistic Regression, Safety Modeling, Vehicle Accident / Includes bibliographical references. / O. Arda Vanli, Professor Co-Directing Thesis; Eren Erman Ozguven, Professor Co-Directing Thesis; Abhishek K. Shrivastava, Committee Member; Chiwoo Park, Committee Member.

Analytical models developed using field data can provide useful information with acceptable confidence to evaluate and predict the operational characteristics of a highway. As such, this study presents statistical models that can be used to estimate the travel time or speed distribution, cluster different traffic conditions, to model the dynamic transition of traffic regimes (DTR), and quantify the disparity-effects on the DTR associated with different lateral lane positions (i.e., lane near shoulder, middle lane(s) and lane near a median) as well as different days of the week. In the analysis, this study uses Bayesian frameworks to estimate the model parameters. These frameworks reduce the impact of model over-fitting and also incorporate uncertainty in the estimates. Data from a freeway corridor along I-295 located in Jacksonville, Florida were selected for analysis. It includes data from individual microwave vehicle sensors, segment level aggregated traffic data and data aggregated at a corridor level. The proposed probabilistic frameworks developed by this study can be a useful resource in detecting and evaluating different traffic conditions, which can facilitate the planning action to implement congestion-related countermeasures in urban areas. In addition, findings from the hierarchical regression model presented by the current study can be used in the application of intelligent transportation systems, mainly in the dynamic lane-management strategy. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester 2019. / March 25, 2019. / Bayesian non-parametric, Change-point regression, Disparity-effect, Dynamic transition of traffic regimes, Traffic breakdown event, Traffic congestion / Includes bibliographical references. / Ren Moses, Professor Directing Dissertation; Michael Duncan, University Representative; Eren E. Ozguven, Committee Member; John O. Sobanjo, Committee Member; Thobias M. Sando, Committee Member.

Using the case of the Osceola Parkway Extension in Orange and Osceola Counties, this research examines how the legal geographies of expressway development and property rights claims intersect with gopher tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) conservation efforts in Central Florida. Proposed and existing road infrastructure projects, such as the proposed Osceola Parkway Extension, continue to fragment gopher tortoise habitat in Florida. The Central Florida Expressway Authority rationalizes the road as a necessity, justifying appropriation of land for the parkway extension’s development. Thus, determining the route of the Osceola Parkway Extension has become the focus of road governance. The majority of the proposed road alignments for the extension transect Split Oak Forest and Wildlife Management Area, threatening the security of both the gopher tortoise population and gopher tortoise mitigation property within the forest. However, while the Central Florida Expressway Authority has jurisdiction over the governance of the road, it does not own the land needed to build it. This creates a relation between road governance and competing property rights, which then poses the question: what property rights must be ceded for right-of-way acquisition? Competing property rights holders have become enmeshed in the road governance process, as environmentalists seeking to protect conservation easements conflict with residential property owners. Thus, the mobilization of competing property rights claims structure the dialogue around road infrastructure encroachment onto conservation lands. How the competing values of suburban family homes and conservation easements, and the human and animal lives they support, are balanced will ultimately shape the road’s alignment. This suggests that legal and political conservation strategies need to be understood in dialogue with the governing rationalities of expressway and suburban development that continue to constitute enduring threats to the gopher tortoise and their local environments. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Geography in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. / 2019 / November 8, 2019. / Circulation, Conservation, Expressway, Gopher Tortoise, Governance, Property / Includes bibliographical references. / Tyler McCreary, Professor Directing Thesis; Mabel Gergan, Committee Member; Ronald E. Doel, Committee Member.