In many US cities, ride-hailing apps are luring riders away from public transit and increasing traffic congestion. But with the right rules, they could enhance public transit instead.
The tricky math behind your bus route.
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Supply-chain experts see reliable data, STEM education and smarter regulation as essential for Australia to succeed in an increasingly automated world under pressure to be environmentally sustainable.
Ant colonies direct traffic flows of millions of individuals along the best routes – army ants even manage inbound and outbound lanes – but how?
Geoff Gallice/Wikimedia
Insects aren’t known for having big brains, and slime moulds and fungi don’t have any. So how do they solve challenges that test the ingenuity of human transport engineers?
Citibike station in midtown Manhattan.
Jim Henderson
Dozens of US cities have launched bike-share programs in the past decade. There have been bumps – critics want wider access, and cities want bikes stored out of the way – but bike sharing is on a roll.
The Trump administration announced a plan to relax fuel economy standards, but well-designed regulations can drive clean car innovations that make U.S. industry globally competitive.
Junfeng Jiao, The University of Texas at Austin and Chris Bischak, The University of Texas at Austin
Even in cities with good public transportation, some areas can be ‘transit deserts,’ where demand exceeds supply. Living in these zones makes it hard to access good jobs, health care and other services.
New York soon may charge a fee to drive into central Manhattan as a way of reducing traffic and raising funds for public transit. An urban scholar says this step is overdue in the United States.
Wages are low among hospitality workers, who are disproportionately female.
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Junfeng Jiao, The University of Texas at Austin; Juan Miró, The University of Texas at Austin, and Nicole McGrath, The University of Texas at Austin
Millions of Americans rely on public transit to get to school, work or stores, but many can’t get the service they need. ‘Uberizing’ transit by offering more options on demand could fill the gaps.
A self-driving shuttle at Texas A&M.
Swaroopa Saripalli
Combining machine learning, artificial intelligence and autonomous vehicles could revolutionize how people with disabilities get around their communities.
Ride-hailing app drivers – partners or exploited labour?
Reuters/Beawiharta
How might we, and our nation’s roads and highways, need to change as autonomous vehicles become more ubiquitous? We know a lot of the answers, but not all of them.
Sales of electric vehicles are growing fast, especially in Europe.
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Shifting to plug-in cars wouldn’t be enough to max out global oil consumption by 2040. But it could help make that happen if cities pitch in and ride-sharing doesn’t crowd out public transportation.
Many Americans need reliable public transit to get to school or work.
Frank Hank
Many Americans live in transit deserts – areas where demand for transit exceeds the supply. To fix these gaps, we need to find and map them so agencies can add transit options in the right places.
How can we ensure technology brings prosperity to us all?
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Distinguished Blue Planet Prize Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Founding Director, Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Davis