Leveraging App Technology to Measure the Impact of Transportation Disadvantage: A Methodological Case Study

Traditional and existing innovative data-collection methods may not fully capture the lived experiences and underserved travel demands of individuals experiencing transportation disadvantage (TD). Furthermore, individuals at risk for TD tend to be the same individuals who are at risk for social exclusion (i.e. structural marginalization of persons leading to the denial of access to resources and/or discouragement from participating in the wider community), perhaps due, in part, to TD. This novel research utilizes an intensive ecological, longitudinal design to understand the actual and desired travel experiences of two environmental-justice (EJ) populations: low-income older adults and women with dependent children experiencing homelessness within the framework of social exclusion. An interdisciplinary team collaborated on the design and development of an app, MyAmble, to measure the impact of TD on the following domains of social exclusion: resources, participation, and quality of life. MyAmble includes several innovations – daily digital trip planning, a text-messaging based qualitative interview tool, and a challenge logger enabling participants to document real-time transportation barriers through videos and photos. Responding to the need for new data collection methods, MyAmble aims to more fully understand the transportation needs of EJ populations along temporally and spatially contextualized scales. Findings will inform recommendations related to building transportation equity for EJ populations and offer implications for practice and research.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ADD20 Standing Committee on Social and Economic Factors of Transportation.
• Authors:
  • Fields, Noelle L
  • Cronley, Courtney
  • 0000-0002-8325-6356
  • Mattingly, Stephen P
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 97th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2018-1-7 to 2018-1-11
• Date: 2018

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 18p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Accessibility; Low income groups; Mobility; Social factors; Transportation disadvantaged persons; Travel demand
• Subject Areas: Highways; Planning and Forecasting;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01663332
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 18-06073
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Mar 21 2018 10:04AM