SCC-PG: Empathy and AI: Towards Equitable Microtransit

SCC-PG：同理心和人工智能：迈向公平的微交通

• 批准号: 2125447
• 负责人: Eleni Bardaka
• 金额: $ 15万
• 依托单位: North Carolina State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-10-01 至 2023-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2125447&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SCC; PG; Empathy; AI; Towards

Publicly owned microtransit has recently emerged as a promising solution for connecting suburban and rural transportation disadvantaged populations to employment and other important destinations. As a public transportation service, microtransit typically provides low, fixed trip rates, and does not rely on pricing mechanisms such as dynamic pricing to balance supply and demand. Although avoiding high rates and dynamic pricing is particularly appropriate for low-income, vulnerable population groups, it can lead to significant delays during the morning and afternoon peak with important consequences on the users, such as missed medical appointments and wages. Work and medical trips have time constraints, but other trips may be more flexible and could happen in off-peak periods to reduce service delays and missed critical trips. Fulfilling a Smart & Connected Communities (S&CC) vision, this planning grant focuses on technologically enabled and community-supported solutions for distributing travel demand over time for on-demand public transportation services in an equitable manner, without the exclusive or even primary use of traditional pricing incentives. An interdisciplinary team of faculty members and researchers will engage with communities in North Carolina that have piloted microtransit systems to advance this research and gain a better understanding of the community needs, preferences, and capacities. This grant has the potential to lead to an enhanced public microtransit paradigm, with fewer missed or delayed critical trips and quality-of-life improvements for the transportation disadvantaged. This research will advance our understanding of the feasibility of, and tradeoffs involved in enabling and incentivizing prosocial behavior in public microtransit, including volunteering to shift one’s trip time to accommodate others, share a ride, cooperate with other users to improve outcomes for the user community, and prioritize a transportation disadvantaged user or a critical trip. It will investigate how artificial intelligence can be applied in facilitating prosocial behavior in a trip scheduling environment by reducing the cognitive burden placed on users. During the planning grant period, the team will organize a workshop to gather knowledge from various stakeholders, including planning and transportation agencies and community-based organizations. Focus groups with community members will be assembled to conduct semi-structured interviews and collect information on willingness to share rides and information with other users, flexibility of schedule throughout the day, and the type of information about other users that would evoke empathy and prosocial behavior.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

公有微交通最近已成为连接郊区和农村交通弱势群体与就业和其他重要目的地的有前景的解决方案。作为一种公共交通服务，微交通通常提供较低的固定出行费率，并且不依赖于动态等定价机制。尽管避免高费率和动态定价特别适合低收入弱势群体，但它可能会导致上午和下午高峰期间的严重延误，对用户造成严重后果，例如错过医疗预约。工作和医疗旅行都有时间。但其他出行可能更加灵活，并且可以在非高峰时段进行，以减少服务延误和错过关键出行。 为了实现智能互联社区 (S&CC) 的愿景，这项规划拨款重点关注技术支持和社区支持的解决方案。以公平的方式分配按需公共交通服务的出行需求，而不是专门甚至主要使用传统的定价激励措施。一个由教职人员和研究人员组成的跨学科团队将与北卡罗来纳州已经试点微交通系统的社区合作，以实现这一目标。推进这项研究并更好地了解社区的需求、偏好和能力。这项研究将有可能改善公共微交通模式，减少关键出行的错过或延误，并改善交通弱势群体的生活质量。我们对推进的可行性以及在公共微交通中启用和激励亲社会行为所涉及的权衡的理解，包括自愿改变自己的出行时间以适应他人、共享乘车、与其他用户合作以改善用户社区的成果以及优先考虑交通不利它将研究如何通过减少用户的认知负担来应用人工智能来促进旅行安排环境中的亲社会行为。利益相关者，包括规划和交通机构以及社区组织，将聚集社区成员进行半结构化访谈，收集有关与其他用户共享乘车和信息的意愿、全天日程安排的灵活性以及有关其他用户的、能引起同理心和亲社会的信息类型该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。