The Effect of Introducing New Transportation Services on the Community Engagement of Elderly People and Parents
Local cities in Japan have been struggling with keeping their sustainability due to aging and population decrease. One of the urgent issues they have faced is elderly people's lack of accessibility to public transportation. They have introduced new community transportation services to keep the...
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| Format: | Thesis |
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2022
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/138918 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8074-981X |
| _version_ | 1826217065521872896 |
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| author | Kimura, Keiji |
| author2 | Moser, Bryan R. |
| author_facet | Moser, Bryan R. Kimura, Keiji |
| author_sort | Kimura, Keiji |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Local cities in Japan have been struggling with keeping their sustainability due to aging and population decrease. One of the urgent issues they have faced is elderly people's lack of accessibility to public transportation. They have introduced new community transportation services to keep the minimum transportation accessibility to elderly people, but they are worried about the increase in subsidy due to the service.
In a more general sense, citizens' community engagement is a critical factor in keeping the cities sustainable. It is considered that providing new community transportation services to not only elderly people but also to the other citizens can leverage the increase in the cities' total community engagement. Especially, since parents who take care of their small children have had difficulties using public transportation services, they can utilize the new modes to increase their community engagement.
This research aims to investigate the synergetic effect of introducing the new transportation modes on the community engagement of both elderly people and parents taking care of their small children. Because the fares of the new modes are critical in citizens’ transportation mode selections and the financial performance of municipalities, the specific research question in this research is as follows: What fares of newly introduced transportation modes lead to increased engagement, lower cost, and equity, that is, balancing between elderly people and parents?
An agent-based simulation model is developed to quantify the effect of new transportation modes on the community engagement of citizens. As a case study, this model is applied to Odawara City, one of a local city in Japan, to investigate the fare sensitivities of community buses and door-to-door vans on the community engagement of 75 years old or older people and parents taking care of their children younger than six years old.
First, the effect of the two modes on the behavior of elderly people and parents is evaluated separately. The simulation results show that introducing the two modes increases elderly people's community engagement by at most 21%. There are at least two preferable combinations of the fares of the new modes that satisfy more than a 10% increase in the community engagement and positive net present value per person of the investment in the new modes. It is also revealed that the new modes increase parents' community engagement level, but their impact is only at most 3%, much smaller than that on elderly people. It is considered there are two factors for this small impact on parents' community engagement. The first is that parents have less free time to spare in community engagement. The second is that the new modes can bring them longer travel time because their speeds are generally slower than the existing trains/buses and/or private cars, while the core needs of the parents include shorter travel time.
Secondly, the synergetic effect of the two modes is investigated by simultaneously simulating the behavior of elderly people and parents. It is revealed that the new modes increase the total community engagement of both elderly people and parents by at most 18%. There is one preferable combination of fares in terms of both the community engagement and the financial aspect. It is also shown that there is no synergetic effect among the behavior of elderly people and parents. In the tradespace analysis, the cases that the beneficiary is only the elderly people dominate the other cases. On the other hand, the results can be interpreted as that the measures to support elderly people's public transportation accessibility do not harm the parents’ behavior but support their daily activities.
Lastly, simulation results with three different adoption ratios are compared to identify the sensitivity of the simulation results to the adoption ratio, that is, the ratio of the activity sensitivity increase that is proportional to the utilization ratio of the new modes. When the adoption ratio in each population type is half of the original simulations, the total community engagement is decreased by half, and no preferable combination of fares is found. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T16:57:32Z |
| format | Thesis |
| id | mit-1721.1/138918 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T16:57:32Z |
| publishDate | 2022 |
| publisher | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1389182022-01-15T03:01:59Z The Effect of Introducing New Transportation Services on the Community Engagement of Elderly People and Parents Kimura, Keiji Moser, Bryan R. System Design and Management Program. Local cities in Japan have been struggling with keeping their sustainability due to aging and population decrease. One of the urgent issues they have faced is elderly people's lack of accessibility to public transportation. They have introduced new community transportation services to keep the minimum transportation accessibility to elderly people, but they are worried about the increase in subsidy due to the service. In a more general sense, citizens' community engagement is a critical factor in keeping the cities sustainable. It is considered that providing new community transportation services to not only elderly people but also to the other citizens can leverage the increase in the cities' total community engagement. Especially, since parents who take care of their small children have had difficulties using public transportation services, they can utilize the new modes to increase their community engagement. This research aims to investigate the synergetic effect of introducing the new transportation modes on the community engagement of both elderly people and parents taking care of their small children. Because the fares of the new modes are critical in citizens’ transportation mode selections and the financial performance of municipalities, the specific research question in this research is as follows: What fares of newly introduced transportation modes lead to increased engagement, lower cost, and equity, that is, balancing between elderly people and parents? An agent-based simulation model is developed to quantify the effect of new transportation modes on the community engagement of citizens. As a case study, this model is applied to Odawara City, one of a local city in Japan, to investigate the fare sensitivities of community buses and door-to-door vans on the community engagement of 75 years old or older people and parents taking care of their children younger than six years old. First, the effect of the two modes on the behavior of elderly people and parents is evaluated separately. The simulation results show that introducing the two modes increases elderly people's community engagement by at most 21%. There are at least two preferable combinations of the fares of the new modes that satisfy more than a 10% increase in the community engagement and positive net present value per person of the investment in the new modes. It is also revealed that the new modes increase parents' community engagement level, but their impact is only at most 3%, much smaller than that on elderly people. It is considered there are two factors for this small impact on parents' community engagement. The first is that parents have less free time to spare in community engagement. The second is that the new modes can bring them longer travel time because their speeds are generally slower than the existing trains/buses and/or private cars, while the core needs of the parents include shorter travel time. Secondly, the synergetic effect of the two modes is investigated by simultaneously simulating the behavior of elderly people and parents. It is revealed that the new modes increase the total community engagement of both elderly people and parents by at most 18%. There is one preferable combination of fares in terms of both the community engagement and the financial aspect. It is also shown that there is no synergetic effect among the behavior of elderly people and parents. In the tradespace analysis, the cases that the beneficiary is only the elderly people dominate the other cases. On the other hand, the results can be interpreted as that the measures to support elderly people's public transportation accessibility do not harm the parents’ behavior but support their daily activities. Lastly, simulation results with three different adoption ratios are compared to identify the sensitivity of the simulation results to the adoption ratio, that is, the ratio of the activity sensitivity increase that is proportional to the utilization ratio of the new modes. When the adoption ratio in each population type is half of the original simulations, the total community engagement is decreased by half, and no preferable combination of fares is found. S.M. 2022-01-14T14:37:50Z 2022-01-14T14:37:50Z 2021-06 2021-06-25T20:17:10.286Z Thesis https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/138918 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8074-981X In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted Copyright retained by author(s) https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-EDU/1.0/ application/pdf Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| spellingShingle | Kimura, Keiji The Effect of Introducing New Transportation Services on the Community Engagement of Elderly People and Parents |
| title | The Effect of Introducing New Transportation Services on the Community Engagement of Elderly People and Parents |
| title_full | The Effect of Introducing New Transportation Services on the Community Engagement of Elderly People and Parents |
| title_fullStr | The Effect of Introducing New Transportation Services on the Community Engagement of Elderly People and Parents |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Effect of Introducing New Transportation Services on the Community Engagement of Elderly People and Parents |
| title_short | The Effect of Introducing New Transportation Services on the Community Engagement of Elderly People and Parents |
| title_sort | effect of introducing new transportation services on the community engagement of elderly people and parents |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/138918 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8074-981X |
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