Recipient Organization
NEW GLOBAL SYSTEMS FOR INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION MANAGEMENT CORPORATION
2702 INDUSTRIAL DR APT 813
BOWLING GREEN,KY 42101-4156
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
Many rural communities are represented by generational poverty, racial divisions, inequities, and inadequate infrastructure. Americans in those distressed communities lack access to quality education, healthcare, and employment opportunities, exacerbated by transportation access. Conventional public rural transit services and market-driven rideshare companies have left transportation access deserts in those distressed communities.New Global Systems (NGS) proposes to research and develop an innovative system to operate and manage shared mobility solutions to meet the above transportation access needs. We propose an innovative dial-a-ride with dynamic stop or a dynamic hub-and-spoke model with trip costs as an objective function, augmented with a rolling horizon solution-based algorithm to constantly optimize trips requested in real-time. In addition, innovative financial mechanisms, including charge and payment, will be exploredto make shared mobility sustainable in rural communities.The proposed solution provides transportation access for rural communities, especially in distressed counties like Mississippi, where the R&D will be performed. The conservative estimation of a 0.0125 market penetration rate will generate a benefit-to-cost ratio (or B/C) of 4:1 and a social B/C of 32:1. The proposal directly supports USDA's SBIR research priorities g, j, and k under Rural and Community Development-Topic Area 8.6. The service will directly provide about 300 jobs for those areas. Transportation access will incentivize rural community's social and economic development, including the extreme poverty areas like the Mississippi Delta, where a case study will be supported and conducted with a local transit agency.
Animal Health Component
30%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
0%
Applied
30%
Developmental
70%
Goals / Objectives
Goal/Objective 1: Rural Shared Mobility CharacteristicsTo develop a system to accommodate rural transportation access, what are the rural shared mobility characteristics? The characteristics will be different from urban areas, such as travel distances, economically disadvantaged community distributions, the road infrastructure and its resilience to incremental weather, such as snow, flooding, hurricane conditions, usage of computers and smartphones, limited broadband and cell communications, payment method (may not have a credit card, even a bank account), higher percentages of people with disabilities.Goal/Objective 2: Models, Algorithms, and Solutions to Rural Shared Mobility ServiceThe question to be asked is, what is the technology's feasibility in providing the services? What are the system requirements, system architecture, models, algorithms, and solutions that fit into the shared mobility characteristics of rural communities? The questions are answered by developing the prototype software and validating the case studies. In addition, SBIR requires innovative solutions. Specifically, we will ask what innovative models and algorithms could advance the state of the art and be widely applied to others.Goal/Objective 3: Sustainability of Rural Shared Mobility ServiceWill the service be affordable in rural communities? Will the service provider or drivers be financially sustainable? Will NGS be economically sustainable by providing services? The economic feasibility questions are equally important as the technical questions to be answered. Without financial suitability, the "services" proposed in this project will not be able to be sustained after the SBIR project ends.
Project Methods
1. EffortsA: Conduct a new surveyand/or analysis of existing survey dataB: Develop models, find out solutions for the models and produce software to find numerical solutions for the models2.EvaluationThe model and solutions will be evaluated by comparing the different solution methods, theoretical analyses of convergencies, or practically no more improvement in routing plans.