Synergizing shared micromobility and public transit towards an equitable multimodal transportation network

Abstract

This paper assesses the equity impacts of shared micromobility and investigates regulatory policies that improve transport equity and promote synergy between public transit and shared micromobility. We consider a multimodal transportation network, where a micromobility platform deploys docking stations and operates a fleet of micromobility vehicles to provide shared micromobility services and a public transit agency offers transit services over a transportation network. A market equilibrium model is developed to capture the intimate interactions among access and egress times of shared micromobility services, waiting times of transit services, the spatial distribution of docking stations, passenger demand, platform pricing and fleet sizing, vehicle repositioning and the micromobility platform profit. The platform decision problem is cast as a high-dimensional non-convex program. A solution method is proposed to efficiently compute the solution through problem reformulation and dimensionality reduction. Based on the proposed framework, we evaluate spatial equity in transport accessibility using the Gini index, and find that although shared micromobility improves overall transport accessibility, the benefits are not fairly distributed across different geographic zones, which leads to enlarged spatial inequity gaps after introducing shared micromobility. To promote transport equity, we investigate three policy directions: (a) to impose a vehicle density floor on shared micromobility; (b) to offer a subsidy on shared micromobility rides for first/last-mile connections; and (c) to promote collaboration between public transit and shared micromobility. We show that different regulatory policies have advantages and limitations. The minimum vehicle density requirement can simultaneously improve spatial equity and passengers’ surplus, but has limited equity improvements. In contrast, the subsidy on bundled services could significantly mitigate spatial inequity, but it hurts passengers and the platform profit. Compared to the other two policies, the transit-micromobility collaboration can lead to higher equity improvement, higher passenger surplus, while offering a guarantee on the platform profit, which turns out to be the most cost-effective approach. These insights are validated through realistic numerical studies for San Francisco.