Two RSG senior consultants will be presenting at this year's Transportation Research Board (TRB) Conference on Advancing Transportation Equity.
On Thursday, September 9 at 11:00 a.m. ET, Joann Lynch will deliver a presentation on methods and actions practitioners can use to increase inclusion in travel surveys. Joann's talk is part of a session titled “Measure It, but Who Will Come? Measuring Equity and including Diverse Travel Populations,” which will describe several RSG-led travel survey efforts in Seattle and Minneapolis in the spring of 2021. Each effort employed a combination of equity and inclusion strategies to boost engagement among populations often underrepresented in travel surveys. Her presentation will outline a multipronged approach to improving representation and obtaining equitable, representative datasets. Importantly, attendees will learn how analysis of these efforts can help inform future survey best practices. This will help survey methodologists reach more respondents, including historically underrepresented groups.
On Monday, September 13 at 2:15 p.m. ET, Ted Mansfield, PhD, will present a poster of findings from a comparison of passively collected data (“big data”) with modern transportation survey instruments that emphasize recruitment of hard-to-reach populations across key equity dimensions. Ted's poster session is titled “Measuring Equity, Analysis Approach Metrics.” His poster features a case study on abrupt travel behavior changes measured during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. It shows how programs that combine travel surveys and big data could deliver more representative data. This, in turn, would support more equitable transportation decisions by agencies.
Several other RSGers contributed to attendees' presentation/poster abstracts, including Abigail Rosenson, Rachel Schmidt, and Stephen Lawe. The Conference on Advancing Transportation Equity will occur from September 9 to September 14 and begin at 10:00 a.m. ET on each date with several presentations/poster sessions occurring on each day.