Transportation Equity

Context

Promoting transportation equity is critical to improving general welfare.

"Commuting time has emerged as the single strongest factor in the odds of escaping poverty. The longer an average commute in a given county, the worse the chances of low-income families there moving up the ladder."

Due to a history of underinvesting in transportation infrastructure, based on classist and racist bias, commute times are longer for minority communities. In particular, Black commuters in the Boston area face 80min longer trips per week.

Design research question is: how might we improve the daily commute experience for low-income communities in the Boston area that are dependent on public transport?

Process

I approached this project from both an analytical and human-centered design point of view.

1. Analytically, I narrowed my focus on a couple of neighborhoods in the Boston area which are have the have the longest commute times: Dorchester, Mattapan and Hyde Park
2. I interviewed 14 individuals during their commutes in the identified neighborhoods
3. I also commuted myself multiple times from these neighborhoods to downtown Boston and vice-versa during peak hours
4. I designed 3 concepts to help solve the problem and worked with users to select the final concept and make final recommendations.

Findings

Despite suffering from long commute hours, old transportation infrastructure, and increasing cost of transportation, the biggest pain point for commuters in the identified neighborhoods is dealing with unexpected long delays and cancellations. Dealing with this uncertainty has caused additional stress and financial burden to the people I interviewed. Some of them resorted to calling an Uber, which increases their transport-related expenses. Others miss wages due to arriving late to work.

Given these insights, I reframed the research question to how might we improve the reliability of public transport for people commuting from Dorchester, Mattapan and Hyde Park?

Public transportation reform is a complex system-based problem. I prioritized solutions that could be implemented quickly without being dependent on large bureaucratic bodies.

The key insight behind the selected concept is that many commute planning solutions exist, however they do not address specially the needs of the target population. To address these shortfalls, I made the following recommendations:

1. Increase adoption of Transit, the only MBTA endorsed app. The more users use Transit from these neighborhoods the more accurate can users predict their journeys.
2. Create a feature to allow users to preplan their trips through the Transit app and get just-in-time notifications of delays so users can plan accordingly.