Behavioral research is integral to a number our projects, including the development of innovative tools for collecting behavioral data via smartphones to modeling firm and household location choices.
Current Projects:
SimMobility
SimMobility is the simulation platform of the Future Urban Mobility Research Group at the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART). Related behavioral research includes vehicle ownership modeling, firm and household location choice modeling, and freight demand modeling [Read More].
Greater Boston Scenarios
We currently have several inter-related projects utilzing the Boston Metropolitan Area as the experimental setting. Models of vehicle ownership, trip generation, mode choice, and firm and household location choices - and how these behaviors have changed over time - provide a key foundation to imagining, and planning for, how the urban system might evolve in the future [Click Here to learn more].
Future Mobility Sensing (FMS)
FMS is a smartphone-based integrated activity-travel survey. It uses a combination of a smartphone app, available for Android and iOS, a backend intelligence system, and an online validation system to collect high-resolution data on individual travel behavior [Click Here to understand more].
Flocktracker
Flocktracker is a field research tool developed as a robust and flexible Android application for a range of data collection purposes. Originally developed for mapping Dhaka's semi-formal bus system, it has since been deployed by numerous researchers from around the world for everything from understanding users' perception of security on minibuses in Mexico City to surveying retailers' freight trip demands in Singapore and Santiago de Chile [Click here to explore].
Past Projects:
Sponsored by New England University Transportation Center (US Dept. of Transportation), this 4-year project collected survey data on, and developed models of older adults travel behavior in the Boston metropolitan area, and its relationship with urban design, social networks, traffic safety, and healthy outcomes (2006-2011).
Sponsored by Energy Foundation-China and the Low-Carbon Energy University Alliance, this project developed tools for estimating energy & CO2 emissions of neighborhood design proposals in China (www.energyproforma.mit.edu); behavioral models of in-home and out-of-home household energy use formed a core component of the modeling "engine" (2009-2013).