Transportation Nudges

Monday December 7th, 2015

Cities worldwide are experimenting with new ways to tackle congestion and improve urban mobility along with resident health and safety. Many communities are testing novel, low cost interventions to change individual behavior, “nudging” their way to fewer and slower drivers, along with more and better cyclists and transit riders.

While still in the early stages, these experiments are bearing fruit. As much as Americans love their cars, individual choices – spatial, modal and temporal – can be influenced by technology, policy or low cost design interventions, yielding smarter, safer and less congested cities.

Transportation Nudges: Experiments in Improving Urban Mobility, the fourth City Leadership Summit hosted by the Initiative on Cities at Boston University, delved into these topics and more, bringing together transportation demand managers, urban planners, technologists, computer scientists, government officials, behavioral economists and community and business leaders to examine innovative ways cities can nudge their way to better mobility.

Panel 1 – Video time 0:00
Morning Ted Talk – 59:00
Panel 2 – 1:24:30
Lunchtime Keynote – 2:32:00
Panel 3 – 3:00:50
Afternoon Keynote – 4:09:30
Panel 4 – 4:40:00

Day 1: Monday April 27, 2015

Welcoming Remarks

· Graham Wilson – Director, Initiative on Cities and Professor of Political Science, Boston University
· Katharine Lusk – Executive Director, Initiative on Cities

Panel 1: How Should We Be Measuring Urban Mobility?

Moderator:
· Ruthbea Yesner Clarke – Research Director, Smart Cities at IDC

Panelists:
· Chris Osgood – Chief of Streets, City of Boston
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· Azer Bestavros – Professor of Computer Science, Boston University and Director, Hariri Institute for Computing and Computational Science and Engineering
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·Alexandre Winter – Founder and CEO, Placemeter
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· Chris Scofield – Chief Scientists, INRIX

Morning Ted Talk: Do We Accept Traffic Fatalities? A Socio-Historical Perspective

Keynote Speaker:
· Itai Vardi – Adjunct Professor of Sociology, Boston University

Panel 2: Design for Flow: Low and High Tech Remedies to Ease Congestion and Improve Safety

Moderator:
· Kristopher Carter – Co-Chair, Boston Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics

Panelists:
· Christos Cassandras – Professor of Engineering and Head of the Division of Systems Engineering, Boston University
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· Regina Clewlow – Director of Transportation Research and Policy, Ridescout
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· Nick Jackson – Vice President and Regional Director, Toole Design Group
· Anne Lusk – Research Scientists, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
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Lunchtime Keynote: Kaye Ceille

Keynote Speaker:
· Kaye Ceille – President, Zipcar
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Panel 3: Discouraging Poor Choices: Pricing, Enforcement and Education

Moderator:
· Cathy Wissink – Senior Director, Technology and Civic Engagement, Microsoft New England

Panelists:
· Gina Fiandaca – Commissioner, Boston Transportation Department
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· Matthew Gibson – Assistant Professor of Economics, Williams College
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· Scott Kubly – Director, Seattle Department of Transportation
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· Saugato Datta – Managing Director, ideas42

Afternoon Keynote: Garrett Emmerson

Keynote Speaker:
· Garrett Emmerson – Chief Operating Officer for Surface Transport, Transport for London
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Panel 4: Rewarding Better Behavior: Incentives, Gamification, and Social Networking

Moderator:
· Monica Tibbits-Nutt – Executive Director, 128 Business Council

Panelists:
· Marcel Meeuwissen – Senior Consultant, Smart Mobility and Cities, City of Enschede, Netherlands
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· Kristin Slaton – Director, MassRIDES
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· Hari Balakrishnan – Founder and CTO, Cambridge Mobile Telematics and Professor of Engineering and Computer Science, MIT

Closing Remarks

· Graham Wilson – Director, Initiative on Cities and Professor of Political Science, Boston University
· Katharine Lusk – Executive Director, Initiative on Cities