Citizen-Centric Smart Cities: Planning for Travel Behavior in a Technology Empowered Future

A multitude of confounding factors contribute to the success of smart cities (Caragliu et al., 2011; Giffinger et al., 2010; Lee et al., 2013). Many of these factors are centered around the citizens and their interactions with its various technological elements. The concept of “citizen-centric smart cities” is proposed in the literature to better comply with this (Allam and Newman, 2018; Lee and Lee, 2014; Yonezawa et al., 2015; Zakzak, 2019). Acknowledging the role of the technology-centric approaches in the past in leading our cities towards ecosystems that favor drivers over pedestrians (Allam and Newman, 2018; Ewing et al., 2018; Shelton et al., 2015; Southworth, 2005), the research presented in this dissertation aims at providing insights into the success of future citizen-centric smart cities. Extracting the influence of socio-psychological contributors such as lifestyles, habits, and higher-level orientations is a dominant note of the present research throughout its four main study chapters, as discussed briefly in the following. First (chapter 3), the dynamics of travelers’ modality styles were analyzed while accounting for the existence of mobility-on-demand (MoD) services in the market. The dynamics of modality styles is an important aspect that has remained understudied to this point. This study contributes to the existing literature by breaking down the modality style dynamics into: (1) the baseline preferences, and (2) the longer-term (i.e., a 30-day time window) inter-modal substitution behavior. Second (chapter 4), the influence of lifestyles on productive travels using public transportation was analyzed, to obtain insights into how a future autonomous transit system can account for the expectations and needs of its users with respect to the efficiency of the activities performed while riding –i.e., cited in the literature as “travel-based multitasking” (Singleton, 2018). How well a transportation mode could facilitate this desire of the travelers is cited in the literature as its “multitaskability” and plays an indisputable role in attracting potential users (Mokhtarian, 2019; Mokhtarian and Salomon, 1997; Pawlak et al., 2016). As such, the results of this research could be used to inform future developments of the transit system towards providing more attractive services. Third (chapters ‎5 and ‎6), the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the dynamics of activity-travel behavior in the future is analyzed based on a comprehensive travel survey conducted in the Chicago metropolitan area. The pandemic forced many to re-examine their habits, and thereby, caused considerable changes in the current travel patterns. Therefore, the last two research chapters of this dissertation is dedicated to understanding the “stickiness” of the heightened levels of shifting towards tele-activities (i.e., online shopping and working from home, etc.) as well as private modes of travel in the post-pandemic future.