Speakers: Alejandro Echeverria and Paris Charitatos

Building Electrification decision making tool - Alejandro Echeverria

Property owners are facing increased pressure from regulators and consumers to reduce emissions and electrify. Policies such as NYC’s Local Law 97, Boston’s BERDO, Washington DC’s Climate and Energy Action Plan, set aggressive emission targets for new and existing buildings. Building developers need a tool to assess the value of electrification. Such a decision making tool for building electrification will be critical for new as well as existing construction. Currently working on developing this tool for new construction and in future also plan to include existing construction / retrofits. The model has been finalized and currently only focuses on new construction applications in NYC​ and hopefully will be able to extend to other regions in future.​

The role of ride-splitting in transit deserts - Paris Charitatos
Ride-sharing services (e.g., Uber Pool, Lyft Share) were introduced as an affordable on-demand mobility option while simultaneously contributing to less congestion and reduced CO2 emissions. One of the advantages of pooling is that it might be a solution for transit-dependent population who live in areas with limited or non-existent public transportation service, also known as transit deserts. Although there is a growing literature about TNC, few studies examine explicitly ride-splitting and its role as a complementary service in underserved communities. Evidence from TNC data in Chicago are utilized in spatial and regression analysis to study the temporal patterns and the relationships between demographic characteristics and the use of pooling. Also, we use General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) data from the Chicago Transportation Authority (CTA) to define transit deserts and reveal if ride-sharing can fill the transit gap. The results of this research could potentially help policymakers understand the socio-spatial context and promote the right incentives for ride-splitting to the people who need it the most.