SCC-CIVIC-PG Track A: User-Centered Mobility Solutions (UCMS): A New Vision to Connect Jobs and the Labor Force

A long-standing spatial mismatch has received significant attention between predominantly African American neighborhoods in the central city of Milwaukee and a large suburban employment center 15 miles northwest. Conventional fixed-route bus services were implemented but determined to be inefficient, so they were discontinued. Thus, the labor force (including employed workers and unemployed workers who are actively looking for jobs) and employers continue to struggle with the spatial mismatch.

By adopting a fundamentally different approach that is bottom-up—focusing on the core users and their respective needs, this CIVIC Planning Grant (PG) will develop two pilot programs of User-Centered Mobility Solutions (UCMS), which integrate new mobility technologies, including transport network companies (TNCs) and micro-transit (e.g., Via), to directly address mobility needs of two types of core users—the labor force and employers. If successful, this project will serve as a new user-centered model for other U.S. metropolitan areas with significant spatial mismatches.

Initial PG activities will explore strategies that overcome communication and institutional barriers to formulate intra-region UCMS and to facilitate successful implementation. During this stage, the research team will connect with workforce development organizations and business organizations to recruit and engage core users, identify and address barriers, jointly select alternative mobility services with core users, and achieve commitment from core users to participate in the Stage 2 pilot programs.

PG stage outcomes include the pilot program plan, public involvement plan, and evaluation framework. Stage 2 will implement the pilot programs and compare the effectiveness of the labor force-centered and the employer-centered mobility solutions at addressing the spatial mismatch problem. Successful implementation and evaluation of the pilot programs will help to determine (1) whether UCMS can solve spatial mismatch, and (2) whether a labor force-centered or employer-centered strategy works better.

This project is in response to Track A – CIVIC Innovation Challenge - Communities and Mobility a collaboration with NSF and the Department of Energy.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.