Public transit projects funded by two grants awarded in 2020 will hit Chattanooga streets the first quarter of 2024.
General Manager of Planning and Grants Philip Pugliese updated the CARTA board at a recent meeting.
A $2.1 million National Science Foundation grant awarded to Vanderbilt University School of Engineering researcher Dr. Abhishek Dubey will apply computer-generated microtransit routes to a live “underserved neighborhood” in Chattanooga.
This grant specifies a community engagement piece to encourage and evaluate “dynamic,” or on-demand, service using an app.
A second grant, a $1.7-million Department of Energy grant awarded directly to CARTA, explores fleet routes mapped by AI, focused on efficiency. For each destination, AI will consider demand, traffic and energy. This “magic productivity rate” marries wide coverage with regular and frequent service, Mr. Pugliese said.
Dr. Dubey’s company, Smart Transit, is driving both projects using a custom-built dashboard that plays with fleet movement and demand. UTC researcher Dr. Mina Sartipi is a partner.
These tests will have applications all over the country, Mr. Pugliese said. He welcomes Chattanooga’s role as a national test bed because “Chattanooga is at a unique crossroads” of public transportation, locally and nationally.
“Chattanooga is a key focal point for a lot of this fundamental research that is going on with the federal government,” he said later in a phone interview.
“We want to see if it works in the real world,” he said. He projected that the hypothetical will move to more advanced research in January and February 2024 and the pilot will deploy in March.
Mr. Pugliese has identified Clifton Hills along Rossville Boulevard as a possible location. He said the pilot population is a diverse 10,000 people that includes high percentages of Black, Latino and low-income residents.
Online pre-booking and dynamic booking would be a mode shift for Chattanooga riders, but the data would help make full-city coverage economical, efficient and equitable, he said.
Mr. Pugliese told the board that CARTA already offers an on-demand app in Cromwell, East Brainerd, Eastdale, and North Brainerd, but 70 percent of all CARTA users don’t use it to book a trip.
The AI study will go a step beyond public transit for a destination and choose the most efficient blend of car, bike, park-and-ride, bus, microtransit and walking, which will reveal CARTA’s weaknesses.
“CARTA must be competitive,” he said. “Is there a role for microtransit combined with fixed route that can offer a better solution everywhere?” he asked. “It’s still a geometry problem.”
CARTA uses its resources well but coverage is too skimpy to be useful, he said, requiring fundamental changes in local public transit.
He said Chattanooga should shift to a more individualized full-coverage model instead of a model focused on high ridership along limited fixed routes. The value of public transit is in a wide network, he said, not the full bus itself.
Mr. Pugliese cautioned the board against Nashville’s failed $5.4 billion referendum in 2018, an outdated effort at transit overhaul that was deemed too little, too late.
Microtransit will pave CARTA’s way into the suburbs, he said. AI data will shorten test periods as microtransit expands city-wide. He said Hixson, for example, is an “ideal” place for microtransit, and eventually CARTA will expand the electric shuttle down Main Street and MLK Boulevard.
The research will inform a current city of Chattanooga transit study with public mobility tech company Via, and a recommendation by transit consultant Jarrett Walker to incrementally build upon what CARTA has now.