DOE: Human Factors and Technologies Design to Improve User Acceptance of Pooled Rideshare (PR) for Increasing Transportation System Energy Efficiency

Project PIs: Yunyi Jia and Johnell Brooks

Sponsor: Department of Energy

Project Description: 

Rideshare is being boosted by the dramatic development of transportation network companies (TNCs) such as Uber, Lyft, etc. The new transportation model provides a large potential to reduce the energy consumption of our transportation systems due to rideshare, especially for the adoption of pooled rideshare (PR). However, in reality, the user acceptance of pooled rideshare is still below expectation although the TNCs have been developing and expanding quickly. This greatly hinders the impact of the new transportation model on improving transportation energy efficiency.  This project will discover the human factor barriers of user acceptance of pooled rideshare and investigate innovative technologies to improve the user acceptance of the state-of-the-art pooled rideshare, based on human factor study results in order to improve the energy efficiency of the transportation system. 

Publications: 

• Gangadharaiah, R., Brooks, J. O., Boor, L., Kolodge, K., Su, H., & Jia, Y. (2025). Pooled Rideshare in the U.S.: An Exploratory Study of User Preferences. Vehicles. 

• Gangadharaiah, R., Brooks, J. O., Rosopa, P. J., Boor, L., Kolodge, K., Paul, J., Su, H., & Jia, Y. (2025). The Influence of Demographic Variables on the Pooled Rideshare Acceptance Model Multigroup Analyses (PRAMMA). Sustainability. 

• Paul, J., Gurumurthy, K. M., Cokyasar, T., Su, H., Khan, N., Auld, J., & Jia, Y. (2025). Proactive Assignment Strategy With Human Choice Models for Boosting Pooled Rideshare Service. IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems. 

• Paul, J., Su, H., Gurumurthy, K. M., Cokyasar, T., Auld, J., & Jia, Y. (2025). A Study of Financial Impacts of Pooled Rideshare Based Onassignment Strategies. Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting. 

• Paul, J., Gangadharaiah, R.,  Pool, R., Brooks, J., Gurumurthy, K.M., Auld, J., & Jia, Y. (2025). Meeting in the Middle: Pooled Rideshare as Compelling Transportation Offering for Elders. Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting. 

• Gangadharaiah, R., Brooks, J. O., Boor, L., Kolodge, K., & Jia, Y. (2025). Barriers and benefits: Understanding riders' views on pooled rideshare in the U.S. Vehicles, 7(1), 13. DOI:10.3390/vehicles7010013 

• Su, H., Khan, N. A., Gurumurthy, K. M., Paul, J., Gangadharaiah, R., Boor, L., Kolodge, K., Auld, J., Brooks, J. O., & Jia, Y. (2025). Analyzing Users' Preferences between Personal and Pooled Rideshare Services Using a Mixed Logit Modeling Approach. (Preprint. Under review) 

• Paul, J. Gurumurthy, K.M. Cokyasar, T. Su, H. Auld, J. Jia, Y. (2024). Integrating Human Factors in Dynamic Rideshare Assignment: Willingness-To-Pay for Delay. Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting. 

• Su, H., Gangadharaiah, R., Rosopa, E. B., Brooks, J. O., Boor, L., Kolodge, K., Rosopa, P. J., & Jia, Y. (2024). Exploration of Factors That Influence Willingness to Consider Pooled Rideshare. Transportation Research Record. DOI: 10.1177/0361198123-1213650. 

• Gangadharaiah, R., Brooks, J., Rosopa, P., Su, H., Boor, L., Edgar, A., Kolodge, K., & Jia, Y. (2023). The Development of the Pooled Rideshare Acceptance Model (PRAM). Safety, 9(3), 61. 

• Su, H., Gangadharaiah, R., Paul, J., Boor, L., Kolodge, K., Gurumurthy, K, Khan, N., Auld, J., Brooks, J., & Jia, Y. (2023). Exploring Demographic Factors behind the User Preferences in Ridesharing Services. IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Conference (ITSC). 

• Paul J., Gurumurthy K.M., Cokyasar T., Su H., Auld, J., Jia Y. (2023) Analyzing Agent-Dependent Delay Time Acceptance in Dynamic Ride Sharing Systems. IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Conference (ITSC). 

• Gangadharaiah, R., Su, H., Rosopa, E., Kolodge, K., Boor, L., Rosopa, P., Jia, Y., & Brooks, J. (2023). Factors Influencing Adoption of Pooled Rideshare: An Explorative Study on User-Centered Design and Services. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 67(1), 1289-1294. 

• Su, H., Gangadharaiah, R., Rosopa, E., Brooks, J., Boor, L., Kolodge, K., Rosopa, P., & Jia, Y. (2023). Willingness to Consider Pooled Rideshare? An Exploratory Study on Influential Factors. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 67(1), 1322-1328. 

• Gangadharaiah, R., Su, H., Rosopa, E., Brooks, J., Kolodge, K., Boor, L., Rosopa, P., & Jia, Y. (2023). A User-centered Design Exploration of Factors that Influence Willingness to Consider Pooled Rideshare. Safety. 

• Gangadharaiah, R., Mims, L., Jia, Y., & Brooks, J. (2023). Opinions from Users Across the Lifespan about Fully Autonomous and Rideshare Vehicles with Associated Features. SAE Technical Paper. DOI:10.4271/2023-01-0673 

• Mims, L., Gangadharaiah, R., Su, H., Jia, Y., Jacobs, J., Sterling, M., & Brooks, J. (2023). What Makes Passengers Uncomfortable In Vehicles Today? An Exploratory Study of Current Factors that May Influence Acceptance of Future Autonomous Vehicles. SAE Technical Paper. DOI:10.4271/2023-01-0675.

Datasets: (All data will be shared to DOE Livewire Data Platform upon the project completion) 

• “A National and City Dataset on Human Factors in Pooled Rideshare.“ 2021. (Cities include New York, San Francisco, Detroit, Chicago, Atlanta and Austin) 

• “A National Dataset on Human Choices in Pooled Rideshare.“ 2022. 

• “A National Dataset on Actionable Items in Improving Pooled Rideshare.“ 2025.