Identify ing Diversity Equity Inclusion and Accessibility DEI A Indicators for Transportation Systems using Social Media Data The Case of New York City during Covid -19 Pandemic

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Identifying Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) Indicators for

Transportation Systems using Social Media Data: The Case of New York City during

Covid-19 Pandemic

Fariha Nazneen Rista

Graduate Research Assistant

School of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science

University of Oklahoma

202 W. Boyd ST., Norman, OK 73019

Email: fariha.rista@ou.edu

Khondhaker Al Momin

Graduate Research Assistant

School of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science

University of Oklahoma

202 W. Boyd ST., Norman, OK 73019

Email: momin@ou.edu

Arif Mohaimin Sadri, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

School of Civil Engineering & Environmental Science

University of Oklahoma

202 W. Boyd St., Norman, OK 73019

Email: sadri@ou.edu

(Corresponding Author)

ABSTRACT

The adoption of transportation policies that prioritized highway expansion over public

transportation has disproportionately impacted minorities and low-income people by restricting

their access to social and economic opportunities and thus resulting in residential segregation.

Policymakers, transportation researchers, planners, and practitioners have started acknowledging

the need to build a diverse, equitable, inclusive, and accessible (DEIA) transportation system.

Traditionally, this has been done through survey-based approaches that are time-consuming and

expensive. While there is recent attention on leveraging social media data in transportation, the

literature is inconclusive regarding the use of social media data as a viable alternative to traditional

sources to identify the latent DEIA indicators based on public reactions and perspectives on social

media. This study utilized large-scale Twitter data covering eight counties around the New York

City (NYC) area during the initial phase of the Covid-19 lockdown to address this research gap.

Natural language processing techniques were used to identify transportation-related major DEIA

issues for residents living around NYC by analyzing their relevant tweet conversations. The study

revealed that citizens, who had negative sentiments toward the DEIA of their local transportation

system, broadly discussed racism, income, unemployment, gender, ride dependency,

transportation modes, and dependent groups. Analyzing the socio-demographic information based

on census tracts, the study also observed that areas with a higher percentage of low-income, female,

Hispanic, and Latino populations share more concerns about transportation DEIA on Twitter.

Keywords: Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Transportation system, Machine learning, Twitter

INTRODUCTION AND MOTIVATION

The transportation system is essential in providing people with a variety of options for

getting to their desired destinations, and it has a significant impact on their quality of life (1). With

an ever-increasing influx of immigrants (2), the United States of America is becoming more

racially and ethnically diverse, necessitating a paradigm shift in transportation planning system to

address diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) of its residents from all

socioeconomic backgrounds. Traditional transportation planning lacks the concept of DEIA, thus

making the system inaccessible to marginalized, underserved, and vulnerable communities.

An efficient transportation system should have three elements─ safety, mobility, and

accessibility. However, most of the transportation agencies in the United States (U.S.) have safety

and mobility as their primary target areas. Although transportation is the only means of accessing

social and economic activities, accessibility has consistently been overlooked in traditional

transportation decision-making processes, affecting individuals' ability to meet their needs and

participate in civil society, which leads to social inclusion (2). For example, the current car-based

roadway infrastructure has been a barrier to accessibility for many people, particularly those who

do not have regular access to a car and rely on public transportation for commuting. For these

transit dependents, the continued availability of public mass transit is vital for access to jobs,

schooling, medical care, and other necessities of life (3). As a result, while the current

transportation system meets mobility targets, it fails to address accessibility requirements from a

social perspective, resulting in social imbalance and inequity.

Transportation planning that is inclusive, diverse, and equitable has the potential to ensure

accessibility for all classes of people and change the way residents experience urban space in their

daily lives. Therefore, it is imperative that organizations responsible for the transportation system

planning, recognize the concept of DEIA and implement it at every level of their service and

organization. The bright side of the picture is that the U.S. government has started to acknowledge

the concept and has therefore enacted policies that require transportation agencies to implement

DEIA in all aspects (4). Therefore, rather than identifying the importance of DEIA, this study

focuses on identifying the ways to measure inequity, exclusion, and inaccessibility in the

transportation system of the U.S.

As the goal of the traditional transportation decision making process has been to achieve

increased mobility (5-7), mobility indicators, i.e., the technical and physical dimensions of

transportation such as traffic speed, level of service, etc., are still predominant in transportation

planning, completely ignoring the social dimension of it, i.e., diversity, equity, inclusion, and

accessibility. Therefore, the indicator of DEIA is not established yet. Litman suggests that the

quality of available transport options, average trip distances, and costs per trip could be indicators

of accessibility and suggests a public survey to measure the indicators (8). However, collecting

survey responses is time-consuming and costly. Moreover, the opinion of survey respondents can

change by the time the survey is complete. Social media platforms (SMPs) (i.e., Facebook, Twitter,

Reddit, Instagram, etc.), on the other hand, can provide us with a faster way to acquire real-time

data (9) and can be a potential metric for capturing the DEIA status of the transportation system.

According to the US Census Bureau, 84% of US households own a cell phone, and 78%

own a desktop or laptop computer (10). The Covid-19 outbreak saw more than 29.7% more users

spending 1-2 hours per day on social media, with 20.5% using SMPs 30 minutes to an hour more

(11,12). This makes social media a viable data source for user-generated content. Twitter recently

launched its Academic Application Programming Interface (API) (13), which provides a full

history of public conversation (14), thus making Twitter a reliable social media data source.

In this study, Twitter data have been used to identify the latent indicators of DEIA in the

transportation system that were not captured in traditional literature. The goal of this study is to

assist the planners in measuring the DEIA performance of a community in a fast and efficient way.

Therefore, the specific research questions (RQ) for our study are:

RQ1: Can we identify latent DEIA indicators using public reactions and perspectives as

expressed in social media?

RQ2: Can we identify the critical locations where the public reacts negatively about

transportation DEIA issues?

Identifying the sources of inequity arising due to the inaccessibility of transportation

system in a society is a challenging problem as the sources may be interconnected. To explain this

complex network, we have generated a conceptual framework (Figure 1). For simplification, we

have broadly classified the communities into two categories─ rich communities and vulnerable

communities. However, by "rich community", we identify the neighborhoods where people have

access to various facilities and services such as schools, hospitals, groceries, restaurants, vacation

trips, gymnasiums, playgrounds, banks, etc. Due to increased accessibility and better

transportation connectivity, the housing costs in such areas are high. Sanchez et al. showed that

Whites have a poverty rate of only 5 percent, compared to 22 percent for African Americans, 20

percent for Latinos, and 10 percent for Asian Americans (15). Therefore, we assume that white

people predominantly live in the rich areas of this framework. Households in such areas own at

least one car, which is why people from such communities can fully and independently access the

urban facilities.

On the other hand, the "vulnerable community" represents the group of people who cannot

avail full access to the urban facilities compared to the "rich community". These groups have been

ignored in the conventional planning and decision-making processes. Based on the related

literatures till date, we have identified a few groups who fall in this category: (a) Low income and

zero-vehicle households, (b) Dependent groups such as disabled people, people with age 65+ and

age 15- , (c) Bicycle riders, (d) Pedestrian, (e) Minority groups such as Hispanic, Latino and Black

or African American population, Women, LGBTQ+ population.

Figure 1: Conceptual framework showing potential sources of DEIA issues in transportation system

Literature shows that the largest percentage of public transportation users are minorities

with low to moderate incomes (15). In the U.S., transportation cost is the highest cost for

households after housing costs, and it continues to rise. People who are displaced by rising property

values frequently have few alternative housing options and may end up moving farther from their

places of employment and social connections- a situation worsened by limited transportation

options (15). The disparity continues in the workplace as well. Women are paid lesser than their

male counterparts. Therefore, the idea of inclusion needs to be incorporated from the

organizational level. The highway-based transportation planning also fails to address the need for

bicycle mode, which is an affordable alternative for individuals who cannot afford the cost of an

automobile (16). Almost 25 percent of Black households and 20 percent of Hispanic households

lack a broadband internet connection causing a social inequity of information access. Based on

these past works of literature, we have adopted several hypotheses (H) for our research:

H1: Netizens discuss the DEIA issues they face on social media.

H2: Marginalized travelers (i.e., low-income females) suffer more from lack of inclusion.

H3: Locations with more diverse neighborhoods experience higher DEIA issues.

H4: Minority groups suffer more from inequity and exclusion

RELATED WORK

In recent years, social equity in transportation has been gaining more and more attention

from transportation researchers, Transportation Research Board (TRB), National Academies, state

Department of Transportation (DOT), U.S. DOT, American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE),

and the private sector to eliminate adverse impacts experienced by underrepresented and

marginalized travelers and construction workers among others (17-28). This is evident from

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IdentifyingDiversity,Equity,Inclusion,andAccessibility(DEIA)IndicatorsforTransportationSystemsusingSocialMediaData:TheCaseofNewYorkCityduringCovid-19PandemicFarihaNazneenRistaGraduateResearchAssistantSchoolofCivilEngineeringandEnvironmentalScienceUniversityofOklahoma202W.BoydST.,Norman,OK73019Email:...

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Identify ing Diversity Equity Inclusion and Accessibility DEI A Indicators for Transportation Systems using Social Media Data The Case of New York City during Covid -19 Pandemic

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