Assessing the Impacts of Air Quality Alerts on Micromobility Transportation Usage Behaviors

Abstract

To address the severe risks imposed by air pollution, governments around the world have prioritized air quality information disclosure and alert dissemination with a goal to evoke awareness and ultimately encourage behavior changes. Daily transportation behavior not only contributes to air pollution formation but also impacts personal exposure. Previous studies have identified mixed results about the effectiveness of air quality alerts in encouraging transportation behavioral changes. However, little is known about the impacts on micromobility usage, a newly introduced transportation mode, which directly exposes the riders to the ambient environment and usually takes place in heavy traffic areas. In this study, we conducted a case study in Austin, TX, analyzing over 6.9 million trips collected between April 2018 and September 2019. A Poisson multivariate regression model was applied to assess the relationship between air quality alerts and usage of micromobility vehicles. The results indicate that air quality alerts in the form of Ozone Action Days do not alter micromobility usage behavior, while the public does significantly change their usage behaviors in response to actual ambient air quality for short duration trips. Numbers of longer distance micromobility trips were not found to be sensitive to actual air quality. The findings of this study have important implications for policymakers: government agencies should carefully consider timing, accuracy, and message clarity when delivering air quality information to the public.