A three-member team from the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University won with its design titled, Addressing Airport Congestion as Traffic Takes Off in the Age of Uber and Lyft. The team included Shannon Eibert, Ian Girardeau, and Jaime Phillips. Dr. Michael Smart served as faculty advisor.

The students explored a growing issue at airports worldwide: managing curbside space in an era of increasing use of Transportation Network Companies such as Uber and Lyft. Since 2015, TNC mode share has risen dramatically, and with it, so have the attendant problems of congestion, local air pollution, carbon emissions, and risk of crashes. The students’ work recommends several improvements to existing large-scale airports, including relocating drop-off, pick-up, and staging of TNCs to a non-curbside location; using re-match algorithms to reduce TNC idling time by quickly providing drivers with new fares; increasing awareness and enforcement of no-idling rules; and adjusting pricing schemes to encourage use of non-curbside pick-up and drop-off locations as well as helping airports recover costs.

The students’ work tied for first place in the Airport Management and Planning Challenge.

For more information, see 2019 Competition Winners.
For the full report, click here.