Guest Seminar: Professor Ram Pendyala from ASU

Hello! Purdue ITE is pleased to invite you to a special guest seminar with Professor Ram Pendyala from Arizona State University. The seminar will discuss public transit in the era of ridehailing and teleworking, and will be hosted during ITE’s weekly seminar on Tuesday, Arpil 8^th. We hope to see you there!
Presenter: Professor Ram Pendyala Title: Transit Under Stress: How Ridehailing and Teleworking are Redefining the Future of Public Transportation
		When		Where
Tuesday April 8^th, 2025, 3:30 – 4:20 PM			HAMP 1144

Abstract	Public transportation systems in the United States have been navigating turbulent times for over a decade, with transit ridership declining steadily since the early 2010s. While the COVID-19 pandemic intensified this trend, the roots of ridership decline in transit extend to broader shifts in the transportation landscape, including the rise of ridehailing services (e.g., Uber and Lyft) and the increasing adoption of telecommuting. This seminar will present findings from two recent studies that explore how these transformative forces impact public transit. The first study evaluates the effect of ridehailing services on bus ridership, showing that while ridehailing primarily acts as a substitute for bus use, certain market segments exhibit complementary behaviors, highlighting nuanced impacts across different rider groups. The second study examines the evolving relationship between telecommuting and transit use, uncovering a U-shaped pattern where hybrid work arrangements are associated with higher transit use compared to fully remote or fully in-person work modalities. The talk will conclude with policy recommendations aimed at adapting to these shifts, including strategies to integrate emerging technologies with transit systems and support hybrid work models to stabilize and revitalize public transportation amid ongoing disruptions.

Bio	Ram Pendyala is a professor of transportation systems and the Director of the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment at Arizona State University. He also served as the Director of TOMNET, a USDOT-funded Tier 1 University Transportation Center. He has previously served on the Civil & Environmental Engineering faculty at the University of South Florida, and as the Frederick R. Dickerson Chair of Transportation at Georgia Tech. His expertise lies in the study of activity-travel behavior and understanding the role of various factors in shaping human mobility choices. He has published extensively and held leadership positions in the Transportation Research Board Technical Activities Division, including service as Chair of the Traveler Behavior and Values Committee, Travel Analysis Methods Section, and Planning and Environment Group. He has also previously served as the Chair, Vice-chair, and Secretary/Treasurer of the International Association for Travel Behaviour Research. He has been recognized with a number of awards including the 2025 ASCE Frank M. Masters Transportation Engineering Award. Pendyala has his PhD and MS degrees from the University of California at Davis, and his Bachelor’s in Civil Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras.