Abstract:

Public transit plays a central role in shaping urban mobility, yet its design is deeply intertwined with broader transportation policies—particularly pricing, taxation, and subsidy schemes that influence traveler behavior and sustain system operations. At the same time, transit systems are expected to achieve multiple, and often competing, objectives, including congestion mitigation, accessibility provision, and affordability for disadvantaged populations. These objectives reflect underlying government priorities, which are implicitly guided by normative moral principles.

In this seminar, I present a unified transportation economics framework that jointly designs transit services and transportation policies while endogenizing traveler choices. The framework enables a systematic evaluation of both efficiency and equity outcomes under two normative principles - utilitarianism and egalitarianism. I illustrate the framework through two applications addressing emerging challenges in urban transportation systems. The first examines optimal fare policy, with a focus on discussing whether and under what conditions fare-free transit is justified. The second investigates the impacts of rising telework in the post-pandemic era on public transit systems, and discusses policy interventions to mitigate potential undesirable distributive effects.

Bio:

Tianxing Dai is a Ph.D. candidate in Civil and Environmental Engineering at Northwestern University. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree with a minor in urban and regional studies from University of California, Los Angeles. Tianxing's research focuses on transportation system modeling, urban mobility, and transportation policy design and planning, with particular emphasis on integrating large-scale mobility data, economic theory, and emerging AI methods to understand and improve the evolving transportation systems.

Abstract:

In this deep-dive analysis, based on his new book of the same title, Dr. Christopher Borroni-Bird will explore emerging automotive and mobility trends, confront their resulting negative consequences, and demonstrate a viable path forward. Learn how leveraging the same technologies can deliver affordable, sustainable mobility access to everyone, worldwide, and examine the strategic roadmap detailing how governments and automakers can achieve significant strategic and economic advantage.

Bio:

Dr. Christopher Borroni-Bird is an expert on sustainable and affordable mobility for ALL the world’s people. This builds on his 25-year career leading advanced mobility initiatives at several major companies and universities as well as volunteering in sub-Saharan Africa. With his consulting business, Afreecar, he is a senior advisor on future mobility to McKinsey and EVage (an Indian commercial EV startup) and is also sought out to provide independent technical due diligence on future mobility technologies and companies in vehicle autonomy, connectivity and electrification. Separately, Afreecar is also developing an e-kit that power assists non-motorized vehicles while also transforming them into mobile power sources, which has many applications in both the developing and developed worlds. He served as Waymo’s Chief Engineer for Future Vehicle Programs and has been a Research Scientist at MIT Media Lab. From 2012 to 2017, he was Qualcomm’s VP of Strategic Development, responsible for wireless automotive solutions. Prior to this, he led GM’s Electric Networked Vehi-cle (EN-V), the world’s first drivable vehicles to demonstrate today’s accepted vision of future mobility (and extensively deployed at the 2010 Shanghai World Expo). He led GM’s Autonomy, Hy-wire and Sequel “skateboard” electric vehicle concepts, now widely adopted by the Auto Industry, and has 50 patents. He is co-author of “Reinventing the Automobile: Personal Urban Mobility for the 21st Century”, with Larry Burns and the late Bill Mitchell (MIT Press, 2010). Before joining GM in 2000, he led Chrysler’s gasoline fuel cell vehicle development. He was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame as a Young Leader in 2000, was one of Automotive News’ inaugural “Electrifying 100” in 2011 and was profiled by Motor Trend/Blackberry in the “Coding the Car” documentary and book series in 2023. His latest book, “Sustainable and Affordable Mobility for All: Putting the Heart back into Technology” was published by SAE in 2025.

About Mario Harik

Mario Harik leads the execution of XPO's strategy, including growth investments in customer service excellence and employee satisfaction. Leveraging his previous service as XPO’s chief information officer, Mr. Harik also oversees the expansion of network capacity and proprietary technology that are transforming the company’s operations. Prior to XPO, Mr. Harik held positions as chief information officer and senior vice president of research and development with Oakleaf Waste Management, chief technology officer with Tallan, Inc., and co-founder and chief architect of web and voice applications with G3 Analyst. He holds a master’s degree in engineering, information technology from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a degree in engineering, computer and communications from the American University of Beirut in Lebanon. Mr. Harik also serves as chairman of XPO's board of directors, and is on the board of directors of QXO, Inc.

Related Info

Abstract

As urban populations continue to increase in the U.S. and globally, there is growing concern

about the impact of urban environmental determinants on population health, ranging from traditional pollutants to emergent issues such as natural disasters. This talk will focus on modern exposure science approaches to characterize exposures to air pollution, extreme weather, and green space as well as to incorporate them in health research to understand potential biological mechanisms. These approaches include engineering methods, advanced statistical models, GIS, and machine learning methods. The approaches highlighted throughout the talk are applicable to environmental engineering, transportation, civil engineering, epidemiology, risk assessment and public health.

Bio

Kai Zhang, MS, MA, PhD, is a Professor in the Department of Population and Community Health at The University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth. Dr. Zhang received a PhD degree in Environmental Health and a MA degree in Statistics at the University of Michigan, and a MS degree and a BS degree in Environmental Engineering from Tsinghua and Southeast University in China, respectively. Dr. Zhang’s research interest focuses on characterizing climate-related exposures, reducing the human health effects associated with disasters, and exploring the role of social and environmental stressors (air pollution, natural environment, built environment, and green space) in relation to chronic diseases. Dr. Zhang serves as the Secretary of the International Society of Exposure Science (ISES). He is also an Associate Editor for Science of the Total Environment and the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology. His research has been featured in prestigious international journals, including Nature Medicine, Nature Climate Change, Nature Communication, Science Advances, Circulation, Circulation Research, American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Environmental Health Perspectives, and Environmental Science & Technology, among others.

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