CommuteCon 2020

RideAmigos’ own director of innovation, Corey Tucker, joined CommuteCon 2020 to give a talk on testing behavioral concepts using scalable technologies. Corey has been in her role with RideAmigos for five years, and has consulted with dozens of businesses, organizations, and institutions seeking to implement forward-thinking transportation demand management concepts. Corey holds a B.A. in civil engineering and public policy from Carnegie Mellon University and an M.S. in civil engineering from the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Corey’s talk focuses on actionable strategies organizations and TDM professionals can use to test behavioral concepts as they are used in specific commuter management plans. Testing is a critical aspect of a TDM program’s success, especially when an initiative is drawing on emerging or unproven techniques.

She began by discussing two sets of testing tactics: randomized control trials (RCTs) and A/B testing. RCTs test the effectiveness of specific strategies by categorizing participants into at least two groups, one of which functions as a control group. The control group is not exposed to the behavioral concept, which is usually incentive-based. RCT studies are often blinded, meaning that participants do not know which group they belong to. At the end, the results generated by the various groups are directly compared, yielding insights into whether the behavioral concept generated a meaningful impact.

A/B testing draws on a similar concept, but is usually used when program designers want to test out two variations of a single behavioral strategy or incentive. As with RCTs, observers carry out controlled test runs of the variant concepts, then directly compare the results to see which approach had more impact.

Corey also provided a deep dive into technical implementation strategies, which organizations like RideAmigos use to ensure the reliability and integrity of their tests. One major plus of Corey’s approaches is their scalability: they can be ramped up or down to apply to projects with all kinds of scopes, which makes them particularly valuable in an industry increasingly driven by scientific innovation.

To learn more and explore these subjects in rich detail, be sure to view Corey’s full CommuteCon 2020 presentation.

About the speaker

Corey has been designing and managing innovative commuter programming for 5 years. She earned her BA in civil engineering and public policy from Carnegie Mellon University and went on to complete a MS in civil engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for her research on technology and policy in transportation. While at MIT, Corey contributed to important work advancing the use of behavioral science and technology in crafting and executing effective transportation policies. She administered MIT’s own cutting edge commuter programs while doing her post-graduate work. She went on to lead customer success and program development for RideAmigos, a developer of commuter management technology.
At RideAmigos, Corey has advised and consulted with dozens of organizations in government, business, and education to define and implement successful transportation demand and commuter management strategies. She maintains close ties to the transportation research community, as a member of the Association for Commuter Transportation, a key organizer of the CommuteCon virtual conference series, and speaker. Corey’s impact on the transportation space far exceeds her age, and the work she is doing to scale program design for different types of organizations will continue to make incredible contributions to the future of mobility.