Guaranteed Basic Mobility – Pilot Research Project in Pittsburgh

Procedures

For this study, we will be tracking some participant’s use of transportation and asking surveys of all participants. Some participants in this study will be eligible to receive monthly access to free trips on the Pittsburgh Regional Transit bus, on SPIN scooters, POGOH unpowered and battery-powered bicycles, and Zipcar in the Pittsburgh area. Other participants in this study will be eligible to receive up to $180 (through a prepaid Visa card or electronic payment via Paypal or Venmo) as compensation for filling out surveys and sharing other data, but they will not receive additional transportation access. It is important that we have both types of participants, because we need to see what difference the additional transportation makes. In the same way that testing a new drug, like the COVID vaccine, requires that we give some people a new drug and compare their health outcomes to people who do not receive it, we need to test the impact of these new transportation options by comparing outcomes of those who receive the options with those who do not.

Participants will be randomly assigned (like flipping a coin) to one of two groups: Group A and Group B. You will have equal chance of being in Group A or Group B. You will not be able to choose which group you are assigned to. By agreeing to be in this study, you are agreeing to participate in whichever group you are assigned to.

Our study will require members of both groups, A and B, to download apps onto their smartphone, which will record your location several times per hour and transmit that data to our research team. Research team staff can help you download and install this app. You will have to keep this app on throughout the study. However, we will carefully protect your data and your privacy.

We will require members of both groups, A and B, to provide us with their name, phone number, email address, physical address, and date of birth. Please note, the phone number and email address you provide to us must be the same as the phone number and email address you use (or will use) to sign up for accounts with the transportation providers if you are assigned to group A and want to be eligible for the free rides.

Members of both groups, A and B, must be residents of Pittsburgh, PA. If you move out of the city during the study you will no longer be able to participate in the study.

We will also require members of both groups, A and B, to fill out a short online survey at the beginning of their participation in the project. It will only take a few minutes to complete, and it will ask you questions about yourself, your household, and your employment.

Every 2 months, for the following 12 months, we will send all members of both groups, A and B another short online survey via email and text message links. At the end of the study, we will ask members of both groups to take an end-of-study survey, also delivered via email and text message.

The rest of our procedures are very different for the two groups.

Members of group A will be eligible to receive access to certain kinds of free transportation each month for up to a full year during the study. These free rides will come in the following form.

Service Type:	Group A eligibility amount:
*Spin (electric scooter)	Five 30-minute rides daily
Pittsburgh Regional Transit (city bus)	Unlimited transit pass
POGOH (unpowered pedal bicycles and battery-powered E-Assist bicycles)	Unlimited 30-minute rides
**Zipcar (short-term car rental)	Membership and 60 monthly credit

*To ride Spin scooters, you must be able to supply (and wear) your own suitable helmet as required under Spin’s terms.
**To drive Zipcars, you must have a valid driver’s license.

The actual amount of rides members of this groups will receive will depend on their usage and whether they create and activate their accounts with the relevant transportation providers by the required deadline.

• Members of this group cannot “bank” unused rides or carry them over across months – credits must be used in the month in which they are received.
• Any participant charging a trip to our study should be one of the passengers on that trip. The participants’ GPS data from their cell phones will be used to verify that the participant was the person using the trip. If the researchers determine that the participant charged a trip to our study when the participant was not a passenger on that trip, the participant may be removed from the study.
• The free rides offered to members of this group have no cash value and are not redeemable for cash or gift cards, and they cannot be applied to any transportation charges previously incurred with those providers.

If you are in Group A and do not already have the mobile apps for SPIN, POGOH, and Zipcar, and if you want to be eligible to obtain the free rides from those providers and you are comfortable with their terms and conditions, we will also help you download and install these mobile apps if you have not done it before. We will need to supply your name, phone number, and email address to all transportation providers in order for you to be eligible to take trips paid for by our study, so please be sure the information you provide for the study matches the information you use to register for the transportation provider apps. When you use the provider apps to take rides and you elect to have those rides charged to the Project as allowed under this study, those rides are part of this study and the providers will share the following information about those rides with us for use in the study: pick-up address and time, drop-off address and time, duration, distance and/or fare amount, and trip ID. The providers may collect other information on you and your rides for their normal business practices that they do not share with us. Your use of the providers’ mobile apps and any and all data collected by the providers through your use of the app or otherwise from you will be subject to the applicable terms and conditions of your accounts with the providers.

It is up to you to read the terms and conditions of each of these transportation providers and decide if you are able and willing to comply with their terms. If you are in Group A and want to get access to the free rides, then you will need to be willing to set up accounts and comply with the provider’s terms for use of their service. However, you are not required to create accounts with all of these providers or to use the services all of these providers in order to be in the study.

It is also up to you to decide if you are comfortable using any of the transportation services and to follow all required or recommended safety procedures of the providers (which may include supplying or wearing helmets). The transportation services are offered to the general public in various locations in the Pittsburgh area, and Carnegie Mellon does not have control over the availability or safety of those transportation services.

For members of Group A, transportation benefits will be depend on transmitting GPS data, using our study app, and filling out online surveys every other month. If you do not continue to transmit data and fill out surveys, your access to the next month’s benefits could be suspended or you could be removed from the study. A final survey will be sent one year after the end of our 12-month study period.

Members of the Group A may be given the opportunity to receive introductory training directly from the entities providing transportation shortly after participants are recruited and before rides are taken. The information communicated would be standard information typically provided to customers of each transportation service and would allow the participants of Group A to be fully knowledgeable of the services they are receiving.

If a Group A “orientation” will be offered as a physical event, we will notify you of the day and time so you can decide if you want to attend. We expect that such an orientation may include presentations from the transportation service entities about the details needed to use their services. For example, this may include how to register for the service, how to unlock a vehicle, how to end a trip, etc. This in-person format may also allow Group A participants to test-ride the vehicle types offered by some of the transportation services, thus allowing for more comfort and confidence in using the service.

Additionally, representatives from the transportation services may be available to answer specific questions raised by the participants.

As an alternative to attending any available optional in-person orientation, Group A participants may also be offered a virtual orientation composed of presentations communicating the same information as the in-person orientation. We will notify you of any available virtual orientations. This alternative would be helpful for participants who are unable to attend any available in-person event due to scheduling conflicts or other concerns.

If we hold in-person or virtual orientations for group A participants, we expect the attendees would receive physical or digital copies of the information about transportation services provided at the orientations. This may serve as a reference to the participants throughout the term of the study in case they have any remaining questions about any of the services. All information provided by the transportation services during these orientations would be information that already exists for the purpose of orienting typical customers on how to use their service. This information is publicly available in a variety of formats on each entity’s website.

If we hold an in-person orientation and you decide to attend, your identity as a member of Group A in this study may become known to other individuals. If you do want this information to become known, you do not need to attend any in-person orientation. It is strictly optional.

Members of the other group, group B, will not get free transportation, but they could receive compensation of up to $180 if they follow the procedures we are about to describe.

Members of group B will receive a $10 payment for every survey they fill out while they are in the study. We expect to send out 7 surveys during the 12-month study period. A final survey will be sent one year after the end of our 12-month study period.

Members of group B will receive an additional $100 payment at the end 12 months if they are still in the study at that time and have maintained transmission of GPS data during the 12-month period and if they filled out more than 50% of the surveys (that is, at least 4 of the 7 surveys during the 12-month period).

IMPORTANT NOTE: if you agree to participate in this study, you will not know ahead of time if you have been assigned to group A or group B. You will need to agree to participate before we tell you which group you are randomly assigned to. Once you have been assigned to a group, the group cannot be changed.

Department of Human Services Data

For both groups, we will partner with Allegheny County Department of Human Services (“DHS”) to study how participation in this study might affect the long-term well-being of participants and their families. DHS may already collect or have in its possession data about your family, your family’s use of social services, your family’s participation in training programs, etc. DHS will not share this data with us. Instead, we will provide your name, email address, physical address, date of birth, and phone number to DHS, and identify you as a member of Group A or Group B. We will also share your individual GPS and survey data we collect with DHS. DHS will use its data holdings to conduct statistical analysis on its own data for the purposes of determining the effect of participation in our study on the variables that DHS currently tracks. DHS may share the results of this statistical analysis with us, but DHS will not share individual data records with us. These procedures will protect your privacy and the privacy of your family. The data you share with us will not affect the assistance or other benefits administered by DHS which you may receive.

Participant Requirements

In order to participate, you must meet the following requirements:

• You must be between the ages of 18 and 60
• You must not have regular access to a car
• You must be seeking a job, interested in finding a better job, or hoping to work more hours
• You must have a smartphone
• You must have a phone plan that allows your phone to send and receive data over the internet
• You must be willing to download mobile apps onto your phone for this study
• You must be a resident of the city of Pittsburgh
• You must not be a teleworker or someone who works from home
• You must currently receive government-funded social assistance, such as housing assistance, Medicaid, SNAP, TANF, Unemployment Insurance, or SSI payments
• If placed in group A and you want to be eligible to receive the available free rides from SPIN, POGOH, or Zipcar, you must be willing and able to sign up for accounts on the apps of the relevant transportation providers if you don’t already have those accounts
• If placed in group A, you must have a valid driver’s license if you want to use Zipcar.
• If placed in group A and you want to be eligible to receive the available free rides from SPIN or Zipcar, you will need to provide a valid credit/debit card when you sign up for these services. If you wish to take more rides than are covered by this study, those additional rides will be charged to your card.

Risks

The risks to this study are minimal.

Use of our apps (and any transportation provider apps) may cause your battery to drain power more quickly, meaning you might need to charge your phone earlier in the day than your previous habit. Slightly more battery usage from our app has not been a significant burden for participants in other studies using similar smartphone applications.

Use of our apps (and any transportation provider apps) may incur data charges on your cell phone plan. Depending on your smartphone data plan and how much you are using the apps, you may incur additional charges from your cellphone company.

You may experience some worry about a loss of privacy as a result of revealing your location during the study. However, the data do not tell us what you are doing, who you are with, nor where you are inside a building. We need to collect this information because we seek to understand how access to transportation resources affects where people go and when. To measure this effect accurately, we need to track your location data in a detailed, frequent manner. But we will do so in a way that protects your privacy.

Of course, there is a potential, though unlikely, risk of loss of confidentiality associated with this study. However, we will follow recommended procedures to anonymize the data we collect in this study, as described above, and we will follow recommended procedures to guard against unauthorized data access or data breaches.

There is also a slight risk that you may fail to un-install the app, so your location information might be tracked continuously after the experiment. To avoid such situation to happen, we will explicitly give you instructions both at the beginning and the end of the experiment how to do the un-installation (it is the same as un-installing any usual app). We will also stop the location tracking from our server side after the experimental period ends, which tells the phone to stop transmitting even if the app remains installed.

Carnegie Mellon is undertaking this study under a subcontract from another organization, InnovatePGH. InnovatePGH is contracting with the various transportation providers to provide the rides participants in the study will receive. If InnovatePGH fails to pay the providers the required amounts to secure the rides or if contractual disputes arise between InnovatePGH and the providers, the access members of group A receive to the transportation benefits described in this document could be impaired or interrupted. We judge this outcome to be unlikely because of the commitments made by InnovatePGH to Carnegie Mellon in our subcontract.

There is a risk that group A participants will become dependent on the transportation benefits provided by this study, that they will not be able to afford this higher degree of mobility after the study ends, and that they could lose jobs that require this higher level of mobility or experience other setbacks.

Finally, in order to take advantage of the free rides with any providers other than Pittsburgh Regional Transit, members of group A will need to create accounts with the relevant transportation providers. Creating these accounts will require agreement to certain terms and conditions and may require a credit card or other form of payment. If members of group A do not carefully track their ride usage to stay within the limits of any available free rides, they may end up with charges on their personal credit/debit cards or other liability to the ride providers for which they would be responsible.

Benefits

This study may create general benefits to society through the knowledge gained about how transportation access helps workers find better jobs, work more hours, and reduce their reliance on public assistance.

The study app that members of group A and group B will download onto their smartphone has features that may help participants more easily find better jobs or access other resources.

What You Will Receive

Members of group A will receive free ride access for the duration of their study participation (as outlined in this consent form) and $10 for completing the final survey we will send out one year after they have completed the project. The $10 payment will be made through a prepaid Visa card or electronic payment via Paypal or Venmo.

Members of group B will receive a $10 payment for every survey they fill out and they will receive an additional $100 payment at the end of 12 months if they are still in the study at that time and if they maintained transmission of GPS data during the 12 month period and if they filled out more than 50% of the monthly surveys. Group B participants can receive a total of up to $180 for their full participation in the study (completing all 8 surveys ($80) and if their participation entitles them to the $100 additional payment as described above). All payments will be made through a prepaid Visa card or electronic payment via Paypal or Venmo.

Costs

There are no direct costs for participating in this program. If a participant in Group A exceeds the ride amounts allowed as listed in this consent, they will incur additional charges for the additional rides at their own expense. Depending on a participant’s cell phone data plan, it is possible that participation may incur additional data charges for the use of their phone during the study.

Future Use of Information

The data we collect in this study may be used for future research purposes and it may be shared with other researchers. However, any data shared with other researchers will be “deidentified.” That means we will not share your name or any other personally identifying information (PII) with other researchers who might be given future access to these data, in order to protect your privacy.

Confidentiality

By participating in the study, you understand and agree that Carnegie Mellon may be required to disclose your consent form, data and other personally identifiable information as required by law, regulation, subpoena or court order. Otherwise, your confidentiality will be protected as described below.

For members of both groups, we will initially collect your GPS data and survey data on a secure server, employing industry best practices to protect data. From our transportation providers, if you are in group A we will also receive data on your use of any free rides taken under the study. We will link the data from the providers with the other data we have collected, and store the combined data set on Carnegie Mellon University’s private network on a password protected site that can only be accessed by research team members. We will then anonymize the data, replacing your name, phone number, and all other personally identifying information with an ID code generated by our IT system. Statistical analysis performed by our research team will use these anonymized data. This protects your privacy, because our research team will not know whose data they are analyzing. Any data shared with other researchers will be anonymized and processed so that your identity and privacy will be protected.

By participating, you understand and agree that the data and information gathered during this study may be used by Carnegie Mellon and anonymized data may be published and/or disclosed by Carnegie Mellon to others outside of Carnegie Mellon. Your name, address, contact information and other direct personal identifiers will not be mentioned in any such publication or dissemination of the research data and/or results by Carnegie Mellon or otherwise given to third parties. The only exceptions to this are that your name, phone number and email address will be given to our transportation providers if you are in group A in order to provide you with free rides. In addition, your name, email address, phone number, physical address, date of birth, your status in either group A or group B, and your individual-level GPS and survey data will be given to DHS. Note that per regulation all research data must be kept for a minimum of 3 years.

By participating in this study, you agree that our transportation providers may share trip data with Carnegie Mellon researchers regarding trips that you requested through their mobile applications for the purposes of this study. You also agree that CMU may share data with ACDHS in order for them to determine the study’s effect on people’s use of DHS benefit and on social outcomes tracked by DHS.

Should you choose to attend any optional in-person orientation that is offered for our Group A participants, the fact that you are participating in this study as part of Group A may become known to other individuals. If you wish to keep your participation or Group status confidential, then you do not have to attend any in-person optional event. It is not required.

Rights

You may withdraw from the study at any time. If you want to withdraw, please let us know by emailing us at manchestergbmpilot@gmail.com or by calling us at (412) 228-0564.

Your participation is voluntary. Refusal to participate or withdrawal of your consent or discontinued participation in the study will not result in any penalty or loss of benefits or rights to which you might otherwise be entitled. The Principal Investigator may at his/her discretion remove you from the study for any of a number of reasons. In such an event, you will not suffer any penalty or loss of benefits or rights to which you might otherwise be entitled.

Upon the end of the study (or your earlier request to withdraw from the study or your removal from the study) we will stop your eligibility for the free rides and stop collecting your data from the ride providers if you are in group A, and we will stop collecting data from the study apps. However, stopping participation in the study will not remove the study app or any transportation provider apps from your phone or terminate any of your accounts with the transportation providers. It is up to you to uninstall the study apps and to decide whether you want to keep the transportation provider apps and to continue using those transportation providers at your own expense. However, the data we collect on your participation between the time you enroll and the time your participation in the study ends may be used in our study.

Right to Ask Questions & Contact Information

If you have any questions about this study, you should feel free to ask them now. If you have questions later, desire additional information, or wish to withdraw your participation please contact the Principal Investigator by mail, phone or e-mail in accordance with the contact information listed on the first page of this consent.

If you have questions pertaining to your rights as a research participant; or to report concerns to this study, you should contact the Office of Research Integrity and Compliance at Carnegie Mellon University. Email: irb-review@andrew.cmu.edu . Phone: 412-268-1901 or 412-268-5460.