Project Team
Nicholas Klein (Director and main project lead), Michael Smart (Rutgers), Rounaq Basu (MIT), Sang-O Kim (TAP Lab), Soojung Han (TAP Lab).
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Car ownership transitions
ongoing
This project examines transitions into and out of car ownership among lower-income households. This project looks at questions of where and how lower-income households acquire cars and how they lose access to these cars.
This project is an ongoing effort to understand how the role that transportation plays in economic and social mobility in the lives of individuals with lower-incomes. This research has helped paint a picture of precarious car ownership among low-income households. This work has shown that low-income households cycle in and out of car ownership much more often than more affluent households, and the reasons why low-income households gain and loose cars are different from affluent households. Rather than being shaped by life-stage events, such as childbirth (or adoption), cohabitation, college graduation, low-income households’ car ownership transitions are triggered by short-term economic gains and losses and unexpected repairs.
Chart from titles of GoFundMe campaigns for car purchase or repair.
Related publications
Subsidizing Car Ownership for Low-Income Individuals and Households
Klein, N. (2020). Subsidizing Car Ownership for Low-Income Individuals and Households. Journal of Planning Education and Research. [open access link] https://doi.org/10.1177/0739456X20950428
“Desperately Need a Car”: Analyzing crowdfunding campaigns for car purchases and repairs on Gofundme.com
Klein, N., Tran, M., & Riley, S. (2020). “Desperately Need a Car”: Analyzing crowdfunding campaigns for car purchases and repairs on Gofundme.com. Travel Behaviour and Society, 21, 247–256. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tbs.2020.07.004 [open access link] https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/8x7d2/
Disentangling the role of cars and transit in employment and labor earnings
Smart M. and N. Klein. (2020) “Disentangling the role of cars and transit in employment and labor earnings.” Transportation 47: 1275–1309. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11116-018-9959-3
Car Today, Gone Tomorrow: The Ephemeral Car in Low-Income, Immigrant and Minority Families
Klein, Nicholas J., and Michael J. Smart. 2017. “Car Today, Gone Tomorrow: The Ephemeral Car in Low-Income, Immigrant and Minority Families.” Transportation 44 (3): 495–510. [open access link] https://doi.org/10.1007/s11116-015-9664-4.
Credits