Leading a multi year research initiative with the ODOT, spanning $500,000 in funded projects, an implementable statewide framework for community and mobility hubs, and a globally scalable methodology now being adapted across the U.S., Global South, and Europe to improve quality of life and access to essential services.
Timeline: Research grant from 2023-2024 and 3 additional grants through 2027.
Industry: Transportation
Role: Principal Investigator and Project Leader
Funding Amount: $100,000 USD and further $450,000 USD
Research Question: How can community focused infrastructure, informed by human centered research and participatory methods, bridge socio economic access to essential services such as education, mobility, healthcare, and employment to improve quality of life for diverse communities?
NDA Protected Outcomes: Most of the processes, frameworks and outcomes are publicly available, although the specific quantitative and qualitative data collected is the property of ODOT. I can discuss more details upon request.
Why this work matters?
Access to mobility, education, healthcare, and employment remains uneven across urban, suburban, and rural communities globally, directly affecting quality of life and long term economic resilience. By combining human centered research, data driven insight, and participatory infrastructure design, this work provides communities and decision makers with practical tools to close access gaps, support inclusive growth, and create future ready systems that serve people more equitably.
Research Process
This initiative began as a 1 year research grant with the Ohio Department of Transportation from 2023 to 2024 and has since expanded into 3 additional funded projects extending through 2027, representing approximately $500,000 USD in total investment. The work resulted in an implementable, policy aligned framework for community and mobility hubs across the State of Ohio, with direct applicability at the urban, suburban, and rural levels.
Beyond its statewide relevance, the project established a scalable methodology with national and international implications. The frameworks and participatory tools developed through this research are currently being adapted with global partners, including the MIT City Science Network and regional entities in the Global South and Europe. What began as a state pilot now serves as the foundation for a transformative global framework aimed at improving quality of life, access to essential services, and inclusive decision making across diverse contexts.
Why Community and Mobility Hubs?
Community and mobility hubs are designed to improve quality of life by addressing access as a systemic challenge rather than a transportation issue alone. They combine multimodal mobility with essential services such as education, healthcare, employment, recreation, and social infrastructure, functioning as community destinations that support long term socio economic development, resilience, and more equitable access across urban, suburban, and rural contexts.
Community and mobility hubs are designed to improve quality of life by addressing access as a systemic challenge rather than a transportation issue alone. They combine multimodal mobility with essential services such as education, healthcare, employment, recreation, and social infrastructure, functioning as community destinations that support long term socio economic development, resilience, and more equitable access across urban, suburban, and rural contexts.
Addressing Access Gaps Through Future Ready Hubs
To inform the design of future hubs for Ohio communities, the research examined global access inequities and future ready hub models from around the world. This work highlighted how car centric planning and limited infrastructure have historically restricted access, while global precedents demonstrate the potential of integrated hubs to serve as community anchors that promote equity, economic vitality, and spatial inclusion. These insights established the foundation for proposing inclusive, people centered hub solutions tailored to diverse local needs.
To inform the design of future hubs for Ohio communities, the research examined global access inequities and future ready hub models from around the world. This work highlighted how car centric planning and limited infrastructure have historically restricted access, while global precedents demonstrate the potential of integrated hubs to serve as community anchors that promote equity, economic vitality, and spatial inclusion. These insights established the foundation for proposing inclusive, people centered hub solutions tailored to diverse local needs.
Phase 1: Understanding
This phase focused on establishing a human centered and data informed understanding of mobility access, service gaps, and community needs across urban, suburban, and rural contexts in Ohio. Primary research included IRB approved stakeholder interviews, statewide surveys, and on site observations with residents, planners, transportation experts, and local leaders. Secondary research incorporated STEEP analysis, trends forecasting, policy review, and spatial and land use analysis, supported by GIS datasets and regional planning tools.
These inputs were synthesized into clear insights outlining access challenges, opportunity areas, and infrastructure needs, leading to the definition of a Future Hubs typology matrix and the selection of 9 case studies. The outcomes of this phase established a shared evidence based foundation to guide subsequent design, simulation, and participatory decision making.
Case Study Definition
To define representative case studies across Ohio, the team applied a proprietary three way Venn diagram methodology that systematically integrates primary research methods, secondary research methods, and contextual data sets. Primary inputs included IRB approved interviews, surveys, and field observations that captured lived experiences, needs, and priorities of diverse populations. Secondary inputs incorporated STEEP analysis, policy review, trends forecasting, and precedent studies, while quantitative data sets such as GIS, land use, demographic, and mobility data provided spatial and statistical grounding.
The overlap of these three layers revealed converging patterns, access gaps, and opportunity areas, enabling the identification of distinct hub typologies across urban, suburban, and rural contexts. This approach ensured that case study selection and hub definitions were evidence based, human centered, and scalable, forming a robust foundation for subsequent design, simulation, and participatory decision making.
Secondary Research
The secondary research focused on understanding broader systemic conditions shaping access and mobility, including STEEP analysis, trends forecasting, policy and planning review, and precedent studies. These inputs were complemented by quantitative data sets such as demographic, land use, and mobility data, providing a contextual and evidence based foundation to support strategic decision making and hub typology development.
Typology Matrix
The typology matrix was developed through an extensive secondary research review of mobility hubs and community based infrastructure projects from around the world, synthesizing best practices across transportation, urban design, and socio economic development. While many existing models focus on singular urban conditions, this work introduced a key innovation by explicitly accounting for diverse land use contexts, including urban, suburban, rural, and central or historically significant areas, as well as varying scales of connectivity and intensity. Grounded in global precedents and validated with regional data, the matrix enabled the definition of multiple hub types that respond to distinct community needs rather than one size fits all solutions.
Although initially applied within Ohio, the typology matrix and its resulting toolkit of design and planning recommendations are context adaptable, allowing variables to be adjusted to support national and international applications across different socio political, cultural, and geographic conditions.
Phase 2: Ideation
This phase focused on translating research insights into actionable concepts and planning strategies for future community and mobility hubs. Using proprietary human centered and systems oriented ideation methods, qualitative and quantitative findings were synthesized into modular hub components, spatial configurations, and service scenarios. Through iterative concept development, cross disciplinary collaboration, and early validation, this phase produced a portfolio of hub concepts and typologies that responded to local needs while remaining adaptable, scalable, and aligned with long term policy and infrastructure goals.
Central to this phase was a proprietary translation framework that converted research data into context specific design decisions. Insights from surveys, interviews, and secondary research were mapped onto the Typology Matrix to define case study requirements across architecture, urban planning, user experience, mobility systems, and supporting amenities. This approach ensured that planning constraints, community needs, and design intent were addressed in parallel, creating a clear and repeatable pathway from research to concept development.
The resulting design concepts formed the foundation for Digital Twin creation, enabling data driven ideas to be translated into immersive, spatially accurate environments. These Digital Twins supported comparison, validation, and stakeholder engagement, allowing communities and decision makers to visualize scenarios, assess trade offs, and participate meaningfully in shaping future hub solutions.
Translation Framework
To conceptualize future hubs, the team applied proprietary multi level prototyping methods that enabled ideas to evolve from abstract planning to spatially grounded design. The process began with bubble diagrams that translated functional requirements and planning constraints into spatial relationships, providing a bridge between floor plans and design intent. These were followed by concept sketching and 3D modeling, where aesthetics, materiality, and user experience were applied to create cohesive hub concepts.
To refine scale, proportion, and spatial interaction, collaborative AR and VR bubble exercises were conducted in Gravity Sketch, allowing teams to evaluate designs from a human perspective before committing to detailed development. Concepts were further contextualized using local data sets, including land use, mobility patterns, and demographic information, and iteratively validated through research feedback. This approach ensured that each hub concept remained grounded in stakeholder needs, future scenarios, and real world constraints while supporting flexibility and scalability across contexts.
Phase 3: Refinement
During this phase, the team focused in consolidating and refining selected hub concepts into coherent, decision ready proposals that integrated spatial design, services, mobility systems, and implementation considerations. Concepts were evaluated against research findings, typology requirements, and local context constraints, ensuring alignment with community needs, policy goals, and infrastructure realities.
During this phase, Digital Twin hubs were further developed as validation and co design tools for stakeholder sessions and workshops. The simulations were enhanced to improve spatial accuracy, usability, and realism, enabling participants to explore scenarios, assess trade offs, and provide informed feedback. This approach supported collaborative evaluation and refinement, resulting in a set of robust, accessible hub concepts and Digital Twins designed to inform future planning, engagement, and implementation efforts.
Digital Twin Simulation Framework
The Digital Twin simulation framework translated planning and design concepts into immersive, interactive environments that supported shared understanding and collaborative decision making. Using TwinMotion software and guided by the Typology Matrix, Digital Twin hubs were developed by integrating site topography, spatial layouts, architectural concepts, animations, and environmental context. The resulting simulations were realistic, walkable, and VR compatible, allowing stakeholders to visualize pedestrian activity, multimodal traffic flows, architectural features, and amenities in real time.
By providing a low barrier, intuitive entry point for engagement, the Digital Twin framework aligned data, planning assumptions, and community vision into a shared visual language. These simulations enabled informed discussion, comparison of scenarios, and early validation, and established the foundation for future participatory workshops where communities and decision makers can co create, evaluate, and refine future hub solutions together.
Final Hub Digital Twins
The Future Hub Digital Twin videos present short, immersive walkthroughs of proposed hub concepts, with one video created for each of the 9 hub typologies defined in the Typology Matrix. Built from high fidelity Digital Twin simulations, the videos illustrate spatial layout, multimodal movement, pedestrian experience, and key program elements, providing an accessible and engaging way for stakeholders to understand, evaluate, and discuss diverse future hub scenarios.
Future Hub Playbook: A Participatory Framework for Hub Planning
The Future Hub Playbook is a participatory, data informed toolkit designed to translate complex research into actionable guidance for communities, planners, policymakers, and practitioners. Developed as one of the most impactful outcomes of this project, the Playbook empowers stakeholders to collaboratively plan, design, and evaluate future community and mobility hubs that improve access to essential services and overall quality of life.
Grounded in human centered research and supported by Digital Twin simulations, the Playbook provides a structured yet flexible framework that adapts to diverse urban, suburban, and rural contexts. Rather than prescribing one size fits all solutions, it enables communities to identify local priorities, navigate trade offs, and co create context specific hub strategies, lowering barriers to participation and supporting more inclusive, informed, and transparent decision making.
4 Hub Pillars
The Future Hub Playbook is structured around 4 interconnected pillars that guide stakeholders through the planning and design of community and mobility hubs in a clear, accessible, and participatory way. Each pillar builds on the previous one, moving from understanding community needs and context, to defining hub typologies and priorities, to translating insights into design and programmatic decisions, and finally to exploring and validating scenarios through Digital Twin visualizations. Each pillar is supported by research insights, visual Digital Twin examples, and practical checklists that help stakeholders navigate complex design and planning decisions.
Rather than dictating fixed solutions, the Playbook is designed to encourage collaborative adaptation to local conditions, allowing communities to adjust inputs and outcomes based on their specific social, spatial, and policy contexts. Functioning as both a technical resource and a facilitation tool, the 4 pillar structure lowers barriers to civic engagement by combining human centered research, data driven insights, and immersive technologies into a shared, easy to understand planning process.
Phase 4 Next Steps:
This Phase focuses on moving the framework from pilot to implementation and global adaptation, building on validation through professional and public engagements such as OTEC 2024, ODOT Future Mobility and All Aboard Ohio webinars, and the City of Cincinnati Port Authority. Feedback from planners, policymakers, transportation experts, and community members has directly informed refinements to the Playbook and Digital Twin tools, demonstrating their effectiveness as accessible, participatory planning resources. With active collaboration from the Ohio Department of Transportation, the framework is now positioned for deployment in Ohio communities while simultaneously scaling through partnerships with the MIT City Science Network and regional entities in the Global South and Europe, establishing a globally adaptable model to improve access, equity, and quality of life through inclusive, technology enabled infrastructure planning.
The framework has already been validated through multiple public and professional engagements, including presentations and demonstrations at OTEC 2024, ODOT Future Mobility and All Aboard Ohio webinars, and the City of Cincinnati Port Authority. These sessions engaged planners, policymakers, transportation experts, and community members, using the Playbook and Digital Twin assets as live discussion and feedback tools. Input from these events has been overwhelmingly positive and has directly informed iterative refinements, demonstrating the framework’s relevance, clarity, and applicability across stakeholder groups.
5.1 Digital Twins as Democratizing Tools
Digital Twins emerged as a critical enabler for inclusive and informed decision making by translating complex planning data into accessible, immersive experiences. Their ability to visualize land use, mobility systems, and community amenities in a single environment supported alignment across technical experts and non technical stakeholders alike. Built on game engine platforms, the 9 high fidelity Digital Twins enabled early validation, scenario exploration, and shared understanding, demonstrating strong potential for broader adoption through XR platforms and open frameworks, particularly for under resourced municipalities.
Digital Twins emerged as a critical enabler for inclusive and informed decision making by translating complex planning data into accessible, immersive experiences. Their ability to visualize land use, mobility systems, and community amenities in a single environment supported alignment across technical experts and non technical stakeholders alike. Built on game engine platforms, the 9 high fidelity Digital Twins enabled early validation, scenario exploration, and shared understanding, demonstrating strong potential for broader adoption through XR platforms and open frameworks, particularly for under resourced municipalities.
5.2 The Future Hub Playbook as an Empowerment Tool
The Future Hub Playbook represents a shift from static planning documents toward an active, participatory process that empowers communities to shape their own futures. By translating research into clear prompts, visual examples, and actionable checklists, the Playbook enables stakeholders to identify priorities, navigate trade offs, and co create context specific hub solutions. Early feedback from Ohio stakeholders confirmed its scalability and usability, positioning the Playbook as both a technical guide and a facilitation tool that lowers barriers to civic engagement and supports inclusive decision making.
The Future Hub Playbook represents a shift from static planning documents toward an active, participatory process that empowers communities to shape their own futures. By translating research into clear prompts, visual examples, and actionable checklists, the Playbook enables stakeholders to identify priorities, navigate trade offs, and co create context specific hub solutions. Early feedback from Ohio stakeholders confirmed its scalability and usability, positioning the Playbook as both a technical guide and a facilitation tool that lowers barriers to civic engagement and supports inclusive decision making.
5.3 From an Ohio Pilot to Global Application
While rooted in Ohio, the framework has been intentionally designed for adaptation across diverse socio political and urban contexts. Active collaborations with the MIT City Science Network and regional partners in the Global South and Europe are already extending the methodology beyond its original setting. These ongoing adaptations, supported by future co creation sessions, participatory evaluation, and comparative analysis, position this work as the foundation for a growing global ecosystem of future hub case studies aimed at improving access, equity, and quality of life worldwide.
While rooted in Ohio, the framework has been intentionally designed for adaptation across diverse socio political and urban contexts. Active collaborations with the MIT City Science Network and regional partners in the Global South and Europe are already extending the methodology beyond its original setting. These ongoing adaptations, supported by future co creation sessions, participatory evaluation, and comparative analysis, position this work as the foundation for a growing global ecosystem of future hub case studies aimed at improving access, equity, and quality of life worldwide.
Interested in more information?
While this project includes publicly shareable frameworks, methodologies, and pilot outcomes, certain implementation details and future applications remain under active development. I would be glad to discuss the design research process, participatory methodologies, Digital Twin framework, and strategic planning tools in more detail, including how they can be adapted to specific community, policy, or organizational contexts.
Thank you for getting to the end!