Haiyun Lin participated in the Academic Initiative with independent research on the topic of “Keeping Up with the Trend – Improving the Residential Location Model for the New York Metropolitan Region.”

A residential location model is an essential element in integrated land use and transportation models because the urban landscape is shaped by the location decisions of countless households. Haiyun’s project focused on how to improve the residential location model by incorporating factors that are typically ignored in current models. More specifically, it analyzed how people’s past residential location experiences influence their current residential location choice preferences, and sought insights from the search process involved in making residential location choices. These findings can lead to proposed improvements on the existing residential location choice model as well as recommendations of additional questions to be asked within NYMTC’s current household travel survey framework.

To improve upon existing residential models, Haiyun’s research addressed the following questions: How does a person’s past location experience affect their preferences in the current location decision? How does the search process impact the location decision? 

Update

Haiyun Lin is finishing her Ph.D. dissertation in the Engineering Department of The City College of New York. She co-authored two research papers partially containing results from her September 11th Memorial Program projects. One of these two papers has been accepted for publication by the journal Environment and Planning; and the other is currently under second round review by Housing Studies. Haiyun also made several presentations at conferences based on research that had been at least partially funded through the September