Gulsah Akar

About

Gulsah Akar is the Professor and Chair of the School of City and Regional Planning at Georgia Tech. Her research focuses on sustainable urban mobility, examining the built environment and travel connections using advanced data collection technologies, measuring access and equity, analyzing demographic and socioeconomic differences in transportation outcomes, and studying the adoption of emerging mobility technologies. Her work aims to contribute to creating sustainable and resilient communities through improved urban mobility systems. Professor Akar joined Georgia Tech in 2021, having previously served as a professor at The Ohio State University, where she led the PhD Program and was a Research Program Lead at the Sustainability Institute. She has served as the Editor of the Journal of Planning Literature and is actively involved in transportation research committees. Her academic background includes a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland and both B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees from Middle East Technical University in Turkey. Her teaching interests include transportation planning, research methods, and quantitative analysis, with a focus on applying analytical tools to understand travel behavior and urban mobility outcomes.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Business
• Transport engineering
• Geography
• Engineering
• Environmental health
• Medicine
• Psychology
• Demography
• Computer Science

Selected publications

• People with disabilities and use of public transit: The role of neighborhood walkability

  Journal of Transport Geography · 2022 · 49 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Have the gender differences in commuting been shrinking or persistent? Evidence from two-earner households in the U.S.

  International Journal of Sustainable Transportation · 2021-08-30 · 38 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  This study explores gender differences in commute behavior with a focus on two-earner households using data from the 2001, 2009 and 2017 U.S. National Household Travel Surveys (NHTS). To understand whether gender differences are shrinking or persistent in terms of commute distances, we first analyze these differences by assessing descriptive statistics and t-test across multiple population sub-categories and trip purposes. We then employ Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) models on the pooled…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Analysing the travel behaviour of older adults: what are the determinants of sustainable mobility?

  Ageing and Society · 2022-11-21 · 30 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract In recent years, various authorities launched projects that aim to make their cities more age-friendly. Designing age-friendly cities is a complex and context-dependent process that requires clear implementation guidelines for policy makers. As one of the eight domains of age-friendly cities, transportation is a critical component of making our cities more liveable for older adults and their families. This paper contributes to the literature by exploring the travel behaviour of older ad…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Investigating tools for evaluating service and improvement opportunities on bicycle routes in Ohio, United States

  Multimodal Transportation · 2022-09-11 · 22 citations

  articleOpen access

  Over the past two decades, transportation engineers and urban planners have become increasingly interested in using performance measures to capture roadway infrastructure effects on bicyclists' comfort levels. In this study, a tool is developed for evaluating Ohio's local roads and identifying opportunities for improvement. This begins by assessing the available data sources required to develop a customized model for Ohio, United States. Stakeholder interviews and data assessment outcomes indica…

  PublisherDOI

• Analysis of socioeconomic and built environment factors influencing travel mode choice of older adults in Georgia

  Journal of Transport Geography · 2024-10-18 · 15 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  This paper explores the travel behavior of older adults in comparison to younger adults using the 2017 U.S. National Household Travel Survey Georgia Add-on. We employ a discrete mode choice model to examine how the relationships between travel outcomes and socioeconomic, trip, and built environment characteristics vary by age. Travel modes are categorized into automobile, public transit , and non-motorized modes (i.e., walking and biking). The analysis reveals significant differences in factors…

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Kailai Wang

  12 shared

• Kelly J. Clifton

  West Los Angeles College

  10 shared

• Basar Ozbilen

  6 shared

• Mi Namgung

  Pusan National University

  6 shared

• Sean Doherty

  Wilfrid Laurier University

  5 shared

• Steven I. Gordon

  The Ohio State University

  5 shared

• Yu-Jen Chen

  Fu Jen Catholic University

  4 shared

• Na Chen

  Sun Yat-sen University

  4 shared

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