Graduate School
MIT

Undergraduate School
Johns Hopkins University

Mentor
Paul Scapicchio, Senior Vice President at ML Strategies and Rappaport Institute Advisory Board Member

Agency
MBTA

Supervisor
Josh Robin, Director of Innovation

Description of Fellowship
As a Rappaport Public Policy Doctoral Fellow at the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, Candy conducted a significant amount of research to inform the MBTA’s Mobile Strategy. Transit riders in Boston are rapidly adopting smartphones, which can be used to provide transit information and, in the future, to pay transit fares. Her summer research gauged the customer perspective for using mobile technologies on the Commuter Rail. In June, she led an on-board survey on two Commuter Rail lines – the Worcester and Newburyport/Rockport – to assess adoption of real-time information available on smartphone applications Candy also helped lead a series of focus groups with Commuter Rail riders for the Mobile Ticketing project, which was featured in the Metro newspaper. Her research has informed the MBTA’s mobile strategy and helped to promote implementation of innovative technologies that will be used by transit riders in Boston.