Events

The urban transport sector's environmental footprint is huge and growing – around a third of energy consumption and CO2 emissions in U.S. cities is in the transport sector. The debate on how to shrink the sector's footprint has splintered into two camps: those arguing for technological solutions (e.g., clean-fuel vehicles; smart cars) and those contending that policies (e.g., congestion pricing) and land-use management (e.g., TOD) that reduce the demand for car travel offer considerable, if not more, promise. The debate and rhetoric has become fractious and at times divisive. In modeling how to comply with AB32, for example, CARB (California Air Resources Board) estimates that some 90% of the targeted CO2 emission reductions will come from technological advances and a much smaller share (5% or so) might come from land-use initiatives like TOD. Many smart-growth policy advocates dispute this.

The technology versus policy debate could very well be a false dichotomy. Is it possible that the two might effectively work together in tandem, promoting cross-purposes? Need the two points-of-view always be at loggerheads? Might there be synergies/win-win outcomes associated with aggressively pursuing the two strategies in tandem.

Sponsored by the Ted and Doris Lee Fund at the College of Environmental Design and Berkeley Law, managed by the Institute of Urban & Regional Development. Individual conferences organized by the Berkeley Program on Housing and Urban Policy, the Institute of Urban & Regional Development, and the University of California Transportation Center.

This research creates and uses macroscopic traffic models to describe the aggregate behavior of vehicles on urban street networks. Insights gained from these models can then be used to design network-wide policies that may increase the ability of these networks to serve vehicle-trips. In particular, this work focuses on the turning maneuvers that exist in networks with multiple routes. The presence of multiple routes and turning maneuvers are found to have two effects on aggregate vehicle behavior: 1) they cause unstable and inefficient behavior when a network is congested; and, 2) they may reduce maximum vehicle flows across the network. Fortunately, this work finds that limiting the rate at which vehicles are allowed to enter a network and providing drivers with real-time information on current traffic conditions can help mitigate the first effect and allow the network to operate more efficiently. It is also found that the second effect may not always be harmful—lower network flows do not necessarily result in decreased network efficiency if the lower flows are accompanied by more direct vehicle routing. In fact, two-way networks, which accommodate conflicting left-turns and result in lower maximum vehicle flows than one-way networks, are found to serve trips at a higher rate because drivers travel shorter distances on average. Thus, in many cities, maximum network efficiency can be improved by converting one-way streets to two-way operation.

In return for free public transportation passes, a sample of habitual car commuters in Switzerland and at MIT agreed to commute to work by public transportation for a few days. Their travel happiness, commute satisfaction, mode choice, perceptions, and attitudes were measured before and after the intervention (or treatment). Significant differences in their reported pre- and post-treatment happiness with car commuting were found in both experiments. While none of the Swiss participants switched to public transportation post-treatment, about a third of MIT participants gave up their parking permits and switched to public transportation post-treatment.

This talk will describe some behavioral mechanisms driving the dynamics of satisfaction ratings, analyze the differences in mode switching behavior between the Swiss and MIT cases, and present a modeling framework that incorporates the satisfaction measures as indicators of utility in a random utility mode switching model.

Huang Weikai's one-of-a-kind documentary captures the anarchy, violence, and seething anxiety animating China's major cities today. As urbanization advances at a breakneck pace, Chinese cities teeter on the brink of mayhem. This experimental film combines more than twenty street scenes into a strikingly visual collage that takes an unflinching look at the absurdity and anarchy of urban life in contemporary China.
$5 students, $10 public.