TSRC Named a Research Team for NCHRP Grant

“This is really exciting research for us,” says TSRC co-director Susan Shaheen. “There have not been a lot of federally-funded research opportunities to study automated vehicles, especially on the policy side. Now we have a good chance to work on this topic and to help shape this understanding at UC Berkeley.”

TSRC, teamed as a subcontractor with Booz Allen Hamilton, is one of four teams that won $1 million over a 48-month time frame for projects that will identify critical issues associated with connected vehicles and automated vehicles that state and local transportation agencies and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) will face. This NCHRP project will conduct research on many of the impacts of CVs and AVs at a state and local level, along with related technology transfer and information exchange activities.

TSRC is eligible to bid on the first three research tasks planned for this year.

The first task looks at identification of state and local policy and planning actions that could facilitate implementation of CV and AV systems. The selected research team will develop a report with recommended policy and planning actions and estimates of their expected costs and impacts on deployment of both CV and AV systems.

The second task looks at impacts of transit system regulations and policies on CV/AV technology introduction. The selected research team will develop a primer on the regulatory and policy landscape of transit system planning, development, funding, and operations and identify the pain points or areas where any policy changes are necessary to accommodate (or facilitate) deployment of different types of CV/AV technologies.

The third task looks at critical next steps for AV/CV applications in freight operations. The selected research team will review existing literature and develop a list of key issues and challenges in the regulatory, policy, and operations landscape of freight systems and identify the areas where policy and operations strategy changes are needed to accommodate (or facilitate) CV/AV deployment.

This first round of projects, totaling $700,000, is part of a larger 5-year, $15 million proposed effort that was based off of the Connected/Automated Vehicle Research Roadmap for AASHTO (20-24(98)) developed by California Partners for Advanced Transportation Technology’s (PATH) Steven Shladover and Kimley-Horn & Associates’ Douglas Gettman.

The Connected/Automated Vehicle Research Roadmap, which is nearing completion, addresses policy, planning, and implementation issues that state and local transportation agencies will face, and it considers implications of CV/AV technologies for passenger cars, trucks, public transit vehicles, emergency vehicles, bicycles, and pedestrians, as well as agency fleets. CV technologies that are not based on the Dedicated Short Range Communication band are also being considered.