Seminars

Haas and ITS Fireside Chat - Powering the Future: Public-Private Partnerships at the Intersection of Mobility, Autonomy, and AI

May 9, 2025
Powering the Future: Public-Private Partnerships at the Intersection of Mobility, Autonomy, and AI

ITS Affiliated Student PhD Talks

May 6, 2025

The Institute of Transportation Studies celebrated the research of graduating doctoral candidates at a special PhD Transportation Seminar on Friday, May 2, 2025.

Wesley Darling (CEE) - Advised by Professor Michael Cassidy

Can subsidized TNCs trump microtransit in non-urban settings?

Abstract: This research examines whether subsidized transportation network company (TNC) services, such as Uber and Lyft, can offer non-urban communities better service at a lower cost than microtransit. While microtransit reduces per-trip costs...

Planning Evacuations of Communities with High Adoption of EVs

April 28, 2025

Thank you to Ricardo de Castro, UC Merced Mechanical EngineeringAssistant Professor, who presented Planning Evacuations of Communities with High Adoption of EVs at the Institute of Transportation Studies Transportation Seminar on Friday, April 25, 2025.

Abstract: California is quickly embracing zero emission vehicles (ZEVs) as a means to decarbonize the transportation sector. According to Executive Order N-79-20, ZEVs will be the only new vehicles allowed to be sold in the state by 2035. At the same time, the state is at high risk of severe weather phenomena, such as wildfires,...

CDA.AI: Forging a Multi-Agent Future for Intelligent Mobility

April 18, 2025

Thank you to Jiaqi Ma, Associate Professor at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering and Associate Director of the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies who presented CDA.AI: Forging a Multi-Agent Future for Intelligent Mobility at the Institute of Transportation Studies Transportation Seminar on Friday, April 18, 2025.

Abstract: This seminar introduces CDA.AI, a unified artificial...

Can Usage-Based Pricing Reduce Congestion: Evidence from a Field Experiment

April 11, 2025

Thank you to Shoshana Vasserman, Assistant Professor, Economics, Center Fellow, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, Stanford Graduate School of Business, who presented Can Usage-Based Pricing Reduce Congestion: Evidence from a Field Experiment at the Institute of Transportation Studies Transportation Seminar on Friday, April 11, 2025.

Abstract: This paper analyzes the effects of the largest field experiment to date that incentivizes drivers to limit driving during peak hours and congested areas via usage-based congestion pricing. The experiment monitored the driving...

Scaling Up Shared Rides: Pricing and Matching Policies

April 7, 2025

Thank you to Chiwei Yan, UC Berkeley Industrial Engineering and Operations Research Assistant Professor, who presented Scaling Up Shared Rides: Pricing and Matching Policies at the Institute of Transportation Studies Transportation Seminar on Friday, April 4, 2025.

Bio: Chiwei Yan received his Ph.D. from the Operations Research Center at MIT and his BS in Industrial Engineering from Tsinghua University. Before joining Berkeley IEOR, he taught at the University of Washington Seattle and was a senior data scientist in the marketplace group at Uber where he designed the rider surge...

Engineering Sustainable Asphalt Pavements

March 18, 2025

Thank you to Amy Epps Martin, Texas A&M A.P. & Florence Wiley Professor II and Senior Research Engineer, who presented Engineering Sustainable Asphalt Pavements at the Institute of Transportation Studies Transportation Seminar on Friday, March. 7, 2025.

Before the seminar began, UC Berkeley CEE Professor Michael Cassidy commemorated the impactful contributions of Carl L. Monismith (1926-2025) to the field of asphalt technology. Read more about his...

Robotaxis and AI: Navigating Mobility Innovation and the Public Good

March 14, 2025

The Institute of Transportation Studies, Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society and the Banatao Institute (CITRIS), Transportation Sustainability Research Center (TSRC), Partners for Advanced Transportation Technology (PATH), and Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) hosted a panel, Robotaxis and AI: Navigating Mobility Innovation and the Public Good in conjunction with the Civil and Environmental Engineering Transportation Engineering masters program visit day on March 14, 2025.

Event Overview:

Robotaxis mark...

Urban Form, Land Use Mix, and Transport Networks: Towards a Synthetic Indicator For the 3 D’s in Multimodal Metropolis

March 3, 2025

Thank you to José Carpio-Pinedo, Fulbright Visiting Scholar at ITS Berkeley, who presented Urban Form, Land Use Mix, and Transport Networks: Towards a Synthetic Indicator For the 3 D’s in Multimodal Metropolis at the Institute of Transportation Studies Transportation Seminar Co-sponsored by Global Metropolitan Studies) on Friday, Feb. 28, 2025.

Abstract: What does urban proximity truly mean? What mix of land uses should we prioritize? And how should these factors be evaluated within the framework of multimodal transport? What are the morphological implications of the “15-minute”...

Atomic Proximal Policy Optimization for Electric Robo-Taxi Dispatch and Charger Allocation

February 27, 2025

Thank you to Manxi Wu, Assistant Professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering department at University of California, Berkeley, who presented Atomic Proximal Policy Optimization for Electric Robo-Taxi Dispatch and Charger Allocation at the Institute of Transportation Studies Transportation Seminar on Friday, Feb. 21, 2025.

Abstract: Pioneering companies such as Waymo have deployed robo-taxi services in several U.S. cities. These robo-taxis are electric vehicles, and their operation requires the joint optimization of ride matching, vehicle repositioning, and...