Economics and Finance

Shared Mobility Policies for California

Susan Shaheen
Cohen, Adam
2018

In recent years, economic, environmental, and social forces have quickly given rise to the “sharing economy,” a collective of entrepreneurs and consumers leveraging technology to share resources, save money, and generate capital. Shared mobility—the shared use of a vehicle, bicycle, or other low-speed travel mode—is an innovative transportation strategy that enables users to have short-term access to a transportation mode on an as-needed basis. Business-to-consumer services, such as Zipcar and car2go, and peer-to-peer carsharing and shared ride services, such as Getaround, Turo, Lyft, and...

A Research Roadmap for Transportation and Public Health

Sandt, LS
West, A
Johnson, S
Brookshire, K
Evenson, K
Blackburn, L
Peach, K
Tartala, M
Ricklin, A
Shah, S
Daniel Rodriguez
Coburn, J
2019

States and localities are beginning to recognize and act on the connection between health and transportation. A growing number of entities have produced a number of resources, guidance documents, and strategic plans on the topic.

The TRB National Cooperative Highway Research Program's NCHRP Research Report 932: A Research Roadmap for Transportation and Public Health builds upon this body of work to provide a plan for funding research over the next decade that can lead to greater consideration of health issues in transportation contexts.

Driving Equity: Can Electric Vehicle Carsharing Improve Grocery Access in Underserved Communities? A Case Study of BlueLA

Ziad Yassine
Elizabeth Deakin
Elliot Martin
Susan Shaheen
2025

Carsharing has long supported trip purposes typically made by private vehicles, with grocery shopping especially benefiting from the carrying capacity of a personal vehicle. BlueLA is a one-way, station-based electric vehicle (EV) carsharing service in Los Angeles aimed at improving access in low-income neighborhoods. We hypothesize that BlueLA improves grocery access for underserved households by increasing their spatial-temporal reach to diverse grocery store types. We test two hypotheses: (1) accessibility from BlueLA stations to grocery stores varies by store type, traffic conditions,...

Drivability vs. Walkability: Assessing Shorter- and Longer-Term Transportation Planning Tradeoffs in a Chinese Context

Wendy Tao
Shomik Raj Mehndiratta
Elizabeth Deakin
2007

This paper describes how cities in developing countries often invest large sums to build highways and arterials serving a rapidly growing number of automobiles. Although highway investments are a priority, walking remains the most common mode of transport and buses (or motorbikes) the most common form of motor vehicle in use. The wide new arterials deliver short-term employment and construction spending benefits and in the longer term can contribute to increased productivity. On the other hand, their design and operation can reduce accessibility for pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit...

Carbon in Motion 2050 for North America and Latin America

Lee Schipper
Wei-Shiuen Ng
Brian Gould
Elizabeth Deakin
2011

This study presents a set of two low carbon transportation scenarios, Globalization and Glocalization, where carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions could be heavily reduced in North American and Latin America. The scenarios illustrate how different policy assumptions and energy intensities could reduce emissions through backcasting and long-term projection approaches. Three main policy groups, transportation technologies and strategies, land use planning and pricing instruments design, are assumed to trigger modal shifts and trip reductions. In Globalization, strong international cooperation to...

The Impact of the Sharing Economy on Latent Individual Modal Preference

Maitagorri Helene Schade
Elizabeth Deakin
Robert Cervero
Joan Walker
2017

Mobility patterns in our cities are changing with the onset of shared mobility services. However, publicly available information on the use of shared mobility services is lagging behind. This study set out to fill this data gap by gathering web-based travel diary survey from carsharing and Transportation Network Company (TNC) users in the San Francisco Bay Area. Respondents were screened to be regular users of shared mobility services. The shared use reported in our sample was primarily car sharing and TNC, with bike sharing not being reported enough to be studied here. Our analysis drew...

Travel Choices and Customer Responses to Changing Service Levels: Findings from the San Francisco Bay Area

James Charles Rubin
Elizabeth Deakin
2012

This paper presents findings from a survey and focus groups designed to assess mode choices, attitudes toward transit and other modes, and willingness to pay for reliable services. The survey examined why travelers to downtown Oakland, CA, a transit-rich location, chose to use transit or not. The focus groups examined responses to changes in tolls and carpool rules and likely responses should the Bay Area Rapid Transit system's reliability decline due to funding shortfalls. The factors that most significantly affected mode choice were whether the traveler had a free parking space and...

Building more parking at major employment centers: Can full-cost recovery parking charges fund TDM programs?

Aldo Tudela Rivadeneyra
Manish Shirgaokar
Elizabeth Deakin
William Riggs
2017

In dense urban areas, surface parking often poses an opportunity cost, and reuse of the land for urban development with parking relocated to a multi-story structure may be an attractive option. This paper analyzes the cost of replacing surface parking with a parking structure and finds that it may be equally cost effective to pursue travel demand management strategies. The paper analyzes what it costs to build a parking space in a multi-story structure (garage) using US average data as well as data from the case of a typical large US employer, the University of California, Berkeley. The...

The Cost versus Price for Parking Spaces at Major Employment Centers: Findings from UC Berkeley

Aldo Tudela Rivadeneyra
Manish Shirgaokar
Elizabeth Deakin
William Riggs
2015

In dense urban areas, surface parking often poses an opportunity cost, and reuse of the land for urban development with parking relocated to a multistory structure may be an attractive option. This paper analyzes the cost of replacing surface parking with a parking structure and finds that it may be equally cost effective to pursue travel demand management strategies. The paper analyzes what it costs to build a parking space in a multi-story structure (garage) using US average data as well as data from a substantially higher-cost case, the University of California, Berkeley. The...

Best Practices for the Public Management of Electric Scooters

Karl Reinhardt
Elizabeth Deakin
2020

This research projects evaluates the social, environmental, and safety impacts of shared electric scooters (e-scooters)’ through a literature review, a nationwide scan of state and local laws and regulations, and a case study of Oakland’s experience with e-scooters, including an analysis of the city’s user survey and our own in-depth interviews. E-scooters offer an enjoyable, low-cost travel option, but are used mainly by young, affluent, white males. To improve equity, cities are requiring e-scooter rental companies to serve low-income and minority communities and some further mandate...