ITS Berkeley

Rail Transit Ridership Changes and COVID-19: Lessons from Station-Area Characteristics

Li, M
Rodriguez, DA
Pike, S
McNally, M
2024

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on public transit ridership in the United States, especially for rail transit. Land use, development density, and the pedestrian environment are strongly associated with station-level transit ridership. This study examines how these characteristics affect transit ridership pre- and post-COVID and how they differ across station types based on longitudinal data for 242 rail stations belonging to Bay Area Rapid Transit, San Diego Metropolitan Transit System, Sacramento Regional Transit, and LA Metro between 2019 and 2021. We found...

Decline of Rail Transit Requires New Strategies

Rodriguez, D
Pike, S
McNally, M
Li, M
2024

During the pandemic, California’s four major rail systems— Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), San Diego Metropolitan Transit System (MTS), Sacramento Regional Transit (SacRT), and Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LA Metro)—experienced an average ridership decline of 72 percent between 2019 and 2021. BART had the greatest decrease (87 percent) and MTS the lowest (47 percent). However, ridership changes varied significantly across individual stations, with stations located in the central business district or at the end of lines having the highest ridership losses. Land...

Projected Changes in Heatwaves Over Central and South America Using High-Resolution Regional Climate Simulations

Ramarao, MVS
Arunachalam, S
Sánchez, BN
Schinasi, LH
Rodriguez, D
Dronova, I
O'Neill, MS
Avila-Palencia, I
Gouveia, N
Ju, Y
Kephart, J
2024

Heatwaves (HWs) pose a severe threat to human and ecological systems. Here we assess the projected changes in heatwaves over Latin America using bias corrected high-resolution regional climate simulations under two Representative Concentration Pathway scenarios (RCPs). Heatwaves are projected to be more frequent, long-lasting, and intense in the mid-century under both RCP2.6 and RCP8.5 scenarios, with severe increases under the RCP8.5 scenario. Even under the low emissions scenario of RCP2.6, the frequency of heatwaves doubles over most of the region. A three- to tenfold rise in population...

A Comparison of Heat Effects on Road Injury Frequency Between Active Travelers and Motorized Transportation Users in Six Tropical and Subtropical Cities in Taiwan

Hsu, CK
Rodriguez, DA
2024
Road traffic injuries (RTIs) pose significant public health threats, particularly for vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and cyclists. While recent studies have revealed adverse impacts of heat exposure on RTI frequency among motorized road users, a research gap persists in understanding these impacts on non-motorized road users, especially in tropical regions where their vulnerability can be heightened due to differential thermal exposure, adaptive capacity, and biological sensitivity. In this study, we compared associations between high temperatures and RTIs across four different...

Potential drivers of urban green space availability in Latin American cities

Bakhtsiyarava, M
Moran, M
Ju, Y
Zhou, Y
Rodriguez, DA
Dronova, I
de Pina, M
de Matos, V
Skaba, D
2024

Urban green spaces play a critical role in regulating air temperature, reducing air pollution and enhancing people’s well being. Yet, existing data and research on potential drivers of urban green space availability in Latin America are limited. Here, focusing on 371 large cities in 11 countries in Latin America, we described the total and per capita variability of urban green space, its spatial configuration and green urban parks across the categories of cities’ natural, built and socioeconomic environments. We tested the relative importance of geographic (climate) versus city-level...

Urban Environments, Health, and Environmental Sustainability: Findings From the SALURBAL Study

Roux, AV Diez
Alazraqui, M
Alfaro, T
Barrientos-Gutierrez, T
Caiaffa, WT
Rodriguez, Daniel
2024

Despite the relevance of cities and city policies for health, there has been limited examination of large numbers of cities aimed at characterizing urban health determinants and identifying effective policies. The relatively few comparative studies that exist include few cities in lower and middle income countries. The Salud Urbana en America Latina study (SALURBAL) was launched in 2017 to address this gap. The study has four aims: (1) to investigate social and physical environment factors associated with health differences across and within cities; (2) to document the...

Planning and Accommodating the Micromobility Revolution and Its Impact on Public Health

Quistberg, Alex
Rodriguez, Daniel
2024

Micromobility has grown immensely over the past decade, encompassing both public shared systems and private ownership, and, as Burford et al. have found, a surge in user injuries and deaths has accompanied the growth. Micromobility refers to the use of small vehicles, such as bicycles and scooters, that are either human powered or electric. These vehicles are ideal for short trips—although electric-powered micromobility has expanded the potential distance range.

Streamlining Connected Automated Vehicle Test Data Collection and Evaluation in the Hardware-in-the-Loop Environment

Fu, Zhe
Liu, Hao, PhD
Lu, Xiao-Yun, PhD
2020

Quality data collection, processing, and analysis are foundational to good research, policy making and regulation development. With the rapid development of Connected Automated Vehicles (CAV) technologies, it is urgent for both researchers and policy makers to obtain and evaluate good quality CAV data to better understand CAV impacts. CAV hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) tests can expedite CAV performance evaluation and system implementation. This research aims at equipping an existing HIL test tool with data management functions. To this end, a database instance on MySQL has been integrated...

Connected and Automated Vehicle Policy Development for California

Shladover, Steven
2017

Connected and automated vehicles (CAV) have the potential to confer large benefits to California in economic development (job creation) and in improving the operation of its road transportation network. CAV systems are likely to become one of the most important application domains for modern information technology, employing large numbers of highly skilled people in research, development and implementation wherever the companies that are developing these systems find the local environment most hospitable. The CAV systems are expected to produce significant improvements in roadway capacity...

Recirculating Coherent Structures Inside the Cove of a Bulb Sealed Slat

Himeno, FHT
Amaral, FR
Souza, DS
Rodriguez, D
Medeiros, MAF
2019

The current aircraft noise has a large contribution provenient from the airframe in which the most relevant sources are the landing gear, the flap and the slat. The leading edge slat is a distributed noise source since it spans almost the whole wing extension. The presence of excrescences inside the slat cove can change significantly the recirculating flow and the characteristics of noise generated. Previous experiments showed substantial increasing in the narrow band peaks for the MD30P30N high-lift model in which the slat geometry included a bulb seal attached at some positions of its...