ITS Berkeley

Public transport improvements may increase economic productivity if they enable the growth and densification of cities, downtowns, or industrial clusters and thereby increase external agglomeration economies. It has been argued that the potential agglomeration benefits are large; if so, understanding them better would be useful in making funding decisions about public transport improvements. We reviewed theoretical and empirical literature on agglomeration as well as a small number of articles on transportation's role in agglomeration. The theoretical literature is useful in understanding...

In this article the authors describe how the travel experiences of Barranquilla, Colombia residents have changed since the implementation of the BRT trunk-and-feeder system in 2010. Using an intercept recruitment methodology at more than 15 locations, the authors conducted dozens of interviews of Barranquilla residents. Interviewees had mixed feelings about the new system, depending partly on their socioeconomic status and their habitual mode choices. Many interviewees were pleased about reductions in travel time, particularly when referring to the trunk line services; the air...

This report analyzes how cities, transit agencies, and metropolitan planning organizations are responding to autonomous vehicles (AVs), both in terms of current testing and pilot services, as well as long-term implications of broad AV adoption. The report is based on 21 interviews with staff at cities, transportation agencies, MPOs, and select AV companies, as well as extensive document review. We found a broad spectrum of activity on the part of the public sector regarding AVs, as well as a taxonomy of motivations, which ranged from attempting to harness these vehicles to help boost...

Auto use in the United States is too high, and land uses are too spread out, due to market failures in transportation along with municipal restrictions on density that make residential choices suboptimal. Residential choices may also be suboptimal if households make irrational decisions when deciding where to live and how to get around—failing to account for time spent commuting, overvaluing privacy and material goods like housing, or undervaluing time spent on social activities. Such hypotheses from the behavioral economics literature have rarely been empirically explored with regard to...