ITS Berkeley

Reducing Emissions through Monitoring and Predictive Modeling of Gate Operations of Idle Aircraft: A Case Study on San Francisco International Airport

Rakas, Jasenka, PhD
Achatz Antonelli, Pietro
Walia, Chanan
Rouzbahani, Parham
Gikas, George
2023

The use of airport gate electrification infrastructure in the form of ground power (GP) and preconditioned air (PCA) systems can reduce energy and maintenance costs, emissions, and health risks by limiting the use of aircraft auxiliary power unit (APU) engines at the gate. However, their benefits can only be gained when they are actually being used; otherwise, pilots keep APUs on to fulfill their aircraft’s demands for electrical power and air conditioning. GP and PCA systems require a large initial infrastructure investment to increase energy efficiency, and they are installed with the...

The California Aviation System: Current Status and Recent Trends

Hansen, Mark M.
Gosling, Geoffrey D.
Kettunen, Tarja
Wilkins, Erik
2002

This report presents statistical information on passenger and cargo traffic, aircraft activity and delays at California airports. Five main topics are considered: passenger enplanements, air travel origin and destination (O-D) patterns, air cargo activity, aircraft operations, and airport delays. In most cases, we present data for the state as a whole, major regions within the state, and major airports within each region. Most of the data are compiled on an annual basis for the years from 1980 to 2000. The report concludes with a discussion of the changes in activity in the California...

Local Option Transportation Taxes in the United States (Part One:

Goldman, Todd
Corbett, Sam
Wachs, Martin
2001

This study examines the extent to which states have devolved one of the most fundamental decisions in transportation policy—whether to use taxation powers to fund transportation improvements—to local and regional governments. The purpose of the study is to generate a baseline of knowledge on “local option transportation taxes” in all fifty states. We have examined the laws that states have used to authorize these taxes, the extent to which local areas have adopted them, and how the revenues are used and governed. This is not a study of local transportation finance in general. Local...

Financing Transportation in California: Strategies for Change (Final Draft)

Adams, Matthew
Hiatt, Rachel
Hill, Mary C.
Russo, Ryan
Wachs, Martin
Weinstein, Asha
2001

Quality of life in California depends in many ways on the freedom of people and goods to move safely from place to place when they want to do so, in a timely manner, at reasonable cost, and with reasonable choices among modes and routes of travel. However, our desire for mobility must be tempered by due concern for the natural and built environment, and like all aspects of public policy, the provision of mobility must be framed by realistic consideration of available financial resources. This report examines the system by which California raises money for transportation and assesses its...

Simulating Life with Personally-Owned Autonomous Vehicles through a Naturalistic Experiment with Personal Drivers

Harb, Mustapha, PhD
Malik, Jai, PhD
Circella, Giovanni, PhD
Walker, Joan L., PhD
2022

Forty-three households in the Sacramento region representing diverse demographics, modal preferences, mobility barriers, and weekly vehicle miles traveled (VMT) were provided personal chauffeurs for one or two weeks to simulate travel behavior with a personally-owned, fully autonomous vehicle (AV). During the chauffeur week(s), the total number of trips increased on average by 25 percent, 85 percent of which were “zero-occupancy” (ZOV) trips (when the chauffeur is the only occupant). Average VMT for all households increased by 60 percent, over half of which came from ZOV trips. VMT...

Testing Wildfire Evacuation Strategies and Coordination Plans for Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) Communities in California

Soga, Kenichi, PhD
Comfort, Louise, PhD
Li, Pengshun
Zhao, Bingyu, PhD
Lorusso, Paola
2024

In the event of a wildfire, government agencies need to make quick, well-informed decisions to safely evacuate people. Small communities, such as in Marin County, with a mix of residences and flammable vegetation in Wildland-Urban Interface zones tend to lack resources to conduct evacuation studies. Consequently, this study uses a framework of wildfire and traffic simulations to test the performance of potential evacuation strategies, including reducing the volume of evacuating vehicles through car-pooling, phasing evacuations by staggering evacuation times by zone, and prohibiting street...

The Incidence of the California Vehicle License Fee

Dill, Jennifer
Goldman, Todd
Wachs, Martin
1998

Since 1935, the Vehicle License Fee (VLF) has been assessed on all privately owned registered vehicles in California. It is a property tax currently set at 2% of a vehicle's value, based upon its most recent purchase price and a fixed depreciation schedule. The Legislative Analyst's Office has estimated that the VLF, if unchanged, would have raised approximately $3.9 billion in the 1998-99 fiscal year. In light of the current fiscal surplus, the Legislature recently reduced the VLF by 25%, with possible additional reductions in future years. Because little information is available on who...

Reduce Emissions and Improve Traffic Flow Through Collaborative Autonomy

Patire, Anthony D., PhD
Dion, Francois, PhD
Bayen, Alexandre M., PhD
2024

This report explores opportunities for employing autonomous driving technology to dampen stop-and-go waves on freeways. If successful, it could reduce fuel consumption and emissions. This technology was tested in an on-road experiment with 100 vehicles over one week. Public stakeholders were engaged to assess the planning effort and feasibility of taking the technology to the next level: a pilot involving 1000+ vehicles over several months. Considerations included the possible geographical boundaries, target fleets of vehicles, and suitable facilities such as bridges or managed lanes. Flow...

Synergies of Combining Demand- and Supply-Side Measures to Manage Congested Streets

Itani, Ibrahim, MS
Cassidy, Michael J., PhD
Daganzo, Carlos F., PhD
2021

An agent-based, multichannel simulation of a downtown area reveals the impacts of both redistributing traffic demand with time-dependent congestion pricing, and supplying extra capacity by banning left turns. The downtown street network was idealized, and loosely resembles central Los Angeles. On the demand-side, prices were set based on time-ofday and distance traveled. On the supply side, left-turn maneuvers were prohibited at all intersections on the network. Although both traffic management measures reduced travel costs when used alone, the left-turn ban was much less effective than...

Reversibility of the Time-Dependent Shortest Path Problem

Daganzo, Carlos F.
1998

Time-dependent shortest path problems arise in a variety of applications; e.g., dynamic traffic assignment (DTA), network control, automobile driver guidance, ship routing and airplane dispatching. In the majority of cases one seeks the cheapest (least generalized cost) or quickest route between an origin and a destination for a given time of departure. This is the "forward" shortest path problem. In some applications, however, e.g., when dispatching airplanes from airports and in DTA versions of the "morning commute problem", one seeks the cheapest or quickest routes for a given arrival...