ITS Berkeley

Examination of Key Transportation Funding Programs in California and Their Context

Gahbauer, John
Matute, Juan
Coutin, Talia S.
Rios Gutierrez, Alejandra
Rios Gutierrez, Nataly
2021

Examination of Key Transportation Funding Programs in California and Their Context assesses the congruence between funding programs and state goals for transportation. Particular attention is given to major funding sources, such the State Operation and Protection Program, and programs designed to promote key state goals, including the Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities program, the Transit and Intercity Rail Capital Program, the Transformative Climate Communities program, and the Sustainable Transportation Planning Grant program.

Variable-Rate State Gasoline Taxes

Ang-Olson, Jeffrey
Wachs, Martin
Taylor, Brian D.
1999

Inflation and increased fuel economy have reduced the buying power of the revenues collected from state and federal motor fuel taxes. Because fuel taxes are almost always collected on a per-gallon basis, in most states they must be raised by specific acts of the legislature and it is becoming increasingly difficult to find the political support necessary to raise them. A number of states have experimented with fuel taxes that adjust automatically by being indexed to the price of gasoline, to the consumer price index, or to some indicator of highway construction and maintenance costs. This...

A Simple Traffic Analysis Procedure

Daganzo, Carlos F.
1997

This paper presents a simple approximate procedure for traffic analysis that can be described geometrically without calculus. The procedure, which is graphically intuitive, operates directly on piecewise linear approximations of the N-curves of cumulative vehicle count. Because the N-curves are both readily observable and of direct interest for evaluation purposes (e.g., they yield the total vehicle-hours and vehicle-miles of travel in a time interval, and the vehicular accumulation as a function of time) the predictions made with this method should be practical and easy to test.

Review of Statewide Transportation Plans for California

Deakin, Elizabeth
Chow, Chun Ho
Son, Daisy
2021

California has adopted ambitious goals for its transportation systems. The state has pledged to reduce greenhouse gas(GHG) emissions by 40 percent compared to 1990 levels and by 80 percent by 2050, and has also committed to achieve carbon neutrality by 2045. With transportation a major emitter, substantial changes in transportation vehicles, fuels, operations, and user choices must be achieved to meet these goals. As pressing as climate change goals must be, other goals remain important. California has pledged to maintain its transportation infrastructure in a state of good repair, provide...

The Producer Surplus Associated with Gasolne Fuel Use in the United States

Sun, Yongling
Delucchi, Mark A.
Lawell, C.-Y. Cynthia L.
Ogden, Joan M.
2019

Estimating the producer surplus – the revenue above the average long-run cost – is an important part of social cost-benefit analyses of changes in petroleum use. This paper estimates the producer surplus associated with changes in gasoline fuel use in the United States, and then applies the estimates of producer surplus to two kinds of social cost-benefit analyses related to petroleum use: (1) estimating the wealth transfer from consumers to producers as a result of policies that affect oil use and oil imports to the US, and (2) comparing the actual average cost of gasoline with the...

Cruel Seas: World War 2 Merchant Marine-Related Nautical Fiction from the 1930s to Present

Krummes, Daniel C
2015

Cruel Seas is an annotated bibliography of fiction in English that involves civilian steamships of the merchant marine in works set during World War Two (or slightly before). While the subtitle states "1930s to Present," the last entry was added in 2008, and the work will not be updated. The entries include novels, novellas, and short stories, but exclude poetry, theater plays, and fiction written for juveniles (unless the work can appeal to adults as well). Many of the works involve ships in convoy across the Atlantic.An earlier version of Cruel Seas was published in softcover edition in...

Sources of Information in Highways: A Bibliography

Krummes, Daniel C.
Ambler, Betty
Atwood, Paul
Bix, Janet
Clark, Laurel
Gallwey, John
Geary, Kay
Gutshall, Judy
Haake, Susan
Krummes, Daniel
Matis, Lynn
Motzkus, Gisela
Sweet, Robert
2001

This bibliography, containing over 650 entries, is intended to serve as a guide to the major sources of information on highways. While sources listed focus primarily on the United States and Canada, some international materials have been included. Though emphasis is on current publications, some materials of historical interest have also been included. Resources listed in the bibliography include both print and electronic materials, with many Internet sites falling within that latter category. The bibliography was a collaborative effort and was compiled by twelve members of the...

The Ethical Challenges and Professional Responses of Travel Demand Forecasters

Brinkman, Anthony P.
2003

Thirty years ago scholars first presented convincing evidence that local officials use biased travel demand forecasts to justify decisions based on unstated considerations. Since then, a number of researchers have demonstrated convincingly that such forecasts are systematically optimistic-often wildly so-for reasons that cannot be explained solely by the inherent difficulty of predicting the future. Why do modelers-professional engineers and planners who use quantitative techniques to predict future demand for travel and estimate its potential impact on built and proposed transportation...

Understanding and Mitigating Capacity Reduction at Freeway Bottlenecks

Chung, Koohong
2005

Two freeway bottlenecks, each with a distinct geometry, have been investigated in an effort to understand traffic conditions leading to capacity losses (i.e., breakdown). One bottleneck is formed by a horizontal curve and the other by a reduction in travel lanes. These bottlenecks are shown to exhibit breakdowns after queues form immediately upstream. The vehicle accumulations that arise near these bottlenecks are shown to be good proxies for the mechanisms that trigger breakdowns. Evidence is provided to show that these losses can be recovered, postponed or even avoided entirely by...

Spatial Models of Morning Commute Consistent with Realistic Traffic Behavior

Lago, Alejandro
2003

Urban planners are increasingly concerned about the sprawling suburban development in metropolitan areas around the world, which they often blame for growing traffic congestion and excessive highway investment needs. This dissertation seeks to shed light on this issue by studying the relationship between morning commute congestion and urban form. The causes and consequences of traffic congestion have been extensively studied in the economics and engineering literatures. Unfortunately, most conclusions have been drawn from very idealized models, which either fail to consider adequately the...