ITS Berkeley

Where are Private “Smart City” Transportation Technologies Concentrated in California?

Huang, Amy
Post, Alison E.
Ratan, Ishana
Hill, Mary C.
Zhao, Bingyu
2022

In recent years, “smart city” information and communication technologies have proliferated. For local government agencies, procuring and introducing these technologies offers the possibility to manage infrastructure assets more effectively, plan for preventive maintenance, and disseminate schedules and information about transit and other services. Many of these technologies are deployed by private firms in the context of local regulations and government-sponsored incentives. In the transportation sector, examples of “smart city” technology services provided by private firms include:...

Creating a Regional Program for Preserving Industrial Land: Perspectives from San Francisco Bay Area Cities

Roach, Emily
Chapple, Karen, PhD
2018

Industrial land plays a vital role in supporting the regional economy in the San Francisco Bay Area. It provides the operating space and support services for export sectors and other important local clusters, maintains linkages between businesses and sustains a local supply chain, provides diverse employment opportunities for people with a broad range of skills (including those with lower educational attainment), and supports a high share of middle-wage job opportunities. However, the Bay Area’s current inventory of industrial land (and associated jobs) is at risk due to increasing...

Intelligent Intersections Reduce Crashes and Will Support the Safe Introduction of Autonomous Vehicles

Kurzhanskiy, Alex
Varaiya, Pravin
2018

Intersections are dangerous. In the U.S., approximately 40% of all crashes, 50% of serious collisions, and 20% of fatalities occur in intersections. Intersections are challenging due to complex interactions among pedestrians, bicycles and vehicles; absence of lane markings; difficulty in determining who has the right of way; blind spots; and illegal movements (e.g., vehicles running red lights). Many cities have developed Vision Zero plans seeking to eliminate traffic injuries and deaths through modifications to road infrastructure, such as adding bike lanes and pedestrian refuge islands....

A Case Study: Testing Wildfire Evacuation Strategies for Communities in Marin County, California

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

Many small, resource-strapped communities located in areas vulnerable to wildfire don’t have resources to conduct dedicated evacuation studies and many do not consider the impact of background traffic (i.e., normal traffic rather than evacuating traffic) on evacuation. In response, we explored the performance of several generalizable evacuation strategies with background traffic for representative communities in Marin County, including the Ross Valley, Woodacre Bowl, Tamalpais Valley, and an area near Highway 101 and Ignacio Boulevard in Novato (hereafter referred to as ‘Novato...

Upzoning Under SB 50: The Influence of Local Conditions on the Potential for New Supply

Nolan, Jared
2019

In this brief, we explore what might happen were SB 50 to pass by taking a detailed look at local market conditions in four case study neighborhoods. Local context shapes financial and physical feasibility. When SB 827, the predecessor to SB 50, was under consideration, estimates of its impact on new housing supply were optimistic. Yet, most of these estimates focused on aggregate development potential and did not consider the on-the-ground reality of other zoning provisions that may influence development, what types of projects might pencil out, or what the existing stock looks like.

UC Berkeley Develops New User-Friendly Tool to Expedite the Evaluation of Connected Automated Vehicle Technologies

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

Connected Automated Vehicles (CAVs) are similar to other automated vehicles with the distinguishing difference being that CAVs obtain information about road conditionsdirectly from other vehicles and infrastructure (e.g., traffic signals, road sensors) rather than relying solely on onboard sensors. Different CAV technologies are currently being tested and evaluated to assess the prospects for future implementation. These tests involve moving CAV-equipped vehicles on a physical test track and recording how the vehicles operate under different traffic conditions (Figure 1). Since it is...

Simulation Techniques to Obtain Confidence Intervals for Willingness to Pay Measures

Espino, Raquel
Ortuzar, Juan de Dios
Roman, Concepcion
2004

We obtain confidence intervals for willingness-to-pay (WTP) measures derived from a mode choice model estimated to analyse travel demand for suburban trips in the two main interurban corridors in Gran Canaria island, using a mixed RP/SP data base. We considered a specification of the systematic utility that incorporates income effect and interactions among socioeconomic variables and level-of-service attributes, as well as between travel cost and frequency. As our model provides rather complex expressions of the marginal utilities, we simulated the distribution of the WTP (in general,...

Improved Data Measurement Using Existing Loop Detectors

Coifman, Benjamin
1999

This paper develops an improved algorithm for estimating velocity from isolated loop detector data. Unlike preceding works, the algorithm is simple enough that it can be implemented using existing controller hardware. The discussion shows how the benefits of this work extend to automated tests of detector data quality at dual loop speed traps. Finally, this paper refutes an earlier study that found conventional isolated loop velocity estimates are biased keywords: traffic surveillance, single loop detectors, velocity estimation data screening

MPO Planning and Implementation of State Policy Goals

Barbour, Elisa
Rodriguez, Emil
Thoron, Noah
Handy, Susan
Lee, Amy
2021

MPO Planning and Implementation of State Policy Goals evaluates California metropolitan planning organizations’ regional transportation plans and sustainable communities strategies and looks at the relationship between MPO plans and what is actually funded through transportation improvement programs.

Inclusionary Zoning in a Monocentric City

Lehe, Lewis
2014

To show how inclusionary zoning alters development, the author finds the most profitable housing design to build on vacant lots at each location in a monocentric city under different regulatory regimes. Section 1 sets up the model by specifying renter's preferences, geography and building parameters. Section 2 solves the developer's profit-maximization problem at each location under each regime. Finally, in Section 3, a numerical simulation confirms the effects predicted by theory and gives a picture of their magnitude.