Policy

From LOS to VMT, VHT and Beyond Through Data Fusion: Application to Integrate Corridor Management

Bayen, Alexandre
Gan, Qijian
Gomes, Gabriel
2016

Traffic performance metrics such as delay and Level Of Service (LOS), which are well documented in the Highway Capacity Manual (HCM), have been widely used by most of the transportation consulting companies, public agencies, and etc. For arterial delay analysis, prevailing commercial tools like Synchro have adopted the method proposed by the HCM, which is rooted in the Webster’s delay calculation proposed more than 50 years ago. The LOS is obtained using a lookup table that assigns a certain grade (from A to F) to the estimated delay according to its value. Without knowing detailed...

The California Fuel Tax Swap

Wachs, Martin
Garrett, Mark
Brown, Anne
2016

This project documents and analyzes the recent change in California transportation revenue collection programs that end discontinued the state sales tax on motor fuels and increased the state per gallon excise taxes on motor fuels.

Achieving Zero-Emission Mobility: The Role of Innovative Electric Vehicle Companies

Argote, Juan
Lee, Albert
Hernandez, Maribel
2016

On April 28, 2016, UCCONNECT hosted a symposium in Berkeley, CA on Achieving Zero-Emission Mobility: The Role of Innovative Electric Vehicle Companies. The symposium provided a platform for innovative and trendsetting electric vehicle (EV) companies to explain their latest business models and show how they can add value and contribute to the national dialogue on the transformation needed to achieve zero-emission transportation. Focus was also placed on identifying strategies that could potentially broaden the clean-transportation conversion by increasing “zero-emission vehicle” (ZEV)...

SB 743 Implementation: Challenges and Opportunities

Barbour, Elisa
Chatman, Daniel G.
Doggett, Sarah
Yip, Stella
Santana, Manuel
2019

California’s Senate Bill (SB) 743, enacted in 2013, marks a historic shift in how the traffic impacts of development projects are to be evaluated and mitigated statewide. To help achieve state climate policy and sustainability goals, SB 743 eliminates traffic delay as an environmental impact under the California Environmental Quality Act. State implementing guidelines for SB 743 instead require an assessment of vehicle miles traveled (VMT). The adoption of the guidelines sparked debate and raised far-reaching questions about development planning. Our research consisted of four parts. First...

Mobile Apps and Transportation: A Review of Smartphone Apps and A Study of User Response to Multimodal Traveler Information

Shaheen, Susan
Martin, Elliot
Cohen, Adam
Musunuri, Apoorva
Bhattacharyya, Abhinav
2016

In recent years, technological and social forces have pushed smartphone applications (apps) from the fringe to the mainstream. Understanding the role of transportation apps in urban mobility is important for policy development and transportation planners. This study evaluates the role and impact of multimodal aggregators from a variety of perspectives, including a literature review; a review of the most innovative, disruptive, and highest-rated transportation apps; interviews with experts in the industry, and a user survey of former multimodal aggregator RideScout users. Between February...

City-wide traffic control: modeling impacts of cordon queues

Ni, Wei
Cassidy, Michael J
2018

Optimal cordon-metering rates are obtained using Macroscopic Fundamental Diagrams in combination with flow conservation laws. A model-predictive control algorithm is also used so that time-varying metering rates are generated based on their forecasted impacts. Our scalable algorithm can do this for an arbitrary number of cordoned neighborhoods within a city. Unlike its predecessors, the proposed model accounts for the constraining effects that cordon queues impose on a neighborhood's circulating traffic. It does so at every time step by approximating a neighborhood's street space occupied...

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...

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...

Charging up the Central Coast: Policy solutions to improve electric vehicle charging access in Watsonville

Sarode, Shruti, MS
Segal, Katie, MPP
Elkind, Ethan, JD
2023

California's goal to eliminate internal combustion engine sales by 2035 poses challenges for lower- and moderate-income residents, hindering their access to electric vehicles (EVs). Barriers include limited EV charging stations, exacerbated by lower home ownership and inadequate grid infrastructure in lower-income communities. To address this, UC Berkeley School of Law's Center for Law, Energy & the Environment (CLEE) partnered with the City of Watsonville. Due to its location, demographics, and ambitious policy goals, Watsonville represents a potential model and case study for...

Renaming and Removal of Harmful Names and Monuments on State Transportation Right of Way

Deakin, Elizabeth, PhD
Munoz, Jasmin
Son, Daisy
2022

The objectives of this study are to formulate policies and practices that can be used to identify place names that have derogatory or racist linkages and provide recommendations on how to rename or remove harmful names and monuments in the California transportation right of way (ROW). This study was requested by the California Department of Transportation and conducted through the University of California, Berkeley Institute of Transportation Studies Technology Transfer Program.