Policy

A Dozen Reasons for Raising Gasoline Taxes

Wachs, Martin
2003

Motor fuel taxes at state and federal levels have traditionally been earmarked for transportation investments, supporting road construction, maintenance, and operations, and increasingly public transit. Recently, elected officials have been reluctant to raise fuel taxes despite increases in the cost of transportation programs. Other forms of support, especially borrowing and local sales taxes are playing larger roles in transportation finance. Raising fuel taxes would be more effective, efficient and equitable than the alternatives that are increasingly more popular.

A Network Model of Departure Time Choice with Spillovers and Merging Effects. Part I: Building Block

Lago, Alejandro
Daganzo, Carlos F.
2003

This paper presents a departure-time user equilibrium model that explicitly considers the most important determinants of congestion behavior in cities during the morning commute: different commuter origins, merge interactions and queue spillovers. The proposed model combines three previous works: the departure-time equilibrium theory in Vickrey (1969), the traffic flow model of Newell (1993) and the merge theory in Daganzo (1996). The paper examines the simplest possible network exhibiting the three important features and discusses the ensuing policy implications. The solution algorithm...

Mobile Device Data Analytics for Next-Generation Traffic Management

Macfarlane, Jane, PhD
Patire, Anthony, PhD
Deodhar, Kanaad
Laurence, Colin
2021

Quality data is critically important for research and policy-making. The availability of device location data carrying rich, detailed information on travel patterns has increased significantly in recent years with the proliferation of personal GPSenabled mobile devices and fleet transponders. However, in its raw form, location data can be inaccurate and contain embedded biases that can skew analyses. This report describes the development of a method to process, clean, and enrich location data. Researchers developed a computational framework for processing large scale location datasets....

Summary of Interviews with California Metropolitan Planning Organizations About Senate Bill 375 and the Sustainable Communities Strategies

Amini, Jazmin
Kerchof, Clay
Mathews, Laurel
Thompson, Mathew
2021

In July and August of 2020, a research team of four graduate students from UC Berkeley’s Department of City and Regional Planning conducted interviews with directors and other high-level staff representing several of California’s metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) to gather information on the achievements and challenges associated with the implementation of SB 375. Key takeaways from this effort include: 1) MPOs are not requesting additional authorities or oversight of local land use decisions; 2) MPOs use funding as “carrots” to incentivize local plans to align with regional goals...

On the Stability of Supply Chains

Daganzo, Carlos F.
2002

This paper examines the stability of autonomous supply chains. In an autonomous supply chain, suppliers only communicate with their downstream neighbor; i.e., their immediate customer. The inventory management policies used by the suppliers characterize a chain. An important property of a policy is its “gain”, which relates marginal changes in the average steady state inventory to small changes in the steady state demand rate. It is shown that all autonomous policies with positive gains are unstable when applied to a homogeneous supply chain if they do not use future order commitments....

Future of Public Transit and Shared Mobility: Scenario Planning for COVID-19 Recovery

Shaheen, Susan, PhD
Wong, Stephen, PhD
2021

In 2020, the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic enveloped the world, leading to a public health crisis that profoundly changed all aspects of society, especially multiple sectors in transportation such as public transit and shared mobility. With so much uncertainty about the future of travel, the transportation sector needs to move rapidly to shape the nature of public transit and shared mobility services during the COVID-19 recovery period. Consequently, the University of California Institute of Transportation Studies (UC ITS) and the Transportation Research Board’s (TRB) Executive...

Examining the Potential for Uber and Lyft to be Included in Subsidized Mobility Programs Targeted to Seniors, Low Income Adults, and People with Disabilities

Deakin, Elizabeth, SM., J.D.
Halpern, Jeremy
Parker, Madeleine
2020

Public agencies have subsidized taxi rides for people who have difficulty driving a car or using the regular transit system – targeting older residents and people with disabilities. There is interest among public agencies to add transportation network companies (TNCs), such as Uber and Lyft, to subsidized ride programs as a travel option due to the widespread availability of TNCs and high-quality service. Key issues include the need for wheelchair accessible vehicles, subsidy needs, and clients who lack or are uncomfortable using a smartphone and credit card. This research included a...

Advanced Air Mobility: Opportunities, Challenges, and Research needs for the State of California (2023-2030)

Cohen, Adam, MS
Shaheen, Susan, PhD
2024

Advanced air mobility (AAM) is a broad concept that enables consumers access to air mobility, goods delivery, and emergency services through an integrated and connected multimodal transportation network. AAM can provide short-range urban, suburban, and rural flights of about 50-miles and mid-range regional flights up to a several hundred miles. State law delegates responsibility for oversight in aviation primarily to the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans). This white paper presents an overview of the state of the market, such as the aircraft under development and forecast...

Policies to Improve Transportation Sustainability, Accessibility, and Housing Affordability in the State of California

Chatman, Daniel G., PhD
Barbour, Elisa, PhD
Kerzhner, Tamara
Manville, Michael, PhD
Reid, Carolina, PhD
2023

This report presents analytical review of empirical research on the interactions between housing availability and production, and travel behavior, accessibility, land use policies, and transportation policies. It identifies lessons from this review for California state legislative efforts to improve housing and transportation linkages, and to increase both transportation sustainability and housing affordability. Relevant California state efforts include legislation to influence parking standards; to require up-zoning near transit stations; to influence regional housing and transportation...

Transportation Models In the Policy-Making Process: Uses, Misuses, And Lessons For The Future

Brinkman, Anthony
Goldman, Todd
1998

Panel 1. This session set the stage for the conference by examining some of the overarching issues in transportation modeling. Martin Wachs spoke about the promise and limitation of models from an ethical frame of reference. Genevieve Giuliano followed with an examination of how some of the changes underway in society may limit the ability to produce useful transportation forecasts. Finally, Larry Dahms commented from the perspective of an agency that operates within the policy-making process. Panel 2. The aim of this session was to generate a discussion of ways to make better use of...