Policy

Influence of Capacity Constraints on Airline Fleet Mix

Hansen, Mark M.
Gosling, Geoffrey D.
Margulici, Jean-David
Wei, Wen-Bin
2001

This report documents the findings of research sponsored by the Los Angeles World Airports to examine the influence of airport capacity constraints on airline fleet mix and to explore the potential effects of policy options to influence airlines to use larger aircraft types and thereby accommodate growth in passenger or cargo demand without a corresponding increase in the number of aircraft operations. This issue is of growing importance at many major airports in the United States and indeed around the world, as a steadily increasing demand for air transportation has resulted in volumes of...

Integrating Flight and Charging Schedules in Urban Air Mobility

Cao, Shangqing
Jiang, Xuan
Bulusu, Vishwanath
Chakrabarty, Anjan
Hansen, Mark
Onat, Emin
Sengupta, Raja
Zou, Bo
2024

This paper investigates the simultaneous optimization of flight schedule and charging policy of electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft for Urban Air Mobility operations. An optimization model is developed for a two-vertiport system to design an efficient flight schedule, including re-balancing flights, and a charging policy that serves a given demand with the objective of minimizing the required fleet size. The results highlight that charging aircraft to a lower State of Charge level during peak demand periods and to a higher level during off-peak times effectively reduces the...

Beyond Rationality in Travel Demand Models

Walker, Joan L.
2011

The effectiveness of transportation policies will depend on how users respond to them. Therefore, we must understand how to predict and influence behavior over the long term, which is the realm of travel demand modeling. Relevant decisions made by individuals include where to live and work; the type and quantity of vehicles and transit passes to own; the types, locations and scheduling of activities; and by what modes and routes one travels to those activities. This article explores ways to improve travel demand models to reflect actual behavior, whether it is “rational” or not. The...

Modeling Private Car Ownership in China: Investigation of Urban Form Impact Across Megacities

Li, Jieping
Walker, Joan L.
Srinivasan, Sumeeta
Anderson, William P.
2010

The rising prevalence of private cars in the developing world is causing serious congestion and pollution. In China, private cars started to emerge as an important travel mode in the past decade. Prospective research on the relationship between urban form and car ownership is relatively uncommon in the developing world, and China offers a unique study opportunity, given the tremendous increases in private cars and fast-paced urbanization over the past decade. This study investigates the influence of urban form on car ownership as well as the impact of other socioeconomic and demographic...

Share, Collaborate, Benchmark: Advancing Travel Demand Research Through Rigorous Open-source Collaboration

Caicedo, Juan D.
Guirado, Carlos
Gonzalez, Marta C.
Walker, Joan L.
2024

This research foregrounds general practices in travel demand research, emphasizing the need to change our ways. A critical barrier preventing travel demand literature from effectively informing policy is the volume of publications without clear, consolidated benchmarks, making it difficult for researchers and policymakers to gather insights and use models to guide decision-making. By emphasizing reproducibility and open collaboration, we aim to enhance the reliability and policy relevance of travel demand research. We present a collaborative infrastructure for transit demand prediction...

Sharing, Collaborating, and Benchmarking to Advance Travel Demand Research: A Demonstration of Short-term Ridership Prediction

Caicedo, Juan D.
Guirado, Carlos
González, Marta C.
Walker, Joan L.
2025

This research foregrounds general practices in travel demand research, emphasizing the need to change our ways. A critical barrier preventing travel demand literature from effectively informing policy is the volume of publications without clear, consolidated benchmarks, making it difficult for researchers and policymakers to gather insights and use models to guide decision-making. By emphasizing reproducibility and open collaboration, we aim to enhance the reliability and policy relevance of travel demand research. We demonstrate this approach in the field of short-term ridership...

Travel Demand Models in the Developing World: Correcting for Measurement Errors

Walker, Joan
Li, Jieping
Srinivasan, Sumeeta
Bolduc, Denis
2010

While transport modelers in developed countries are accustomed to working with relatively rich datasets including transport networks and land use data, such databases are rarely available in developing countries. However, developing countries such as China with its immense rate of economic growth are, arguably, most in need of demand models. The research addressed in this paper is how to develop mode choice models for planning and policy analysis when level of service data are not available and resources are limited. The research makes use of a 1,001 household travel and activity survey...

Homeland Security: Keeping Abreast of Transportation Security Technologies and Best Practices

Chiou, Bensen
2008

The California Center for Innovative Transportation (CCIT), with sponsorship from the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), identified the Caltrans security needs and viable security technologies and best practices to mitigate the potential security risk. The project team created a server for hosting the security forum and security research reports. The access to the server is controlled by a two-level access control for general security documents and security forum respectively. We synthesized some lengthy security reports and posted them to the server. We also presented the...

Climate Adaptation Strategies for California Airports will Require a Holistic Approach, Including New Governance Models

Lindbergh, Sarah
Reed, Jackson
Takara, Matthew
Aparri, Aidan
Rakas, Jasenka
2022

Airports are complex social, technical, and environmental systems. Understanding their complexity is fundamental for advancing transformative climate adaptation policy. For airports to adapt, climate science must be incorporated not only into standards of specific equipment and facilities, but also into the air traffic network and its interconnected infrastructure systems (e.g., road access, ground-based communications, navigation, and surveillance systems). In addition, airport adaptation requires a shift in the way policy is designed, reinforced, and updated, which in turn relies on an...

Cross-Sectoral and Multiscalar Exposure Assessment to Advance Climate Adaptation Policy: The Case of Future Coastal Flooding of California’s Airports

Lindbergh, S.
Ju, Y.
He, Y.
Radke, J.
Rakas, J.
2022

Climate adaptation is inevitable to managing the climate risk of infrastructure systems and has become an emerging topic in the past decade. Despite the growing need for collaborative and multi-agency efforts in climate change adaptation, however, current airport and transportation governance structures reinforce siloed approaches to manage climate risk. Here we combine a novel coastal flooding exposure assessment of California’s airports and a policy review to address the importance of collaborative climate adaptation by viewing airport infrastructures as interconnected systems across...