TSRC

Electric Vehicles and Social Equity

Yassine, Ziad
Shaheen, Susan A.
2025

The shift toward electric vehicles (EVs) involves addressing both environmental sustainability and social equity concerns. It underscores the importance of inclusive approaches to ensure fair access to EV technology. As EVs gain traction as a sustainable transportation strategy, it is critical to address disparities in charging infrastructure, vehicle affordability, and environmental justice. There is a need to incorporate EVs into social equity frameworks that include innovative policies, community involvement, and targeted investments in underserved areas. A comprehensive approach is...

Advanced Air Mobility

Cohen, Adam
Shaheen, Susan A.
2025

This entry discusses key terms, emerging infrastructure concepts, and the potential impacts of advanced air mobility (AAM). It then concludes with a discussion of potential challenges and the need for research and policy to guide sustainable and equitable outcomes.

Pedal Power: Operational Models, Opportunities, and Obstacles of Bike Lending in North America

Shaheen, Susan
Wolfe, Brooke
Cohen, Adam
2025

Bike lending offers a service that enables individuals to borrow bicycles for short-term use (i.e., ranging from 2 hours to 36 months), typically from designated locations within cities, campuses, or communities. Unlike bikesharing systems that typically rely on automated kiosks and/or undocked and free-floating devices for public access, bike lending involves a managed program with staff, similar to a library model. These programs can be administered by community organizations, bike shops, public libraries, and other local entities. They are typically community- or membership-based, with...

CA's New AI Safety Law / The Bay Area's Driverless Future / "Fairyland"

October 6, 2025

Susan Shaheen ArticleDr. Susan Shaheen, professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley and co-director of the Transportation Sustainability Research Center (TSRC), talks about how autonomous vehicles may change the way we work, travel and live in the Bay Area and what environmental, safety and logistical concerns they raise at KALW 91.7...

Curb Staging: Understanding the Impacts of Automated Vehicle Ridehail Fleet Operations Under Different Parking Policies

Bahk, Younghun
Hyland, Michael
Shaheen, Susan
Wolfe, Brooke
Cohen, Adam
2025

Automated vehicle (AV) ridehailing services are now operating in several metropolitan regions in the United States. While providing benefits, AV ridehailing services may exacerbate issues related to curb usage and vehicle kilometers traveled (VKT) in urban areas. The objective of this study is to provide guidance to cities by evaluating the impacts of AVs' short-term curb usage for staging between serving ride requests. We focus on the following performance metrics: VKT, curb productivity, customer wait time, and customer matching rate. To perform the analysis, we use a high-fidelity...

Navigating the Road to Automated Vehicle Acceptance

Nordhoff, Sina
Kacperski, Celina
Liu, Peng
Shaheen, Susan
2025

The rise of automated vehicles (AVs) has provoked discussions that extend far beyond their technological sophistication, addressing human and social psychology and social dynamics. While AVs promise safer roads and increased mobility, their acceptance by the public hinges on a multifaceted interplay of factors, from design choices and user experience to psychological factors such as trust and perceived safety. This Special Issue includes 12 papers addressing various aspects pertaining to the acceptance of AVs.

Charging Ahead: How Income and Home Access Shape Electric Vehicle Adoption among Ridehailing Drivers

Shaheen, Susan
Martin, Elliot
Ju, Mengying
2025

Transportation network companies (TNCs), also known as ridehailing, such as Uber and Lyft, have contributed to increased vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and associated emissions in California’s urban areas over the past decade. In response, Senate Bill (SB) 1014 – the Clean Miles Standard – requires TNCs to achieve 90% electric vehicle (EV) miles traveled and zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per passenger mile by 2030. The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and the California Air Resources Board (CARB) oversee implementation and enforcement of these targets.

Zero-emission Mobility Strategies: Innovation, Diversity, and Integration

Du, Bo
Liu, Wei
Song, Ziqi
Shaheen, Susan A.
2025

The transportation sector accounts for a substantial proportion of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions globally. Electrification of transportation systems has emerged as a promising pathway to achieve sustainability, especially with the widespread adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) in recent decades. Various types of EVs, particularly battery electric vehicles (BEVs), hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), have gained considerable attention in research, spanning diverse domains, such as battery management, charging infrastructure planning...

Charging Ahead: Perceptions and Adoption of Electric Vehicles Among Full- and Part-Time Ridehailing Drivers in California

Ju, Mengying
Martin, Elliot
Shaheen, Susan
2025

California’s SB 1014 (Clean Miles Standard) mandates ridehailing fleet electrification to reduce emissions from vehicle miles traveled, posing financial and infrastructure challenges for drivers. This study employs a mixed-methods approach, including expert interviews (n = 10), group discussions (n = 8), and a survey of full- and part-time drivers (n = 436), to examine electric vehicle (EV) adoption attitudes and policy preferences. Access to home charging and prior EV experience emerged as the most statistically significant predictors of EV acquisition. Socio-demographic variables,...

Driving Equity: Can Electric Vehicle Carsharing Improve Grocery Access in Underserved Communities? A Case Study of BlueLA

Yassine, Ziad
Deakin, Elizabeth
Martin, Elliot W.
Shaheen, Susan A.
2025

Carsharing has long supported trip purposes typically made by private vehicles, with grocery shopping especially benefiting from the carrying capacity of a personal vehicle. BlueLA is a one-way, station-based electric vehicle (EV) carsharing service in Los Angeles aimed at improving access in low-income neighborhoods. We hypothesize that BlueLA improves grocery access for underserved households by increasing their spatial-temporal reach to diverse grocery store types. We test two hypotheses: (1) accessibility from BlueLA stations to grocery stores varies by store type, traffic conditions,...