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We have a brand new website! |
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We've launched a new and improved website for the National Center for Sustainable Transportation! With more filterable and searchable project pages, a library of our reports, papers, and briefs, and access to NCST-generated tools for sustainable planning, modeling, and more, the site serves as a robust resource for our stakeholders, as well as for researchers, students, and the general public.
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2019 Outstanding Student of the Year: Calvin Clark
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Each year the US Department of Transportation honors outstanding students from each of the University Transportation Centers for their achievements and promise for contributions to the transportation field. Congratulations to the NCST Outstanding Student of 2019, Calvin Clark!
Calvin's current research aims to provide guidance for predicting the effectiveness of bicycle facilities among current and potential cyclists. As a result of his work, Calvin is in the process of completing two papers before his graduation in December 2019. Congratulations Calvin!
Read more
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SAVE THE DATE
NCST Transportation Research Board Legislative Briefing
Join us for our 6th annual briefing in Washington, D.C., in conjunction with the 99th Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting.
Tuesday, January 14, 2020 at 11:30am - 1:00pm EST
Rayburn House Office Building, Room 2043
More information coming soon...
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Save the date for the fourth annual 3 Revolutions Policy Conference, March 24-25, 2020, at UC Davis. This year's conference will feature a cross-cutting theme of
Climate and Equity.
This event will leverage the success of the past three 3 Revolutions Policy Conferences, aiming to dive deeper in identifying solutions for how the 3 Revolutions in transportation (sharing, electrification, and automation) can achieve equitable climate solutions. Key issues include data sharing, micromobility adoption, automated vehicle governance, ridehailing emission policy, and the evolution of public transit. The conference will tackle these challenges by highlighting strategies and innovative solutions. This year’s conference will engage voices from a diverse set of stakeholders, including members of disadvantaged communities, commercial drivers, car dealerships, land-use experts, energy utilities, tech companies, and elected officials. |
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Webinars Available to Watch Now
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Integrating Transportation, Energy, and Emissions Modeling Across Spatial and Temporal Scales
Dr. Randall Guensler | Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology
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Traditional MOVES modeling of complicated and dynamic networks is time consuming and can require the generation of hundreds of link emission rates, which often means that users generate lookup tables to support modeling. |
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MOVES-Matrix builds on the look-up concept by pre-running MOVES for all combinations of input data, compiling energy use and emission rates into a 120 Gb multi-dimensional matrix for each modeling region. This presentation provided an overview of the MOVES-Matrix modeling tools and demonstrated some of the integrated applications that have been published to date.
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Gentrification and Displacement Near Los Angeles Rail Transit Stations
Dr. Marlon Boarnet | Professor of Public Policy, Sol Price School of Public Policy, University of Southern California
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This webinar summarizes findings from a project aimed at addressing the question, "Is new rail transit associated with displacement of low-income residents in near-rail neighborhoods?" To address this question, the researchers used annual data on household locations and incomes from 1994 to 2012 to examine neighborhood income distributions and the pattern of residential moves by income in Los Angeles rail transit neighborhoods.
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The Kinopolitics of Cycling Infrastructure: Creating Space for Mobility Justice
Dr. Mimi Sheller | Director, Center for Mobilities Research and Policy, Drexel University
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Transport planners and policymakers have embraced cycling for its many benefits, yet most cities are still dominated by the system of motorized automobility. Through more equitable practices of community-based, anti-racist, women-led, and LGBTQ-friendly cycling advocacy, society will shift attention away from bicycling solely as transport, and focus the role of cycling in building health, supporting local communities, and strengthening frayed social infrastructure. In this talk, Dr. Mimi Sheller opened up a space for thinking about reparative justice, racial justice, and gender and sexual equity, as crucial to advancing post-car and post-carbon futures through projects grounded in mobility justice.
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Identifying and Resolving Critical Collisions Between Transportation and Ecosystems
Dr. Fraser Shilling | Co-Director, Road Ecology Center, UC Davis |
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Transportation systems cause negative changes in adjacent and distant ecosystems’ characteristics and processes. These changes are usually not mitigated during construction, maintenance and "re-construction" of facilities. Impacts to endangered ecosystems and species are usually more noticeable and likely to trigger more effective mitigation. Dr. Fraser Shilling discussed ways to identify these impacts and possible mitigation strategies.
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Infrastructure Use by Electric Vehicles and Emission Impacts of Electric Vehicles in Transportation Network Companies
Dr. Alan Jenn | Professional Researcher, Plug-in Hybrid & Electric Vehicle Center, UC Davis
Dr. Debapriya Chakraborty | Postdoctoral Researcher, Plug-in Hybrid & Electric Vehicle Center, UC Davis |
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Plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) in ride-hailing services have grown rapidly over the last few years. This coupling has enormous potential to mitigate greenhouse gases for future mobility from transportation network companies such as Uber and Lyft. |
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In this webinar, Dr. Jenn and Dr. Chakraborty dicussed how coupling PEVs with ride-hailing services shows enormous potential to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. They also discussed the role of residential electricity pricing and the substitution between home and workplace charging observed when workplace charging is free, and how improvements in vehicle technology will impact charging behavior and demand for infrastructure.
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The Adoption of Shared Mobility in California and Its Impacts on the Use of Other Travel Modes
Dr. Giovanni Circella | Director, 3 Revolutions Future Mobility Program, UC Davis
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The availability and popularity of shared mobility services are quickly growing. So are their impacts on transportation demand and the use of other travel modes. This presentation covered recent findings from the California Mobility Panel Study, a longitudinal study that investigates the evolution of travel patterns and the adoption of new transportation technologies in California over time.
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Speakers also discussed how the use of ridehailing (e.g, Uber and Lyft), as well as other shared mobility services, are changing among various groups of travelers and different regions of California, and what these changes mean in terms of impacts on individual lifestyles, reliance on personal vehicles and use of other transportation modes.
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Changes in the Retail and Distribution Landscape: Behavioral and Logistics Modeling Implications
Dr. Miguel Jaller | Co-Director, Sustainable Freight Research Center, UC Davis
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The rapid diversification of distribution strategies has dramatically changed how we shop and the way companies design their retail and distribution operations. These changes have important implications for logistics modeling from the strategic, tactical and operational perspectives. In this webinar, Dr. Miguel Jaller discussed how these changes will be reflected in logistics and transportation planning models, including changes in shopping decisions, from where to shop, what to shop, and how much to shop.
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The NCST published 10 research reports this year! Topics of interest included demographic trends among electric vehicle buyers, sustainable freight systems, and economic effects of transit-oreinted developments. Check out some of our most recent publications below! |
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Lessons Learned for Designing Programs to Charge for Road Use, Congestion, and Emissions
Alan Jenn | University of California, Davis |
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Pricing externalities from vehicle use such as road damage, vehicular emissions (both greenhouse gases and local pollutants), and congestion has become an important topic in the transportation sector in recent years. Road user charge pilot programs are being explored in various states in the U.S.; cities like New York and San Francisco are following in the footsteps of Stockholm and London by announcing plans to implement congestion pricing; and numerous cities and countries have announced gasoline vehicle phase-outs or bans. This study provides an overview of the academic literature related to vehicle pricing, examines case studies of locations where pricing has been implemented, and investigates the design choices for programs that would address each of three major externalities related to vehicle use: road damage, emissions (both greenhouse gases and local pollutants), and congestion. The analysis finds opportunities for integrating technology across multiple pricing programs—by relying on overlapping systems, programs can be implemented more efficiently and provide tremendous cost savings. |
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Development of a Fine Grained Spatial Resolution for an Integrated Health Impacts Assessment Tool for the Sacramento Region
Dana Rowangould | University of Vermont; Alex Karner | University of Texas at Austin
Jonathan London; Yizheng Wu, and
Ofurhe Igbinedion | University of California, Davis
Understanding the public health impacts of transportation plans can inform decision making and project prioritization. Because each plan and regional context is different, there has been a need for site-specific methods to assess the extent and distribution of health impacts of changes to a region’s transportation system. To fill this need, researchers have previously developed the Integrated Transport and Health Impact Model (ITHIM), which predicts the public health impacts of transportation and land use scenarios from expected changes in air quality, traffic safety, and physical activity. However, current transportation health impact assessment models (including ITHIM) operate at coarse geographic scales (e.g., region or county) to quantify health changes. This research builds on previous work using ITHIM to generate demographically explicit health outcomes to provide neighborhood-level estimates of public health changes predicted from transportation plan scenarios in Sacramento, California.
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Renewable Natural Gas Research Center Project
Arun Raju and Partho Roy |
University of California, Riverside
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Renewable Natural Gas (RNG) is an important alternative fuel that can help the State of California meet several greenhouse gas reduction and renewable energy targets. Despite considerable potential, current RNG use on national and state levels are not significant. RNG production potential in California through thermochemical conversion was evaluated as part of this project by assessing technical biomass availability in the state, and a
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survey of current renewable electricity generation and curtailment trends in California was conducted. Design basis for two thermochemical and power to gas conversion projects were developed as part of this project. Life cycle and economic analysis were conducted for the recommended processes. |
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Life Cycle Modeling of Technologies and Strategies for a Sustainable Freight System in California
Hanjiro Ambrose and Alissa Kendall |
University of California, Davis
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California’s freight transportation system is a vital part of the state’s economy but is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and generates an even higher portion of regional and local air pollution. The state’s primary strategy for reducing emissions from the on-road freight sector relies on deploying new vehicle and fuel technologies, such as electric |
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medium- and heavy-duty vehicles. The market for electric truck technologies is developing rapidly. This research quantified the life cycle environmental impacts and life cycle costs for on-road goods movement in California to estimate the abatement potential and economic costs and benefits of electrifying California’s freight truck sector. |
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Understanding the Early Adopters of Fuel Cell Vehicles
Scott Hardman | University of California, Davis
This study presents results from a survey of 906 Fuel Cell Vehicle (FCV) and 12,910 Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) households in California, which investigated the sociodemographic profile of FCV buyers and compare them to BEV households. FCV and BEV households are similar in many areas: no significant difference was found in household income, number of people in the household, number of vehicles in the household, gender, or level of education. However, FCV and BEV households do differ in some key areas: compared to BEV households, FCV households are slightly older; less own their own home; more live in an apartment, condo, or townhouse; they have owned more alternative fuel vehicles previously (but fewer BEVs); they have higher VMT; and slightly longer commutes. These differences may explain why these households choose to adopt a FCV.
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NCST has published 17 Policy Briefs so far this year to summarize and highlight the policy and research implications of our findings. |
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Transit Oriented Development Opportunities Among Failing Malls
Hilda Blanco and Alexander Wikstrom | University of Southern California |
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Transit oriented developments (TODs) are built around transit stations or lines. An alternative approach is to turn failing shopping malls into mixed-use housing, then provide or enhance transit to these redevelopment projects. This approach could result in successful TODs: housing and mixed uses at appropriate densities to support transit. This policy brief summarizes findings from the white paper which reviewed the literature and provided the rationale for such redevelopments.
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Life Cycle-Based Policies Are Required to Achieve Emissions Goals from Light-Duty Vehicles
Alissa Kendall, Hanjiro Ambrose, and Erik A. Maroney | University of California, Davis |
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This policy brief summarizes findings from a project in which investigators studied the effect of different factors on life cycle emissions; the impact of excluding life cycle emissions from policies; and potential strategies that might be used to effectively incorporate life cycle emissions in light-duty vehicle greenhouse gas emission policy.
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Effect of New Rail Transit Stations on Income Distribution of Nearby Residential Moves
Marlon Boarnet and Evgeny Burinskiy | University of Southern California; Raphael Bostic | Federal Reserach Bank of Atlanta; Seva Rodnyansky | University of California, Berkeley; Allen Prohofsky | California Franchise Tax Board |
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This policy brief summarizes findings from a project aimed at addressing the question of "Is new rail transit associated with displacement of low-income residents in near-rail neighborhoods?" To address this question, the researchers used annual data on household locations and incomes from 1994 to 2012 to examine neighborhood income distributions and the pattern of residential moves by income in Los Angeles rail transit neighborhoods. |
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NCST Undergraduate Leaders
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Two NCST undergraduate fellows from the University of California, Davis—Sonia Anthoine, studying Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Danielle Levin, studying Environmental Policy Analysis and Planning—attended the 25th Annual California Transportation Foundation Education Symposium in early November. Students were able to engage with transportation industry leaders and exercised teamwork and leadership skills as they developed mock proposals for solving real-world transportation issues. The symposium provided valuable educational and networking opportunities for the two rockstar undergraduates, who conducted their own research projects for the NCST this past summer. Go Sonia and Danielle! Read more |
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Sustainable Transportation Concepts:
A Mini-Lecture Series from the NCST
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The NCST has new additions to its mini-lecture series aimed at supplementing college-level courses with sustainable transportation-related material. The series is intended for undergraduate and graduate level college students and covers a wide variety of sustainable transportation topics. |
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What Does it Mean to Plan for Sustainability?
Dr. Stephen Wheeler, from the UC Davis Department of Human Ecology summarizes the concept of sustainability and strategies for practical implementation. |
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Alternative Fuels
Dr. Colin Murphy, Deputy Director of the UC Davis Policy Institute for Energy, Environment, and the Economy, and Dr. Julie Witcover, an Assistant Project Scientist at the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies, discuss the environmental impacts of the transportation sector and present several alternatives to fossil fuels. |
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UC Riverside STEPcon & GEMS: Sustainable Transportation Education for High School Students |
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STEPcon 2019
The University of California Riverside Bourns College of Engineering, Center for Environmental Research and Technology (CE-CERT) partnered with Bourns, Inc. and the Science Technology Engineering Partnership (STEP) to host the 20th annual STEPCon event. 200 high school students from Riverside and San Bernardino County were invited to learn about sustainable technologies and research conducted at CE-CERT. Students were able to try out a student built race car, make and launch rockets, and see how air quality monitors can detect diesel emissions. Read more
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Girls in Engineering Math and Science
As part of STEPcon 2019, CE-CERT hosted the GEMS (Girls in Engineering Math and Science) conference for thirty-five 9th and 10th grade girls from across the inland Southern California region. The conference aimed to inspire girls interested in STEM related careers to continue their paths through interaction and experiences with other female engineers. Read more |
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The National Center for Sustainable Transportation is a consortium of leading universities committed to advancing an environmentally sustainable transportation system through cutting-edge research, direct policy engagement, and education of our future leaders. Consortium members: University of California, Davis; University of California, Riverside; University of Southern California; California State University, Long Beach; Georgia Institute of Technology; and the University of Vermont.
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