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California led the nation by passing the first global warming legislation in the U.S. California is tasked with reducing green house gas (GHG) emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. The California Air Resources Board estimates that significant GHG reductions from passenger vehicles can be achieved through improvements in vehicle technology and the low carbon fuel standard; however, these reductions will not be enough to achieve 1990 levels if current trends in vehicle miles traveled (VMT) continue. Currently, most operational regional models in California have limited ability to represent the effects of transit, land use, and auto pricing strategies; efforts are now underway to develop more advanced modeling tools, including activity-based travel and land use models. In the interim, this report reviews the international modeling literature on land use, transit, and auto pricing policies to suggest a range of VMT and GHG reduction that regions might achieve if such policies were implemented. The synthesis of the literature categorizes studies, by geographic area, policy strength, and model type, to provide insight into order of magnitude estimates for 10-, 20-, 30-, and 40-years time horizons. The analysis also highlights the effects of modeling tools of differing quality, policy implementation timeframes, and variations in urban form on the relative effectiveness of policy scenarios.

As the media document very real evidence of global climate change and the debate over humans' role precipitating this change has ended, California led the nation by passing the first global warming legislation in the U.S. California is tasked with reducing green house gas (GHG) emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. The California Air Resources Board estimates that significant GHG reductions from passenger vehicles can be achieved through improvements in vehicle technology and the low carbon fuel standard; however, these reductions will not be enough to achieve 1990 levels if current trends in vehicle kilometers traveled (VKT) continue. Currently, most operational regional models in California have limited ability to represent the effects of transit, land use, and auto pricing strategies; efforts are now underway to develop more advanced modeling tools, including activity-based travel and land use models. In the interim, this paper reviews the international modeling literature on land use, transit, and auto pricing policies to suggest a range of VKT and GHG reduction that regions might achieve if such policies were implemented. The synthesis of the literature categorizes studies, by geographic area, policy strength, and model type, to provide insight into order of magnitude estimates for 10-, 20-, 30-, and 40-years time horizons. The analysis also highlights the effects of modeling tools of differing quality, policy implementation timeframes, and variations in urban form on the relative effectiveness of policy scenarios.

The failures of models used in the analysis of travel and vehicle emissions effects of transportation plans and policies have been enumerated by many in the transportation profession over a period of almost three decades. Models can be insensitive to policy effects, and predictions are typically inaccurate. Despite these shortcomings, travel and emission modeling continues to be widely employed in transportation and environmental policy analysis. Within the last decade, travel and emission modeling has been made necessary by the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 (CAAA), the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA), and its successor the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21). Moreover, the legislation and resulting regulation demand a high degree of accuracy and precision from these models.

Low-income rural residents, especially those who do not own a car, have limited transportation options for accessing jobs, health care, education, healthy food, and other basic services. Rural transit service is often expensive, infrequent, and hard to access because of long travel distances and low development densities. Transit providers face very high operating costs of fixed-route and dial-a-ride transit services because of low farebox recovery rates.Shared-use mobility services such as ridehailing and carsharing largely serve major metropolitan areas. However, rural governments are beginning to consider whether these types of services may be able to augment existing transit services while providing cost-effective transportation access to rural residents.This policy brief summarizes findings from a UC Davis study in which researchers compared the cost-effectiveness of existing inter-city transit service in rural disadvantaged communities in California's San Joaquin Valley to hypothetical ridesharing and carsharing services. The researchers also reviewed existing shared-use mobility pilots and consulted with experts in shared mobility and local transportation planning to develop concepts for future shared mobility pilot programs in the San Joaquin Valley.View the NCST Project Webpage

The EasyConnect Low-Speed Modes Linked to Transit Planning Project (TO 5113) project represents the integration of innovative strategies to enhance transit use during the development and construction of a suburban transit oriented development at the Pleasant Hill Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) District station in the East San Francisco Bay Area. This planning project brings together a unique partnership including small technology businesses, transportation agencies, city and county government, and academia. The project components include the introduction of shared-use low speed mode vehicles and electronic lockers at the proposed TOD. The evaluation of the EasyConnect field operational test (TO 6113-the next phase of this initiative) will provide insights into whether the introduction and integration of low-speed modes and elockers at the Pleasant Hill BART station can significantly increase transit access/use and cost effectively provide a last mile solution.

Regulatory agencies in the energy field have successfully used incentives to encourage electric and gas utilities to implement conservation measures. We develop a method for allocating federal and state funds to reward local governments that adopt effective travel demand management measures and reduce the need for expenditures on expanded roadway capacity. This method is applied to Sacramento using the region's travel demand models to forecast, for twenty and fifty year time horizons, the effects of two travel demand management scenarios: a congestion pricing scenario and a comprehensive scenario that includes congestion pricing, parking pricing, and a fuel tax. Estimates of the capital, operation, and maintenance costs were obtained from local data and are used in the financial analysis of cost savings. We found that in the Sacramento region travel demand management implementation could defer roadway projects for a minimum of 7 yr and a maximum of 24 yr, resulting in a total savings to federal and state agencies of least $100 million and at most $223 million in 1992 $, which could be used to make annual payments of at least $16 million or at most $31 million a year to local governments. Issues surrounding the technical and political feasibility of funding incentives to local governments are addressed and further research is suggested.

The EasyConnect Low-Speed Modes Linked to Transit Planning Project (TO 5113) project represents the integration of innovative strategies to enhance transit use during the development and construction of a suburban transit oriented development at the Pleasant Hill Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) District station in the East San Francisco Bay Area. This planning project brings together a unique partnership including small technology businesses, transportation agencies, city and county government, and academia. The project components include the introduction of shared-use low speed mode vehicles and electronic lockers at the proposed TOD. The evaluation of the EasyConnect field operational test (TO 6113-the next phase of this initiative) will provide insights into whether the introduction and integration of low-speed modes and elockers at the Pleasant Hill BART station can significantly increase transit access/use and cost effectively provide a last mile solution.

Land-use intensification measures and pricing policies are compared and combined with high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lane and light-rail transit expansion scenarios in the Sacramento, California, region and evaluated against travel, emissions, consumer welfare, and equity criteria. A state-of-the-practice regional travel demand model is used to simulate the travel effects of these scenarios. The Small and Rosen method of obtaining consumer welfare is applied to the mode-choice models in the travel model. The most politically feasible scenarios were found to provide at best only modest improvements in congestion and emissions. Welfare losses were obtained for the HOV lane scenario, suggesting that care must be taken in project planning to ensure that savings in travel time are large enough to offset the unobserved cost of increased travel by car. Transit investment and supportive land-use intensification provided larger reductions in congestion and emissions and increased consumer welfare for all income classes. As a group, the scenarios that included pricing policies provided the greatest reduction in travel delay and emissions, increased total consumer welfare, and imposed losses on the lowest income group. However, it may be possible to combine pricing policies with more significantly expanded transit and roadway capacity and compensatory payments to increase consumer welfare for all income classes.

Regulatory agencies in the energy field have successfully used incentives to encourage electric and gas utilities to implement conservation measures. We develop a method for allocating federal and state funds to reward local governments that adopt effective travel demand management measures and reduce the need for expenditures on expanded roadway capacity. This method is applied to Sacramento using the region's travel demand models to forecast, for twenty and fifty year time horizons, the effects of two travel demand management scenarios: a congestion pricing scenario and a comprehensive scenario that includes congestion pricing, parking pricing, and a fuel tax. Estimates of the capital, operation, and maintenance costs were obtained from local data and are used in the financial analysis of cost savings. We found that in the Sacramento region travel demand management implementation could defer roadway projects for a minimum of 7 yr and a maximum of 24 yr, resulting in a total savings to federal and state agencies of least $100 million and at most $223 million in 1992 $, which could be used to make annual payments of at least $16 million or at most $31 million a year to local governments. Issues surrounding the technical and political feasibility of funding incentives to local governments are addressed and further research is suggested.

Studies show that automated vehicles are likely to increase vehicle travel, resulting in more congestion and greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). Pricing policies such as increasing the cost of driving and reducing the cost of alternative travel modes could lessen the negative impacts of automated vehicle deployment, although it is unclear to what extent. Cities located in the Westside Cities Council of Governments planning area in western Los Angeles County could be candidates for early deployment of automated vehicles because of their high travel volumes, well-maintained roads, and temperate weather conditions. Los Angeles County also faces high levels of poverty. Thus, the Westside Cities area presents an important opportunity to study how automated vehicles and associated pricing policies might affect congestion, vehicle miles traveled (VMT), and GHGs, and whether they might improve mobility for marginalized populations.Researchers at the University of California, Davis and the Technical University of Berlin evaluated these questions by simulating three scenarios in the Westside Cities area using an open-source, dynamic, agent-based travel model called MATSim.The researchers then calculated the benefits of each scenario compared to the base case for various income groups, considering monetary travel costs and the value of travel time for each income group.This policy brief summarizes the findings from that research and provides policy implications.View the NCST Project Webpage

It is widely recognized that new vehicle and fuel technologies are necessary but not sufficient to meet deep greenhouse gas reduction goals in the United States. Demand management strategies, such as land use, transit, and auto pricing policies, are also needed. These measures, however, have historically faced political challenges and have been difficult to implement. Emerging ridesharing systems now suggest the possibility of a new demand management strategy that may be more politically palatable and reduce the number of vehicle miles traveled (VMT). To date, however, little research has evaluated their potential travel effects, especially on a regional scale. This study used the San Francisco, California, Bay Area activity-based travel demand model to simulate business-as-usual, transit-oriented development, and auto pricing scenarios with and without high, medium, and low ridesharing participation levels. The analysis suggests that relatively large VMT reductions are possible from moderate and high participation levels, but at low participation levels, VMT reductions are negligible. Moderate dynamic ridesharing alone compares favorably, with a 9% reduction in VMT, to transit-oriented development and auto pricing scenarios. The analysis also suggests a potentially promising policy combination: a moderately used regional dynamic ridesharing system with a 10- to 30-cent increase in the per mile cost of auto travel, which together may reduce VMT on the order of 11% to 19%.

It is widely recognized that new vehicle and fuel technologies are necessary but not sufficient to meet deep greenhouse gas reduction goals in the United States. Demand management strategies, such as land use, transit, and auto pricing policies, are also needed. These measures, however, have historically faced political challenges and have been difficult to implement. Emerging ridesharing systems now suggest the possibility of a new demand management strategy that may be more politically palatable and reduce the number of vehicle miles traveled (VMT). To date, however, little research has evaluated their potential travel effects, especially on a regional scale. This study used the San Francisco, California, Bay Area activity-based travel demand model to simulate business-as-usual, transit-oriented development, and auto pricing scenarios with and without high, medium, and low ridesharing participation levels. The analysis suggests that relatively large VMT reductions are possible from moderate and high participation levels, but at low participation levels, VMT reductions are negligible. Moderate dynamic ridesharing alone compares favorably, with a 9% reduction in VMT, to transit-oriented development and auto pricing scenarios. The analysis also suggests a potentially promising policy combination: a moderately used regional dynamic ridesharing system with a 10- to 30-cent increase in the per mile cost of auto travel, which together may reduce VMT on the order of 11% to 19%.

The integration of innovative technologies with traditional modal options in transit oriented developments (TODs) may be the key to providing the kind of high-quality transit service that can effectively compete with the automobile in suburban transit corridors. The EasyConnect II project represents a multi-technology integration of innovative strategies planned to enhance transit use during the development and construction of a suburban TOD at the Pleasant Hill Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) District station in the East San Francisco Bay Area. The project team represents a unique partnership including small technology businesses, private developers, transportation agencies, city and county government, and academia. The project components include the introduction of shared-use low-speed mode vehicles, smart parking management systems, electronic lockers, and power supplied by a hydrogen fuel cell at the proposed TOD. The various technologies will seamlessly be linked over the Internet in formats accessible to both end-users and project planners. The evaluation of the proposed study will provide insight into whether the introduction and integration of innovative technologies at TODs can significantly increase transit access and use. If the innovations introduced in this study prove successful, then their application could be expanded throughout the region, California, and the nation.

To evaluate the potential for low-speed modes to improve transit access, the EasyConnect field test will offer shared-use Segway Human Transporters (HT), electric bicycles, and bicycles linked to a Bay Area Rapid Transit District station and surrounding employment centers in California. Because of safety concerns, research was conducted to understand the risks associated with these modes and potential risk factors. A review of the safety literature indicates that user error is the major cause of low speed mode crashes, and significant risk factors are poor surface conditions and obstructions to drivers' vision. As a result, an extensive training program and carefully selected routes have been included in the field test. The regulatory and legislative history of the HT is chronicled to understand how concerns about its interaction with pedestrians have produced legislation that includes specific safety requirements. The low-speed modes used in this project will be equipped with safety devices, and participants will be required to wear helmets. The survey results of 13 HT implementation projects provide insight into potential advantages and challenges to the field test. Results of interviews and meetings with field test stakeholders are presented with a discussion of their influence on the field test design. Finally, conclusions and future project steps are discussed.

Excessive speed is considered to be a major contributing factor to motor vehicle crashes and is thus an important focus of highway enforcement efforts. Automated speed enforcement programs have been widely applied outside of the U.S. to effectively address speeding-related safety problems. In the U.S., automated speed enforcement programs are currently operated in only 11 states and in Washington D.C., most of which are located on residential streets and not highways. Moreover, a number of automated speed enforcement programs have been discontinued since 1990. This literature review explores the potential benefits and barriers to implementing automated speed enforcement programs in the U.S. by examining the large body of literature on automated enforcement programs, including red-light and speed programs. It begins with background on the implementation of automated speed enforcement and includes a discussion of research on the potential safety and financial effects of these programs. Next, the legal restrictions to the implementation of automated speed enforcement in the U.S. are outlined. This is followed by a discussion of stakeholder support including potential concerns of citizens, special interest groups, elected officials, and governmental agencies. Then, an evaluation of key program design choices is provided, encompassing issues related to owner or driver liability, manned or unmanned systems, mobile or fixed systems, visibility, location, enforcement thresholds, program management, and revenue distribution. The study concludes with a discussion of major findings.