Policy Briefs

The NCST produces two-page Policy Briefs to help summarize and synthesize findings from its research and to highlight the policy and/or practice implications in an easy-to-understand, accessible style and format.

Impacts of the Federal Tax Credit on the Decision to Lease or Purchase a Plug-in Electric Vehicle

Research Product Type
Policy Brief
To mitigate climate change and air pollution, multiple US states and other countries have been crafting policies aimed at shifting sales from conventional vehicles to plug-in electric vehicles. A key to developing these policies is understanding how financial incentives affect consumers’ decisions to purchase or lease PEVs. To better understand this, researchers at the University of California, Davis, analyzed survey responses from approximately 2,800 California PEV owners.

Household Vehicle Choice in California: Behavior and Impacts

Research Product Type
Policy Brief
An increasing diversity of vehicle types, paired with a growing demand for PEVs, has major implications for vehicle miles traveled (VMT), air pollution, and emissions. To better understand what is likely to happen, researchers predict household vehicle preference and VMT by vehicle body and fuel type.

California Cities Face Trade-offs in Developing Plans and Policies for Transit-Oriented Development

Research Product Type
Policy Brief
Transit-oriented development—higher-density residential or mixed-use development centered around high-quality transit stations—has emerged as a strategy to reduce greenhouse gases while increasing housing supply. Researchers at the University of California, Davis completed in-depth case studies of 11 California cities to understand their mix of strategies and how they have needed to reconcile sometimes competing policy goals in advancing transit-oriented development.

E-bike Incentive Programs Reduce GHGs and Support Recreational Travel

Research Product Type
Policy Brief
As yet, little is known about the efficacy of e-bike incentive programs in changing travel behavior. To understand the potential of these programs in this area, UC Davis researchers analyzed survey data from rebate recipients in Northern California and evaluated rebate programs for effects of e-bike ownership on travel behavior.

Do Slow Streets Encourage More Dockless Travel? Evidence from Electric Scooter Usage in Four Cities

Research Product Type
Policy Brief
A research team at the University of Southern California collaborated with Lime, an e-scooter company, to analyze Slow Streets programs in the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Portland. Using two statistical approaches, they examined dockless e-scooter travel at four different times of day and overall weekly and monthly averages of dockless e-scooter trips. 

New Tool for Gig Drivers Considering Going Electric

Research Product Type
Research Brief
By 2030, the state is targeting 90% of passenger miles traveled on TNCs to be fueled by electricity. To support this objective, UC Davis researchers developed an online tool to help gig drivers understand their potential cost savings from EVs.

Flexible Routing for Ridesharing

Research Product Type
Research Brief
Traffic congestion is a significant problem in major metropolitan areas in the United States. According to the Urban Mobility Report, in 2019 commuters on average lost about 54 hours in traffic congestion. The researchers developed three approaches to rideshare routing and evaluated their effectiveness in combating traffic congestion.

Community-Oriented Solutions May Help Rural Residents Adapt to Life Without a Car

Research Product Type
Policy Brief
Rural residents face significant mobility challenges because travel destinations are far, opportunities like jobs and access to essential needs are limited, and rural roadways are more dangerous than their urban counterparts. UC Davis researchers used US Census microdata and conducted interviews to describe socioeconomic and mobility characteristics of carless households and residents in rural California to understand barriers to access and travel adaptations among individuals with limited access to a vehicle.

Jobs and Automation in the Freight and Warehousing Sector

Research Product Type
Policy Brief
This policy brief summarizes the key findings and policy implications of recent research from UC Davis that assesses the landscape for freight automation and its potential labor impacts in the freight and warehousing sector.

Trade and Transportation Talent Pipeline Blueprints: Building University-Industry Talent Pipelines in Colleges of Continuing and Professional Education

Research Product Type
Research Brief
This research brief summarizes the project report which proposes Talent Pipeline Management solutions that CSU campuses can facilitate in a transformational skills paradigm—a time in which entrants and incumbents need accelerated training and education to acquire the in-demand KSAs of today’s working standards.

Increasing Highway Capacity Induces More Auto Travel

Research Product Type
Policy Brief
Researchers at the University of California, Davis reviewed the empirical research on induced travel to understand the likely effects of adding roadway capacity in a variety of contexts.

Updating the Induced Travel Calculator

Research Product Type
Policy Brief
With Calculator use increasing, the UC Davis researchers initiated a project to update the Calculator and improve its functionality based on recent data and empirical research.

Travel Behavior Trends During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Research Product Type
Policy Brief
The proliferation of digital devices and online services over the past decades has changed how people travel, enabling new mobility options and offering greater opportunities for e-commerce and telework. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the researchers modified their plan to understand new trends, such as increased remote work, online/virtual meetings, and e-shopping, as well as changes in travel.

Planning Can Maximize Benefits and Mitigate Negative Consequences of Future Travel Increases from E-Commerce

Research Product Type
Policy Brief
Researchers at the University of California, Davis developed a forecasting model to quantify the potential impacts of future e-commerce on emissions and transport activity under different scenarios with assumptions about penetration levels of various technologies (e.g., electrification, rush deliveries, crowdshipping, and automation/efficiency improvements).

Demonstrating the Life Cycle Assessment Framework for Complete Streets

Research Product Type
Policy Brief
The researchers assessed whether the LCA framework was useful in identifying whether a complete street delivered, or was likely to deliver, the intended performance and benefits, and the social and health conditions of the neighborhoods receiving the benefits.

Incentive Systems for New Mobility Services to Reduce Congestion

Research Product Type
Research Brief
Researchers at the University of Southern California developed a distributed algorithm for offering incentives to organizations to make socially optimal routing decisions designed to lower the traffic flow of congested roads without creating new congestion in other parts of the road network.