Policy Briefs (Pre-2025)

Researchers at the University of California, Davis reviewed 10 recent studies of the total cost of ownership of battery-electric trucks, now and in the future, compared to a baseline diesel truck to derive general findings that are robust across all the studies.

Researchers at the University of California, Riverside aimed to establish a test method to determine brake activity of a heavy-duty vehicle under both dynamometer tests and on-road tests.

Researchers at the University of California, Davis evaluated three innovative mobility pilot programs in the San Joaquin Valley to understand the participant characteristics and outcomes of each pilot.

Researchers at the University of Southern California developed, analyzed, and evaluated an innovative approach to alleviate highway bottleneck congestion, which includes issuing variable-speed advisories and lane-change recommendations when needed to the upstream vehicles, as well as ramp control to manage incoming traffic, while accounting for inaccuracies in traffic data and road information and the complex behavior of human driving.

Microtransit can potentially offer greater efficiency and more equitable service than ride-hailing services, and it may fill gaps in traditional transit services. Aiming to fill this gap, in 2021, researchers at the University of California, Davis conducted focus groups and an online survey of SmaRT Ride adopters and users of other means of transportation in the Sacramento area.

Researchers at the University of California, Davis assessed the possibilities for and barriers to providing charging infrastructure for heavy-duty, long-haul trucks at rest areas in California.

A research team at the University of California, Davis examined the track record of the past decade for clues as to why cellulosic fuels that can have a significantly lower carbon footprint per unit energy failed to materialize at commercial scale, and looked forward to 2030 to point to how current policies are likely to still fall short in delivering low-carbon biofuels that can reach scales needed for these hard-to-decarbonize sectors.

Researchers at the University of California, Davis investigated the range of potential impacts that rapid adoption of CAVs in California might have on vehicle miles traveled and emissions.

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection produced a Community Wildfire Prevention and Mitigation Report in 2019 with a methodology to assess wildfire risk. Caltrans and researchers at the University of California, Davis applied these methods to develop a highway-segment-specific prioritization model for vegetation management within highway rights-of-way.

Researchers at the University of California, Davis analyzed the difference in service levels among dock-based and dockless systems in the cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles and analyzed the spatial distribution of service areas, availability of bikes and bike idle times, trip statistics, rebalancing, and other metrics to understand how well or poorly these systems serve designated “communities of concern”.

Researchers at the University of Southern California developed a truck routing model that minimizes fuel consumption and reduces emissions while explicitly accounting for parking availability and hours-of-service constraints. The researchers used the model to test various scenarios that reflect the practical constraints faced by drivers.

UC Davis researchers surveyed homeowners in Sacramento and collected lot size and other data to investigate whether the total effective parking supply of the average single-family detached home is sufficient to accommodate the vehicles associated with the residents of both a primary dwelling and a potential ADU.

Researchers at the University of California, Davis partnered with Cal-ITP to study how transit fare payments could be modernized while remaining accessible to unbanked and underbanked riders.

Researchers at the University of California, Davis assessed and scored over 30 CAPs released between 2009 and 2020 based on the degree to which they addressed three themes: emissions reductions, cost, and equity, and developed a set of guiding questions to assist jurisdictions in developing CAPs that include equity considerations both broadly and by specific sector.

Researchers at the University of California, Davis and the Technical University of Berlin evaluated questions around the impacts of automated vehicles by simulating three scenarios in the Westside Cities area using an open-source, dynamic, agent-based travel model called MATSim, then calculated the benefits of each scenario compared to the base case for various income groups.

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology created a semi-automated process for developing an all-streets network to be used in TDM applications to more accurately model bicycle travel.

Researchers at the University of California, Davis and the non-profit organization Mobility Development reviewed evaluations of the travel, emissions, and equity effects of past US carsharing programs and analyzed the evolution of carsharing and its various business models.

Researchers surveyed all 50 state departments of transportation and conducted in-depth interviews with agency experts to understand the implementation status of complete streets asset management, identify what state transportation agencies need to improve their asset management plans, and develop a road map for implementing complete streets asset management.

UC Davis researchers adapted a previously developed GIS planning toolbox to be used outside of California, collaborating with the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission to develop a case study for using this toolbox for EV infrastructure planning in the Greater Philadelphia region.

Researchers at UC Davis used the publicly available 2012 CHTS and 2017 NHTS California add-on data to examine the impact of methodological differences on the changes in mode shares over this five-year period and conducted a preliminary investigation into the role of demographic and other factors in these changes.