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.

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).

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.

The Impact of Ridehailing on Other Travel Modes and on Vehicle Dependency

Research Product Type
Policy Brief
Researchers at the University of California, Davis surveyed California residents about their personal attitudes and preferences, lifestyles, travel patterns, vehicle ownership, adoption and use of new mobility services, and personal and household characteristics, and this brief summarizes the results of multiple studies that have used this dataset to generate insights into the impact of ridehailing services on the use of other travel modes and on car ownership prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Costs of Owning Battery-Electric Trucks – Is the Research Aligning?

Research Product Type
Policy Brief
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.

Variable Speed Limit Control to Reduce Traffic Congestion in the Face of Uncertainty

Research Product Type
Research Brief
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.

Evaluating Pilot Approaches to Increase Rural Mobility

Research Product Type
Policy Brief
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.

A Glimpse of Microtransit at an Early Stage: The SmaRT Ride Consumer Market in the Sacramento Area

Research Product Type
Policy Brief
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.

What to Make of Biofuels? Understanding the Market from 2010 to the Present, and Projecting Ahead to 2030 Given Current Policies

Research Product Type
Policy Brief
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.

A Model for Efficiently Allocating Resources to Mitigate Wildfire Risk along California Roadways

Research Product Type
Policy Brief
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.

A Truck Routing Model to Reduce Fuel Consumption and Emissions while Accounting for Parking Availability and Working Hours Constraints

Research Product Type
Research Brief
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.

Do Dock-based and Dockless Bikesharing Systems Provide Equitable Access for Disadvantaged Communities?

Research Product Type
Policy Brief
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”.

How Much Do Local Climate Action Plans in California Consider Emissions, Cost, and Equity?

Research Product Type
Policy Brief
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.

Simulating the Effects of Shared Automated Vehicles and Benefits to Low-Income Communities in Los Angeles

Research Product Type
Policy Brief
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.