Publications

Given that today’s real-world diesel fuel supply is comprised of biodiesel as a blendstock with petrodiesel, understanding how addition of biodiesel affects exhaust particle properties and their subsequent effect on human health is critically important. Here, samples of a commercial waste vegetable oil biodiesel B100 fuel were subject to thermal oxidation at 110°C for 5, 10 or 20 hr before diesel engine dynamometer emissions testing as the neat fuel (B100) and as a 20% v/v biodiesel blend (B20) with petrodiesel.

This report investigates how local governments (cities and counties) are implementing California’s Senate Bill 743, adopted in 2013 to eliminate traffic delay, measured using level-of-service (LOS) standards, as a basis for analyzing and mitigating transportation-related impacts of development projects and plans as called for under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

In this project, the team will develop MOVES-Matrix 3.0 based on the existing MOVES Matrix framework, and the team will modify the code to perform the iterative processes with MOVES 3, handle new data formats, and join distributed computing outputs into new matrices.

This project evaluates a broad range of factors influencing microtransit adoption and travel behavior among underserved populations using original revealed choice survey data collected from February – May 2024 with online and intercept surveys.

The goal of this project was to assess the capabilities of the travel demand forecasting models (TDMs) used by California’s metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) with respect to forecasting the increase in vehicle miles of travel induced by highway capacity expansion.

This dissertation examines clean energy supply chains in the context of the just transition and circular economy frameworks, focusing on a central technology for zero-emissions transportation: lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) for electric vehicles (EVs). The author focuses on three phases of the LIB life cycle: mineral extraction, component and cell manufacturing, and end-of-life management.

A team at the University of California, Davis, conducted a case study in Sacramento, California, to explore bikesharing as an option for connecting affordable housing residents with transit services. This brief summarizes the findings from that research and provides implications for the field.

Using the 2017 National Household Travel Survey, this study quantifies and compares travel burdens in rural versus nonrural communities in the United States.

Traffic sensors serve as one of the most important sources for such data by providing an accurate and reliable general picture of the traffic system. In this dissertation, a new sensor location model is developed to maximize the observability of link densities in a dynamic traffic network described using a piecewise linear ordinary differential equation system.

In this paper, the authors present a new sensor location model that aims to maximize observability of link densities in a dynamic traffic network described using a piecewise linear system of ordinary differential equations.

This dissertation consists of six studies that explore the environmental sustainability and social equity implications of micromobility services, separately and together. The studies compiled in this dissertation examine the implications of travel behavior for environmental sustainability through the lens of equity.

Research performed in this supplemental NCST study improved model algorithms to increase analytical efficiency and to integrate ridership demographics, so that energy use impacts could be assessed across demographic groups for use in social sustainability analysis.

In this study, a modeling framework for population exposure to traffic-related PM2.5 with high spatiotemporal resolution is proposed and applied to the I-575/I-75 Northwest Corridor (NWC) in Atlanta, GA, for environmental equity analysis.

This study delves into the energy and emissions impacts of Shared Autonomous and Electric Vehicles (SAEVs) on disadvantaged communities in California.

The purpose of this literature review is to assess what is currently known about the ability of travel demand forecasting models (TDMs) to provide accurate forecasts for different types of transportation plans and projects with respect to different outcome measures of interest.

This dissertation sets out to 1) explore the feasibility of implementing a per-mile road-usage charge (RUC) in replacement of the motor fuel taxes, 2) estimate the changes in vehicles-miles travelled (VMT) and the revenues generated from motor fuel taxes under the backdrop of vehicle electrification, and 3) quantify the effects of vehicle class and fuel type portfolios in ZEV-adopting households’ vehicle replacement decisions.

In this study, a modeling framework was developed to generate high-resolution synthetic fleets, for use with synthetic household modeling in activity-based travel models, by integrating various data sources.

The 2023-24 survey collected data from 4,774 people affiliated with UC Davis about their travel to campus.

In this work, a literature review of key parameters that can facilitate desired CO2 uptake for transportation projects at their end of life is conducted and an initial meta-analyses of data from the literature to inform CO2 uptake for individual projects is performed.

To address the challenges of electric grid stress and fleet operator costs associated with commercial electric vehicle fleets, this report presents a highly flexible smart charging algorithm for managing EV fleets that arrive and depart from a common depot on a schedule.