All Research Products

The National Center for Sustainable Transportation's primary output from research is reports and white papers. Many projects also produce a Project Brief to summarize and highlight the policy and/or research findings and implications. NCST research also produces journal articles, conference papers, books, dissertations, theses, presentations, and posters. The NCST has also created various tools that can be used by policymakers and practitioners, such as models, calculators, and planning tools.

Advanced Battery Technologies: Bus, Heavy-Duty Vocational Truck, and Construction Machinery Applications

Research Product Type
Research Report
This study provides a comprehensive review of current research on lithium-ion and sodium-ion batteries, evaluating their development status and the challenges to commercialization. A key objective of this study is to assess the progress of advanced battery development and its influence on the further commercialization of buses, vocational trucks, and construction machinery.

Sensitivity Testing of Induced Highway Travel in the Sacramento Regional Travel Demand Model

Research Product Type
Research Report
This report uses the state-of-the-practice transportation demand model, the Sacramento Council of Governments SACSIM19 model, to examine (1) the model's representation of induced travel, (2) the influence of variation in key inputs on vehicle travel and roadway congestions, and (3) the effect of changes in induced travel-related input variables on the comparisons of scenarios with and without highway expansions.

Caltrans 2024 Sustainable Freight Academy

Research Product Type
Research Report
This report summarizes the Caltrans 2024 Sustainable Freight Academy, which consisted of presentations from goods movement professionals and subject matter experts and allowed participants to develop their skills in grant writing by applying lessons learned from the course.

Challenges Are Present, But California Transit Agencies Are Open to Open-loop

Research Product Type
Policy Brief
Researchers from the University of California, Davis gathered surveys from a small sample of transit agencies (N = 21) and found that agencies are interested in open-loop payments, agencies and passengers would likely support it, but that it also presents challenges for agencies and passengers. This policy brief summarizes the findings from that research and provides policy implications.

Dataset: Survey and analysis of transportation affordable programs in California

Research Product Type
Data
This is the dataset for project "Improving Access and Efficiency to Transportation Affordable Programs in California" (UCD-CT-FAST-079). This study explores opportunities for improving access to transportation affordable programs by gathering insights from existing income-qualified transportation benefits.

Mitigating Extreme Heat Exposure Using Advanced and Novel Materials and Improved Pedestrian Infrastructure Design: A Systematic Literature Review and Survey of Agencies

Research Product Type
Research Report
This report systematically reviewed the growing literature related to the application of advanced and novel materials (ANMs) and green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) to reduce urban heat island (UHI) effects and implemented a survey of urban planners and public works engineers to assess the current and planned use of these strategies and identify barriers to implementation.

Survey and Analysis of Transportation Affordable Programs in California

Research Product Type
Research Report
This study explores opportunities for improving access to transportation affordable programs by gathering insights from existing income qualified transportation benefits. Researchers compare examples of these programs to design features of existing non-transportation benefits to characterize opportunities for increased coordination and standardization.

Travel and the Built Environment in Rural Communities

Research Product Type
Policy Brief
This policy brief summarizes findings from the University of Vermont project where researchers sought to answer the question: is the relationship between travel and the built environment the same in urban and rural areas.

Total Cost of Ownership Spreadsheet Tool

Research Product Type
Calculator
The Total Cost of Ownership Spreadsheet Tool (TCOST) is a Microsoft Excel-based calculator that simplifies and integrates the main functions, data, and outputs of pre-existing models (MOVES-Matrix and the GREET Model) and other external sources of economic data.

Integrated Modeling Program and Total Cost of Ownership Calculator for Medium-Duty and Heavy-Duty Battery Electric Trucks in Regional Freight Use-Case Deployments

Research Product Type
Research Report
This report outlines the technical development and application of the Total Cost of Ownership Spreadsheet Tool (TCOST), a Microsoft Excel-based calculator that simplifies and integrates the main functions, data, and outputs of pre-existing models (MOVES-Matrix and the GREET Model) and other external sources of economic data.

US-Mexico Second-Hand Electric Vehicle Trade: Battery Circularity and End-of-Life Policy Implications

Research Product Type
Research Report
This research undertook a battery material flow analysis, life cycle assessment of SHVs traded from the US to Mexico, and a qualitive analysis of environmental and transport justice implications of SHV trade. The research finds that SHVs disproportionately contribute to waste battery generation in Mexico, and that second-hand EVs are frequently retired early due to a lack of repairability.

EVALUATE: Electric Vehicle Assessment and Leveraging of Unified models toward AbatemenT of Emissions, Phase I

Research Product Type
Research Report
This research explores electric vehicle (EV) and grid interactions with a focus on CO2 emissions through integrating models and data that characterize: vehicle energy consumption, travel demands, vehicle charging, and temporal emission profiles associated with electric power generation dispatch. This convergence research helps quantify the relative emissions of light duty vehicle use and charging during various times of day to enable comparison of EV modes against one another and against conventional vehicle baselines.