UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies

Challenges Facing Public Transit Before, During, and After COVID-19
2021-03-22 12:30 - 14:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
UC ITS Webinar Series: Challenges and Opportunities Facing Public Transit
Public transit agencies are facing an existential crisis. Ridership is recovering, but it is only about half of pre-pandemic levels. Public health protocols have increased operating costs, while revenues — from both passenger fares and government subsidies — are down, in many cases dramatically. Current efforts are focused on how to stop the financial bleeding to ensure that public transit agencies can provide essential service and survive fiscally. But when or whether passengers, fare revenues, and government subsidies return to pre-pandemic levels remains an open question. Understanding the dimensions of these challenges and the opportunities to build public transit back better will require innovative thinking, collaboration with stakeholders and workers, and leadership. Experts from the UC Institute of Transportation Studies (UC ITS) will examine the challenges facing public transit operators large and small in California and the opportunities for recovery and renewal as part of a two-part webinar series.
Part I: Challenges Facing Public Transit Before, During, and After COVID-19
This webinar is the first in a two-part series exploring the challenges and opportunities facing public transit. UC ITS experts will review the challenges facing public transit operators leading up to and amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, including changes in ridership, deepening fiscal issues, and growing social challenges related to homelessness, sexual harassment, and safety. The webinar will conclude with insights of a recent scenario planning exercise exploring how to build public transit back better in light of these many challenges.

SPEAKERS:
Brian D. Taylor – Professor of Urban Planning and Policy, UCLA
Susan Shaheen – Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UC Berkeley
Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris – Distinguished Professor of Urban Planning; UCLA
Jacob Wasserman – Research Project Manager, UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies

Find more information here.

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Compton Cowboys and California Love
2021-03-11 12:30 - 14:00
UCLA Urban Planning and UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies Perloff Lecture Series on Race in Transportation
Compton Cowboys and California Love
Multimedia artist Walter Thompson-Hernández shares from his book, “The Compton Cowboys,” and latest NPR Podcast California Love.
In Compton, California, 10 Black riders on horseback cut an unusual profile, their cowboy hats tilted against the hot Los Angeles sun. They are the Compton Cowboys, their small ranch one of the very last in a formerly semirural area of the city that has been home to African American horse riders for decades. “The Compton Cowboys” is a story about trauma and transformation, race and identity, compassion, and ultimately, belonging. Walter Thompson-Hernández paints a unique and unexpected portrait of this city, pushing back against stereotypes to reveal an urban community in all its complexity, tragedy, and triumph.
California Love is a new audio memoir about Walter’s coming of age in Los Angeles.

WALTER THOMPSON-HERNÁNDEZ is an award-winning journalist, writer, and host. He is a former New York Times writer and host who covered global subcultures for the paper between 2017-2020. He was named one of Quartz magazine’s “Top 50 creative people in the world,” in 2018. In 2019 he was awarded the prestigious Whiting Award for his book, The Compton Cowboys: The New Generation of Cowboys in America’s Urban Heartland. He was awarded the “Yo Soy” award by the Hispanic Heritage Foundation and Instagram for his coverage of communities of color throughout the United States in 2019. He was named the 2020 “podcast host of the year” by ADWEEK for his NPR audio memoir, California Love. California Love was also named one of the best shows of 2020 by Spotify, Apple, Amazon, and The Atlantic.
MODERATOR:
EVELYN BLUMENBERG is the Director of the Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies and a Professor of Urban Planning within the Luskin School of Public Affairs. Her research examines the effects of urban structure — the spatial location of residents, employment, and services — on economic outcomes for low-wage workers, and on the role of planning and policy in shaping the spatial structure of cities. Recent projects include analyses of trends in transit ridership, gender and travel behavior, low-wage workers and the changing commute, and the relationship between automobile ownership and employment outcomes among the poor.

The full recording can be found below.

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Policing the Open Road
2021-03-04 12:30 - 14:00
The 14th Annual Martin Wachs Distinguished Lecture in Transportation
presented as part of the UCLA Urban Planning and UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies Perloff Lecture Series
Columbia Law professor Sarah Seo‘s book “Policing the Open Road” is a thought-provoking look at how the automobile fundamentally changed the nature of police work, and thus the conception of freedom, in the United States. These themes are close to transportation studies, but too often ignored in transportation academia. These issues, moreover, will only become more salient as broader swaths of transportation academia seek to understand and study the role of race and ethnicity in freedom of mobility. Professor Seo will be joined by UCLA professor Genevieve Carpio, whose book, “Collisions at the Crossroads: How Place and Mobility Make Race,” documents the effects of police-imposed limits to mobility on Latinx populations in Southern California’s Inland Empire.
Support the Wachs LectureSARAH SEO is a professor at Columbia Law School, where she teaches criminal law, criminal procedure, and legal history. Her book, “Policing the Open Road: How Cars Transformed American Freedom” (Harvard University Press 2019), has been reviewed widely, including in The New Yorker, listed in Smithsonian Magazine’s ‘Ten Best History Books of 2019,’ and cited in judicial opinions. In addition to publishing in academic journals, she’s written for The Atlantic, Boston Review, Lapham’s Quarterly, Le Monde Diplomatique, The New York Review of Books, and The Washington Post. Since the publication of “Policing the Open Road,” professor Seo has been advocating for the removal of civil traffic law enforcement from police duties.
Before joining Columbia, she spent four years at Iowa Law School. She received her A.B. and Ph.D. in history, both at Princeton, and J.D. at Columbia Law School. Between law school and grad school, she clerked on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
GENEVIEVE CARPIO is an Assistant Professor in the César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o Studies. Her research and teaching interests include relational studies of race, 20th century U.S. history, (sub)urban history, and spatial theory, particularly as it relates to notions of place and mobility. She has a long-standing interest in the public and digital humanities, particularly as it relates to the California Inland Empire, where she was raised. She is the author of a book on spatial mobility, both permission to move freely and prohibitions on movement, and racial formation in the multiracial suburbs of Los Angeles and the Inland Empire entitled Collisions at the Crossroads: How Place and Mobility Make Race (University of California Press, 2019).
MODERATOR:
MICHAEL MANVILLE is Associate Professor of Urban Planning at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. Both his research and teaching focus on the relationships between transportation and land use, and on local public finance. Much of his research concerns the tendency of local governments to hide the costs of driving in the property market, through land use restrictions intended to fight traffic congestion. These land use laws only sometimes reduce congestion, and can profoundly influence the supply and price of housing.
The full recording can be found below.

Attendees of this event can claim up to 1.5 AICP CM units.
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Emerging Scholars Transportation Research Symposium
2021-03-02 - 2021-03-03
UCLA at 3rd Annual Emerging Scholars Transportation Research SymposiumThe Third Annual Emerging Scholars Transportation Research Symposium, hosted by the Pacific Southwest Region University Transportation Center, will be taking place on March 2nd and 3rd online. This webinar will feature presentations by PSR students and researchers on their work. UCLA PhD candidates Hannah King and Teo Wickland will be presenting on their research as well as UCLA professor Dr. Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris. The event includes keynote presentations from Senator Fran Pavley and Dr. Susan Handy. See below for more details.
Event information can be found here.

Safe for Whom?
2021-02-25 12:30 - 14:00
UCLA Urban Planning and UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies Perloff Lecture Series on Race in Transportation
Safe for Whom? Transportation Safety in the Context of Planning and Infrastructure Inequities
While cyclists and pedestrians are vulnerable road users and face significant safety threats on roadways, environmental conditions in historically marginalized communities compound such vulnerability for people of color. In this lecture, professor Barajas will take a mobility justice perspective to contextualize street safety for cyclists and pedestrians. He will share findings from his research that shows how identity shapes the way cyclists experience the streetscape, how safety has multiple meanings particularly for people of color, and how inequity in the distribution of infrastructure compounds police injustice in Black communities. The work calls upon planners to be attentive to the intersections of identity and mobility to ensure equitable transportation systems.

JESUS M. BARAJAS is an assistant professor of Environmental Science and Policy and affiliated faculty at the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies. His research at the intersection of transportation planning and environmental justice addresses how systems of inequities influence travel behavior and how policymakers can and should respond. He has led projects on topics including travel behavior, transportation safety, and the implications of policing on transportation planning.

MODERATOR:
BRIAN D. TAYLOR is Professor of Urban Planning and Public Policy, and Director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UCLA. His research centers on transportation policy and planning. Professor Taylor explores how society pays for transportation systems and how these systems in turn serve the needs of people who — because of low income, disability, location, or age — have lower levels of mobility. Topically, his research examines travel behavior, transportation economics & finance, and politics & planning.

The full recording can be found here.

Attendees of this event can claim up to 1.5 AICP CM units.
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Human-Powered Mobility and Just Transition
2021-02-18 12:30 - 14:00
UCLA Urban Planning and UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies Perloff Lecture Series on Race in Transportation
The Human Infrastructure of Sustainable Transportation Systems: Human-Powered Mobility and Just Transition
What role can bicycling play in healing the intersecting harms of racial and climate injustice? Activists have learned that individual mode shift alone will not correct the extractive social effects of transportation governance and industries, but collective actions point toward regenerative possibilities.
Professor Lugo will share ideas from her collaborations in mobility justice to argue for the significance of human-powered mobility in moving the transportation field toward a just transition.

Cultural anthropologist ADONIA E. LUGO, Ph.D. is the chair of the Urban Sustainability Department at Antioch University Los Angeles. She was born and raised in traditional and unceded Acjachemen territory and now lives and works in traditional and unceded Tongva territory. Professor Lugo began investigating sustainable mobility, race, and space during her graduate studies at UC Irvine when she co-created CicLAvia and the organization today known as People for Mobility Justice in Los Angeles. After receiving her doctorate in 2013, she worked at the League of American Bicyclists in Washington, D.C. as a national leader in developing “bike equity.” In addition to her role at Antioch LA, Professor Lugo is a core organizer of The Untokening and the co-founder of the Mobility Justice Research Network.
MODERATOR

MADELINE BROZEN is Deputy Director of the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies and a transportation researcher. Her research focuses on the transportation needs for vulnerable populations and how transportation connects people to opportunity, most recently focusing on transportation needs to healthcare. Her previous research includes work on parklet design and evaluation, park design for older adults, and street performance metrics. Madeline is a lecturer in GIS for the UCLA Urban Planning Department and commonly incorporates spatial analysis in her work. She previously managed the UCLA Complete Streets Initiative, was the founding editor-in-chief of Transfers Magazine, and is a member of the Investing in Place advisory board.

The full recording can be found here.

Attendees of this event can claim up to 1.5 AICP CM units.
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New Routes to Equity
2021-02-11 12:30 - 14:00
UCLA Urban Planning and UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies Perloff Lecture Series on Race in Transportation
New Routes to Equity: The Future of Transportation in the Black Community
Dr. Regan Patterson will present from her report for the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. This report highlights ongoing challenges affecting African Americans in the transportation system and provides policy recommendations for how shared mobility, electric vehicles, and autonomous vehicles can equitably serve the Black community. She will also discuss her research that focuses on the intersection of transportation, air quality engineering, and environmental justice.

REGAN F. PATTERSON is the Transportation Equity Research Fellow for the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, Incorporated (CBCF). Prior to joining the CBCF, Dr. Patterson was a postdoctoral research fellow at The University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, where she examined the linkages between racial residential segregation and air pollution.
She earned her Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley. While at UC Berkeley, she was a recipient of the US EPA STAR Fellowship, the Switzer Environmental Fellowship, and the UC Berkeley Chancellor’s Fellowship. Dr. Patterson’s dissertation research focused on the impact of diesel truck emission control regulations and freeway routing policies on air pollution and environmental equity. Parts of her dissertation are published in the peer-reviewed journals Atmospheric Environment and the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. Additionally, she has conducted air quality research in Kenya and China. Dr. Patterson has taught courses on the environment, environmental justice, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). In the past, she interned with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District in their Community Engagement Office. She also interned with the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment. Dr. Patterson holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from UCLA and an M.S. in Environmental Engineering from UC Berkeley.
MODERATOR:
JUAN MATUTE is deputy director of the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies. Juan researches innovation in public transit, parking, and mobility services in response to climate change, congestion, and urban market dynamics. He led UCLA’s work on two strategic transit plans for the State of California and long-range climate action plans for Southern California communities. Juan has worked with research teams to quantify the number of parking spaces in Los Angeles County, assess life-cycle environmental impacts of the Los Angeles Metro system, and examine the cost-effectiveness of GHG reductions from California’s High Speed Rail.

The full recording to this event can be found here.

Attendees of this event can claim up to 1.5 AICP CM units.
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2020 UCLA Arrowhead Symposium
2020-10-19 - 2020-10-30
Not Back to Normal: Mapping a Just Transportation Recovery from COVID-19, a remote learning series by the UCLA Lake Arrowhead Symposium
This year’s Not ‘Back to Normal’: Mapping a Just Transportation Recovery from COVID-19, a remote learning series presented by the UCLA Lake Arrowhead Symposium, considered the transportation system before, during, and after COVID-19.
COVID-19 has produced a profound shock to transportation systems already rife with inequities and inefficiencies. The intensity and speed with which COVID-19 spread through communities around the globe forced quick and often difficult adaptations by historically-rigid, slow-changing systems, casting numerous transportation challenges and inequities into sharp relief.
The 2020 UCLA Lake Arrowhead Symposium found that smart policy and planning choices made as part of COVID-19 response and recovery can lead to more just, equitable, and sustainable transportation systems. The series highlighted the work of transportation practitioners and advocates working on a just post-COVID transition. What are the economic, social, and racial dimensions of transportation in the pandemic, and what is being done to pursue a just and equitable transportation recovery? Are there new political opportunities for environmental justice and climate action in transportation? Finally, COVID-19 has required adapting formal processes for public engagement; what can we learn from this period to form new models for public engagement?
This is a multi-day event with a total of nine sessions over the course of three weeks.
More information, along with video recordings can be found here.

Transit Past, Present and Future
2020-05-15
UCLA Luskin Virtual Summit Series — Session 10: Transit Past, Present and Future
UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs Event | May 15, 2020 | Virtual Event
The role and usage of public transit in America has changed much over the past century, past decade, and even past few months in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. In this webinar, faculty affiliated with the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies discussed the evolution of transit and its implications for the weeks, months, and years ahead.
Full recording can be found at this link here.

MTI Research Snaps Presents COVID-19 and State-Generated Transportation Funds in California
2020-05-14
MTI Research Snaps Presents COVID-19 and State-Generated Transportation Funds in California
Mineta Transportation Institute Event | May 14, 2020 | Virtual Event
The COVID-19 public health emergency has drastically changed every aspect of California life, including reducing personal travel by as much as half in many regions. As a result, transportation revenues are plummeting because user fees produce a large share of resources needed to operate California’s transportation system. This research used simple spreadsheet models to estimate the impact of different scenarios for economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic on state-generated transportation revenues. The model covers the SB1 package of gasoline taxes, diesel taxes, and two annual fees levied on vehicles.
The full recording can be found at this link: https://youtu.be/i9SqP8soXB0

InterActions LA: Uplifting Women's Safety in Transportation
2020-04-03
InterActions LA: Uplifting Women’s Safety in Transportation
UCLA Lewis Center Event | April 3, 2020 | Virtual Event
InterActions LA discussed the opportunities to improve safety for women, girls, and other vulnerable populations as they travel throughout the Los Angeles region. Too often, people in these groups feel unsafe in public and this inhibits their freedom, independence and quality of life. This event presented new research by UCLA professor Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris on public transit safety from LA and around the world, along with real-world examples and thoughts for advancing safety for everyone. Participants had an opportunity to exchange their best ideas with each other and engage deeply on solutions to advance mobility justice for women, girls, and everyone.
The full recording and materials can be found at this link here.

UCLA at TRB 2020
2020-01-12 - 2020-01-16
UCLA at TRB 2020
UCLA ITS Participation | Jan. 12-16, 2020 | Washington, D.C.
UCLA ITS had 18 presentations from faculty, affiliated researchers and students at the TRB 99th Annual Meeting. For a full list of presentations, click here.
UCLA faculty and students were awarded the Pyke Johnson Award for a paper on the mobility needs of aging adults. Read more here.
Students received recognition for their poster presentations and recent capstone projects.

Integrating for Social Justice
2019-11-14
Integrating Transportation, Land Use, and Environmental Planning for Social Justice and Carbon Reduction: Finding a Way that Works

Martin Wachs Lecture || November 14, 2019 || UC Berkeley
Presented by: Elizabeth Deakin, UC Berkeley
Elizabeth Deakin’s research focuses on transportation and land use policy and the environmental impacts of transportation. She has published over 200 articles, book chapters, and reports on topics ranging from environmental justice to transportation pricing to development exactions and impact fees. She currently is carrying out a series of studies on urban development and transportation in China, Latin America, and India as well as in California.
Deakin is professor emerita of city and regional planning at UC Berkeley, where she also is an affiliated faculty member of the Energy and Resources Group and the Master of Urban Design group. She formerly served as Director of the University of California Transportation Research Center (1998-2008) and co-director of the UC Berkeley Global Metropolitan Studies Initiative (2005-2008).
The full recording can be found here.

ITS Fall 2019 Lecture Series
2019-10-23 - 2019-12-02
ITS Fall 2019 Lecture Series
UCLA ITS Event | Multiple Dates | UCLA Campus
“California High Speed Rail: Origin and Possible Destinations” with Martin Wachs (UCLA)
“Where to Put the Port? The Free Harbor Fight and the Development of Los Angeles” with Eric Morris (Clemson University)
“Drive to Precarity: A Political History of Work, Regulation, & Labor Advocacy in San Francisco’s Taxi and Uber Economies” with Veena Dubal (UC Hastings College of Law)
“Scootershare, Carshare, Bikeshare, and the Role of Public Policy” with Francie Stefan (City of Santa Monica)
“How to Make Money Moving People Around Cities (Hint: Best of Luck!)” with Joshua Schank (LA Metro)
“Anticipating a World of Automated Transport: Opportunities for Vehicle- and Ride-Sharing Systems” with Kara Kockelman (University of Texas)

The 29th Annual UCLA Arrowhead Symposium
2019-10-20 - 2019-10-22
The 29th Annual UCLA Arrowhead Symposium
UCLA ITS & Lewis Center Event | October 20 – 22, 2019 | Lake Arrowhead, Calif.
The annual UCLA Lake Arrowhead Symposium hosts leaders and stakeholders from the public, private, non-profit, and academic sectors for thoughtful discussion around the connections and conflicts between transportation, land use, and the environment. For the past 28 years, attendees have tackled the local policies, influences, and consequences related to climate change.
This year’s theme is Routes to Opportunity: Connecting Equity and Transportation.
More info at this link here.

TransportationCampLA @ UCLA
2019-07-13
TransportationCampLA @ UCLA
UCLA ITS Event | July 13, 2019 | UCLA Campus
TransportationCamp LA is an open venue for sharing and learning about the region’s transportation issues and successes. It is not a formal conference – rather, as an unconference, it is driven entirely by attendees’ interests and experiences. Sessions are determined at the beginning of the day and are drawn from proposals and ideas that attendees submit. A session can be any format: a presentation, an open discussion, a demonstration, a panel, or even a group exercise or game.
This event is open to advocates, professionals, community members, and everyone passionate about mobility in Los Angeles and Southern California.
More info here.

Designing the 30-Minute City
2019-05-16
Designing the 30-Minute City
Martin Wachs Lecture || May 16, 2019 || UCLA
Presented by: David Levinson, University of Sydney
The 12th annual Martin Wachs Distinguished Lecture will be held May 16 at UCLA Luskin School of Pubic Affairs. David Levinson is professor in the School of Civil Engineering at the University of Sydney and adjunct faculty in the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geo-Engineering at the University of Minnesota. The 30-minute isochrone has long defined people’s use of cities — from ancient times through the trams era to modern times. Networks and land use co-evolve with technology subject to the constraints of available time. There are opportunities (low-hanging fruit) to use design to reduce the costs of travel and thus increase access for relatively little monetary outlay. This talk discusses both the measurement of accessibility, why it matters, and how it might affect traveler behavior, institutional behavior, and public policy. Looking at data from rail and tram development in Sydney from the 1800s and Australia today, implications about the effects of accessibility are described.
Levinson received the 1995 Tiebout Prize in Regional Science for the paper “Location, Relocation, and the Journey to Work.” From 1989 to 1994, he worked as a transportation planner, developing integrated transportation and land-use models for Montgomery County, Maryland. He then applied those models for multimodal network planning and growth management. Levinson has authored or edited several books, including Spontaneous Access, The End of Traffic and the Future of Transport, The Transportation Experience, and Planning for Place and Plexus, as well as numerous peer reviewed articles. He is the editor of the Journal of Transport and Land Use. He has a PhD in transportation engineering from Berkeley and his dissertation “On Whom the Toll Falls,” argued that local decision-making about managing and financing roads will most likely lead to direct road pricing, which will allow the efficient allocation of scarce road resources (and thus reduce congestion).
The full recording can be found here.

Spring 2019 Lecture Series on Resilient, New Mobility
2019-04-17 - 2019-05-08
Spring 2019 Lecture Series on Resilient, New Mobility
Unintended Consequences of Autonomous Vehicles | Adam Millard-Ball, UC Santa Cruz
Towards Resilient Infrastructure for a Changing Climate and Future | Mikhail Chester, Arizona State University
Model Checking in a Time of Simulation | Timothy Brathwaite, Lyft
Bringing Congestion Pricing to LA | Joshua Schank, Metro
Building Traveler-Centric Methods to Design Safe and Functional Urban and Intercity Transportation Infrastructure | Megan Ryerson, University of Pennsylvania
Representing the Underrepresented: Making the Case for Digital and Inclusive Data for Travel Activity Studies | Tierra Bills, University of Michigan
Financing California’s Transportation Infrastructure: A Capital Markets Perspective | Alex Zaman, Citi

2018 Fall Innovative Mobility Speaker Series
2018-11-08 00:00 - 23:59
2018 Fall Innovative Mobility Speaker Series

Realistic Prospects for Vehicle Automation in the Years Ahead and their Implications for Mobility with Steven Shladover
Extraordinary Innovation at Metro with Joshua Schank
New Mobility: Lys Mendez and Marla Westervelt of Bird
Robert Poole: Rethinking America’s Highway Institutions
Three Revolutions: Steering Automated, Shared and Electric Vehicles to a Better Future – Dan Sperling, UC Davis

UCLA ITS 25th Anniversary Celebration
2018-06-05
UCLA ITS 25th Anniversary Celebration
Our celebration of the past 25 years of scholarship, education, and public engagement reconnected classmates, friends, and professors. In honor of the anniversary, consider giving $25 to support ongoing ITS research and student scholarships.
Photos can be found here.

2018 Spring Speaker Series
2018-05-01 - 2018-06-03
2018 Spring Speaker Series
The series brought national experts to the UCLA Luskin School to discuss new research and best practices around public transit, transportation finance, innovative mobility, and much more. It took place during Professor Brian Taylor’s Transportation Policy and Planning graduate course, but all events were open to the public. Catch up with the installments below and watch recordings of most of the speakers on our YouTube channel.

Creating Vibrant and Healthy Cities for All with Gil Penalosa
Intercity Passenger Travel and the Prospects for High-Speed Rail with Martin Wachs
Big Data and Urban Government: Effects of the Waze App on Traffic Policies in the Paris Region with Antoine Courmont
Investing in Bus and Rail Transit: Ridership and Development Impacts with Genevieve Giuliano
Re-Imagining Transit Networks: The Story of Houston, Texas with Kurt Luhrsen
Integrating Traditional and Innovative Transit: Prospects and Challenges with Joshua Schank
Carshare, Bikeshare: Trends, Prospects, and the Role of Public Policy with Francie Stefan
Equity and Discrimination in Shared Mobility with Anne Brown
Automated Vehicles: A Shared or Ownership Future? with Tim Papandreou

Smart Cities: The Future of Urban Infrastructure
2018-03-15
Smart Cities: The Future of Urban Infrastructure
Martin Wachs Lecture || March 15, 2018 || UC Berkeley
Presented by: Jeff Morales, Ryan Russo, Tom Maguire, Maria Mehranian, Susan Shaheen
The 11th annual Martin Wachs Distinguished Lecture, hosted at Berkeley, featured a panel of transportation and planning experts: Jeff Morales, Ryan Russo, Tom Maguire, Maria Mehranian, Susan Shaheen. Russo, an internationally recognized expert on transportation and urban planning solutions, with extensive experience in both the public and private sectors, spoke about the challenges in maintaining and growing economic well-being in an era of new transportation modes. The talk addressed the fact that with increased capacity and greater mobility undergirding economic viability and quality of life comes congestion, increased energy consumption, air pollution, environmental damage, urban sprawl, compromised safety, damage to natural habitats, climate change and health impacts. As the panelists emphasized, this current dilemma and hypermobility demands a transport agenda for this global era to be set.
Read more about the event here.

Transportation is a Women's Issue - Part II: A gendered planning mismatch
2018-03-08
Transportation is a Women’s Issue – Part II: A gendered planning mismatch
Discussions and plans for the future of transportation and new innovative mobility services often fail to account for women’s travel patterns. What potential do new mobility options, bikesharing, ridesourcing, and microtransit hold for closing this gap? Or will they rather reinforce these divergent travel patterns? Naomi Iwasaki of Investing in Place hosted a conversation about women’s travel patterns with UCLA Luskin professor Dr. Evelyn Blumenberg, Seleta Reynolds of the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, and Stephanie Wiggins of LA Metro.
Read more here.

Watch the full recording below.

Transportation is a Women's Issue - Part I: Public transportation and #MeToo
2017-12-04
Transportation is a Women’s Issue – Part I: Public transportation and #MeToo
The #MeToo movement against sexual harassment and assault must influence public transportation procedures, designs, and policies. ITS associate director Madeline Brozen kicked off a new 2017-18 discussion series by speaking with Dr. Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, a professor of urban planning at UCLA Luskin and ITS faculty fellow, about women’s transportation needs, how transit agencies are and are not meeting these needs, and the role of sexual harassment in public space and public transit.
Read more here.

Watch the full recording below.

Travel Behavior and the Three Revolutions of Shared, Electric, and Autonomous Vehicles
2017-11-28
Travel Behavior and the Three Revolutions of Shared, Electric, and Autonomous Vehicles
A select group of transportation policymakers, stakeholders, and experts convened for a session at the 2017 LA CoMotion Expo & Festival on the 3 Revolutions Future Mobility Program from the UC Institute of Transportation Studies. The program, led by researchers at ITS-Davis, hopes to guide public decision-making and private investments around new vehicle technology, and the discussion centered on the implications of shared, electric, and autonomous vehicles on mobility, pricing, greenhouse gas emissions, public transit, and much more.
Read more here.
Dr. Brown, Dr. Manville, and several session attendees shared their insights in a short video:

When Forecasting Fails
2017-04-12
When Forecasting Fails: Making Infrastructure Decisions in an Uncertain World
Martin Wachs Lecture || April 12, 2017 || UCLA
Presented by: Joseph Schofer, Northwestern University
UCLA hosted the 10th annual ‘Martin Wachs Distinguished Lecture”, where invitee lecturer, Joe Schofer, Faculty at Northwestern University, provided a wide-ranging view about forecasting – a prominent feature of transportation planning. He explained to the audience that learning to accept the inherent limitations of the forecasting process is a necessary first step in helping planners improve their predictions of cost, utilization, performance and impact. Schofer’s lecture focused less on the shortcomings of forecasting than on “improving decisions by systematic learning from experience”. He urged the crowd to not expect that the gap between predicted outcomes and reality is going to get really small. As he commented, “the world is changing at a faster and faster pace. And those big sources of uncertainty — sources of risk — often are outside the transportation system.”
Read more about this event here.

Fall 2016 Transportation Speaker Series: Shared Mobility
2016-10-12 - 2016-11-28
The 2nd Shared Mobility Revolution — From Taxis, to TNCs, and Beyond: What’s the Public Sector Role?
Bruce Schaller – Schaller Consulting
In most cities today Lyft and especially Uber are now common parts of the transportation landscape. But less than ten years ago neither company existed. How did this explosive growth come to be? This lecture will review the different origins of Lyft (which grew from ridesharing) and Uber (which grew from black car service). We will discuss how these firms were able to overcome many of the barriers of scale and information that have limited taxicabs for decades.

Understanding the past, present, and future of the taxi industry in Los Angeles
Bill Rouse – LA Yellow Cab
As the first sharing economy faded after WWII, taxis remained the largest private form of shared mobility. But they occupied a strange and often overlooked position in the transportation industry. We will discuss how the industry evolved, how and why cities began to regulate taxi service, and how taxi regulation, and in particular the medallion system, went awry? Despite problems with taxi service, however, taxis remain an important part of the transportation system for many urban areas, where they serve the affluent and the very poor. They have also traditionally been an important source of employment for lower-income people, especially immigrants.

Labor Issues Arising with the Growth of Transportation Network Companies
Biju Mathew – Rider University
The For-Hire-Vehicle (FHV) industry is undergoing what seems to be an epochal transformation all across the globe. But nowhere else in the world are the emergent contours and the multiple resistances and contradictions more visible than in the United States. Against a background of the transformations that neo-liberalism itself has undergone over the last two decades, the talk will examine the micropractices of TNCs such as Uber using two rubrics: the dialectic between technology and labor under capitalism on the one hand and labor process theory on the other. From within such an analytic, the talk seeks to outline the implications of such business models on a range of domains/institutions – from labor unions and organizing to liberal governance and social compacts.

Policy Issues in Shared Mobility: Safety and Insurance
Marzia Zafar – California Public Utilities Commission
Uber & Lyft have transformed the transportation industry. The questions and concerns over safety and accessibility forced regulators to act quickly. Almost 4 years later the market is still adjusting and government continues to play a critical role. The concerns and questions continue to be around safety of passengers and the public at large. We know surprisingly little about the answers to these issues. We will discuss the 1.) role of regulation and its role with Uber, Lyft, etc. 2.) process toward regulating TNCs, 3.) safety and consumer protection. 4.) challenges, backlash, and resistance in regulation.

Policy Issues in Shared Mobility: Equity and Social Inclusion
Mark Kleiman – NYU
Shared mobility is a new benefit available to consumers who have access to credit and access to smartphones. These criteria leave out the poorest and least documented segments of the population. Is this fair? In one sense TNCs and other services may be considered a Pareto Improvement: they help many people and may make no one worse off. However, society often has a higher bar for equity than simply not making others worse off (making some people better while leaving others unchanged can exacerbate inequality), and it is not entirely clear that TNCS will not make people worse off. If TNCs undermine taxis or transit, which often serve important social service roles, they might actively harm vulnerable groups. On the other hand, TNCs might be able to better serve some areas or groups, and at lower cost. Prices for TNC rides can sometimes spike dramatically, raising questions of fairness and price gouging. TNCs are also, unlike taxi firms and transit agencies, large global corporations. They lobby, dodge taxes and do things large corporations do. So what are the equity implications of TNCs firms nationally or globally (as part of a larger trend toward inequality) in contrast to locally?

A Green Path to Shared Mobility
Kristen Pawling –NDRC; Marcel Porras – City of Los Angeles
California faces serious air quality challenges, aggressive climate change goals, and, in many places, inequitable mobility options. There is a plethora of shared mobility services available, many of which claim to reduce the need for single-occupant vehicle mobility. Hear about what we already know about shared mobility and the environment, what we don’t know, and what key questions we should prioritize asking.
Public officials and planners are much more supportive of carshare and especially Bikeshare programs than they are of TNCs. But both carshare and bikeshare, particularly the latter, require substantial public subsidy. What is the business model for these services, and how are they faring? What are the operational challenges, and can we expect that they will be resolved over time?

The Rise of Shared Mobility: Will it Incrementally Change or Transform Urban Travel in the Years Ahead?
Steve Polzin – University of South Florida
The presentation will focus on how emerging conditions may impact travel behavior and transportation demand. Attention will focus on current trends and how travel behavior might be impacted given economic, demographic, and technology trends. Observations on our current understanding of travel behavior, the adequacy of our data and theory of travel behavior, and the implications on transportation planning and investment will be offered.

The Public Policy and Transportation Planning Issues Raised by Increasing Vehicle Automation in the Years Ahead
Steven Shladover – UC Berkeley
Expectations for the automation of road transportation have been raised to unrealistic levels based on the coverage by the media. This presentation explains the opportunities and challenges associated with road transportation automation, after classifying the diverse automation systems based on the SAE levels of automation. This leads to cautious predictions about when the different levels of automation are likely to be deployed in sufficient quantity to have significant impacts on transportation planning and operations. The public policy and regulatory issues are explored in light of the recently released Federal Automated Vehicles Policy.

A Transportation Agenda for the Global Era
2016-03-17
A Transportation Agenda for the Global Era
Martin Wachs Lecture || March 17, 2016 || UC Berkeley
Presented by: Catherine Ross, Georgia Tech University
The 9th annual Martin Wachs Distinguished Lecture, hosted at Berkeley, featured Catherine Ross, Professor of City and Regional Planning at Georgia Tech and an internationally recognized expert on transportation and urban planning solutions, who spoke about the challenges in maintaining and growing economic well-being in an era of new transportation modes. Ross discussed with increased capacity and greater mobility undergirding economic viability and quality of life comes congestion, increased energy consumption, air pollution, environmental damage, urban sprawl, compromised safety, damage to natural habitats, climate change and health impacts. This current dilemma and hypermobility demands a transport agenda for this global era to be set. The talk also addressed several tools and frameworks that can help meet challenges, including megaregions, which are the urban and connected areas that produce innovation and power the economy, autonomous and connected vehicles, sustainable energy sources, greater connectivity, disruptive innovation on steroids, new technology, financing critical infrastructure and sustaining our quality of life.
Read more about this event here.

Utility of Travel
2014-10-09
What Good is it? Reflections on the Utility of Travel in a Resource-Constrained Era
Martin Wachs Lecture || October 9, 2014 || UCLA
Presented by: Patricia Mokhtarian, Georgia Tech University
UCLA hosted the 8th annual Martin Wachs Distinguished Lecture where Patricia Mokhtarian, faculty at Georgia Tech, lamented that travel is now viewed primarily as a “derived demand” : travel occurs only so that people can enjoy the goods and experiences attained at their destination but not because the journey in and of itself brings enjoyment. Mokhtarian described how the view of travel among transportation officials in early 21st century has come to feel largely negative. And so, she made clear from the beginning that her aim was to restore balance to how we conceive of travel by placing travel into the category of behaviors that have a dual nature: those that have on the one hand a utilitarian (functional) aspect, yet also bring a hedonic (pleasing) dimension. As she explained to the audience, travel in this positive sense can be viewed as similar to the act of eating: just as eating food can bring with it a pleasure that has little to do with nutritional sustenance, travel can bring a positive feeling unrelated to one’s ultimate destination.
Read more about this event here.

Wachs Lecture: Edward Glaeser
2013-03-01
Transportation Lecture with Edward Glaeser
Martin Wachs Lecture || March 1, 2013 || UC Berkeley
Presented by: Edward Glaeser, Harvard Kennedy School
Edward Glaeser is currently the Fred and Eleanor Gimp Professor of Economics at Harvard Kennedy School. He also serves as the director of both the Taubman Center for State and Local Government and the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston. He studies the economics of cities, and has written scores of urban issues, including the growth of cities, segregation, crime, and housing markets. He has been particularly interested in the role that geographic proximity can play in creating knowledge and innovation. Glaeser is also the author and co-author of over forty publications, including online and print material. At Harvard he teaches urban and social economics and microeconomic theory. His work focuses on the determinants of city growth and the role of cities as centers of idea transmission.
