UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies

UCLA at TRB 2020
2020-01-12 - 2020-01-16 | CA
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 (America/Los_Angeles)
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.

What About Time in Transportation and Health Research?
2012-05-10
What About Time in Transportation and Health Research?
Martin Wachs Lecture || May 10, 2012 || UCLA
Presented by: Mei-Po Kwan, The Ohio State University
The 6th annual Martin Wachs Distinguished Lecture featured Mei-Po Kwan, now Professor of Geography and Geographic Information Systems at the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign. In her lecture, the audience learned how transportation researchers have long recognized the role of time in influencing activity-travel behavior. In previous studies, time has been treated largely as a linear reference system for registering when events happen, or as a dimension for assessing how phenomena change over time and space. This presentation examined a different notion of time and its implications for transportation and health research, revisiting some fundamental concepts like distance, accessibility, and geographic context, while exploring new conceptualizations that take time into account. It suggests that time is at least as important as space for understanding how individuals of different social groups experience access to facilities and exposure to contextual or environmental influences. The lecture offers that a temporally integrated perspective would help shed new light on many issues transportation and health researchers have been examining for decades.
The full recording can be found here.

What’s Wrong with U.S. Public Transit Policy?
2011-02-01
What’s Wrong with U.S. Public Transit Policy?
Martin Wachs Lecture || February 3, 2011 || UC Berkeley
Presented by: Genevieve Giuliano, USC
Berkeley hosted the 5th annual Martin Wachs Distinguished Lecture where Genevieve Giuliano, faculty at the University of Southern California, examined outcomes of four decades of transit policy. Using two examples, mobility for the disadvantaged and transit impacts on land use, Giuliano showed the audience that little progress is being made in achieving transit’s objectives. Yet, as she demonstrated, public transit continues to receive strong public support, and subsidies continue to grow. Major barriers to achieving public transit’s urban planning objectives she discussed included investment and service decisions that generate public support. Evidently, effective U.S Public Transit Policy will compromise the public want with the desired technical objectives.
Read more about this event here.

Equity, Pricing, and Surface Transportation Politics
2010-04-08
Equity, Pricing, and Surface Transportation Politics
Martin Wachs Lecture || April 8, 2010 || UCLA
Presented by: Alan Altshuler, Harvard University
The 4th annual Martin Wachs Distinguished Lecture by Alan Altshuler, professor of urban policy and planning in the Kennedy School of Government and the Graduate School of Design at Harvard, examined the new debates about funding for surface transportation, and posed to the audience the question of how managing road congestion will occur in an era when major capacity expansion is rarely feasible. He described how these debates are also routinely framed around conceptions of equity and sought to explain the distinctive nature of equity debates in U.S surface transportation, with particular attention to congestion pricing and High Occupancy Toll Lanes.
Read more about this event here.

Gender and Mobility
2008-03-01
Gender and Mobility: A Feminist Geographer’s Perspective
Martin Wachs Lecture || March 1, 2008 || UC Berkeley
Presented by: Susan Hanson, Clark University
In the 3rd annual Martin Wachs Distinguished Lecture, Susan Hanson, professor emerita of geography at Clark University, tackled the complex issues surrounding gender and mobility. Lending her perspective to this conversation, Hanson emphasized how feminists have long known that gender and mobility are inseparable, influencing each other in profound and often subtle ways. In her talk, she discussed that tackling these complex societal problems will require improved understandings of the relationships between gender and mobility. Hanson illuminated the gaps in scholarship, as we saw how work on how mobility shapes gender has emphasized gender, to the neglect of mobility, whereas research on how gender shapes mobility has dealt with mobility in great detail and paid much less attention to gender.

Keeping the City
2007-03-01
Keeping the City: A 40-Year Quest for Sustainable Urban Transport
Martin Wachs Lecture || March 1, 2007 || UCLA
Presented by: Anthony May, Leeds University
In November 2007, the 2nd annual Wachs Lecture, and the first held at UCLA, was delivered by Anthony May, professor at Leeds University. In his lecture, May explored the history and future of efforts to reduce the environmental footprint of transportation systems and increase their contributions to the sustainability and livability of cities, drawing on his decades of research in the United Kingdom. His lecture was followed by a commentary by Gail Goldberg, then planning director of the City of Los Angeles.

Why the Worst Megaprojects Get Built
2006-10-17
Why the Worst Megaprojects Get Built and How Better Policy and Planning Can Stop It
Martin Wachs Lecture ||October 17, 2006 || UC Berkeley
Presented by: Bent Flyvbjerg, Aalborg University
The inaugural Martin Wachs Distinguished Lecture was held on October 17, 2006 with Bent Flyvbjerg, professor of planning at Aalborg University, Denmark and a former Wachs doctoral student, told a packed auditorium of current and future transportation, urban and regional planners the bad news about megaprojects. The lecture discussed the tendency of these projects to go over budget, with nine out of 10 estimated to incur cost overruns. As the audience learned, demand for particular megaprojects are also significantly overestimated, while their budgets greatly exceed initial estimates, creating a costly, underutilized project. Flyvbjerg left the audience to consider how this overoptimism and overcomplexity should be addressed through policy.
