The Caltrans 2024 Sustainable Freight Academy was held on November 18-21, 2024. The academy consisted of presentations from goods movement professionals and subject matter experts, including those from both public and private organizations. The final group presentation allowed participants to develop their skills in grant writing by applying lessons learned from the course. Participants were divided into eight groups and took on various roles such as Grant Writer, Project Manager, and Industry Partner in order to develop and present a mock Trade Corridor Enhancement Program (TCEP) proposal topic.
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While the United States has long supported basic needs of residents through social welfare programs, policies supporting affordable transportation for lower income individuals have been much more limited. Federal support for transportation includes subsidies to transit agencies and requirements to offer discounted fares to certain groups such as seniors and riders with disabilities, but income-qualified discounts are not required. 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. Finally, as the U.S. has seen an increase in recent years of Universal Basic Mobility (UBM) pilots that provide flexible transportation funds, the study incorporates insights from UBM evaluations to understand how UBM design features may be useful to agencies who are pursuing transportation affordable discounts and subsidies. The results suggest that there is significant potential for income-qualified transportation program enrollment both for agencies that do not currently offer these benefits and for agencies that already offer them, and that inter-organizational coordination among stakeholders may be essential in implementing successful transportation affordable discounts or subsidies. Additionally, the structure of income-qualified transportation benefits may vary depending on agency resources. Finally, with transportation equity as growing priority for California and its transit agencies, program administrators may opt for programs with easy access and enrollment rather than those that create barriers to participation through strenuous application and verification procedures.
California's Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate targets all new Light Duty Vehicle (LDV) sales to be ZEVs by 2035. However, the current charging infrastructure is not well-developed in California, primarily serving households with home charging setups and leaving a noticeable gap in public charging facilities. This gap is seen as a significant barrier to Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) adoption within California. This report explores driver charging behavior and their preference for public DC fast charging (DCFC), drawing on Stated Preference (SP) choice experiment data from a survey of 1,102 Plug-in Electric Vehicle (PEV) owners across California.
International second-hand vehicle (SHV) exports are a multi-billion-dollar market for the US and an integral process in removing older vehicles from the road and enabling a robust new vehicle market. Mexico is the largest importer of SHVs from the US. As the US rapidly increases electric vehicle (EV) sales to meet decarbonization targets for the transportation sector, EVs will be an increasing large fraction of SHVs. While the benefits of EV adoption are numerous, introducing a radically new technology such as EVs without responsive measures in second-hand market regions may lead to an unintended transfer of economic and environmental burdens, especially if waste EV batteries cannot be managed properly. 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. In terms of life cycle emissions, SH EVs still contribute to reduced GHG emissions and air pollution relative to internal combustion engine vehicles newly sold in Mexico, but at end-of-life, their batteries are being disposed of in landfills, rather than in recycling facilities. From a justice standpoint, coordination between the US and Mexico and anticipatory policies are needed to ensure that only EVs with sufficient remaining battery life are transferred between the US and Mexico, and that sufficient infrastructure exists to safely dispose of waste EV batteries in Mexico.
The goal of this study was to develop a framework and first order estimate of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the build-out and maintenance and rehabilitation of the world’s roadway infrastructure networks from 2020 to 2050. The GHG emissions from road pavement emissions, bridges, and maintenance and rehabilitation were calculated by decade based on the existing road networks and the modelling of their expansion. For comparison, the GHG emissions from vehicle manufacture and operation were estimated. Regional comparisons and sensitivity analyses were then performed. Based on one mid-range scenario, GHG emissions from new road construction account for roughly 0.1 to 4% of regional road transportation GHG emissions depending on the region; existing road maintenance accounts for 0.32 to 3%; vehicle manufacturing for 4 to 13% of regional GHG emissions; vehicle operation accounts for 82% to 93% of regional GHG emissions; and road roughness is responsible for approximately 2% of the total system impacts.
This project examines multi-hazard risks and the performance of emergency evacuation routes in California using spatial synthesis, mapping, modeling, and performance analysis techniques. It enhances evacuation planning by analyzing road networks under natural hazard scenarios. Key tasks included: 1. Collecting and organizing evacuation route data for 190 cities, revealing that only 23 had comprehensive GIS maps, highlighting gaps in current planning. 2. Assessing road network performance under various hazards for 450 cities, identifying high-risk areas, and classifying cities based on risk levels and concentration. 3. Analyzing evacuation routes during the 2018 Camp and Thomas fires, using mathematical modeling and Omniscape to assess bottlenecks and evacuation efficiency. 4. Evaluating evacuation route performance for different population segments and proposing improvements, including using public transit for future wildfire evacuations. The findings provide actionable insights for improving emergency evacuation strategies in the state.
This report identifies and summarizes the empirical evidence on potential mitigation measures for State Highway System (SHS) projects. For each of the measures on the list, the research team completed a systematic search of the academic literature to identify studies meeting specified search criteria, focusing on studies from the last decade but drawing on older studies when helpful for selected topics. In each of the sections of the report, the criteria for and results of those searches are summarized, including, where possible, the estimated size of the effect of the measure on vehicle miles traveled (VMT). The quantity and quality of the evidence varies widely across the measures: some measures have strong evidence in support of their use for VMT mitigation, while others have limited evidence as to the impact or good evidence of a limited impact; for some measures, no direct empirical evidence is available. A companion report assesses the available methods for estimating the effectiveness of the potential VMT mitigation measures.
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). Based on a survey of local planning directors in California, administered in Spring, 2024, the report finds that more thanfour-fifths of localities are continuing to apply LOS standards on an “off-CEQA” basis in the permitting process for individual development projects, as well as in community-level plans and policies. Most respondent localities reported that using both VMT and LOS at both the project- and plan-level has not created conflicts, indicating that they are able to align VMT and LOS. Mitigation strategies reported as effective in reducing VMT and also improving LOS include improving active travel facilities,supporting mixed-use development, and relaxing parking requirements; these strategies can be deemed “best practices” foraligning VMT and LOS objectives.
As online shopping nears its third decade, it is clear that its impacts on urban goods flow are profound. Increased freight traffic and related negative externalities such as greenhouse gas emissions and local air pollution can impede sustainability goals. In response, e-retailers are exploring innovative distribution strategies to enhance last-mile delivery sustainability and efficiency. They use urban consolidation centers with light-duty vehicles like electric vans and cargo bikes, establish alternative customer pickup points, and deploy crowdsourced delivery networks. Advanced technologies that may streamline deliveries, such as autonomous delivery robots and unmanned aerial vehicles, are being tested. University of California Davis and Irvine researchers have investigated these strategies under economic viability, environmental efficiency, and social equity frameworks. Different modeling approaches were implemented to evaluate last-mile network designs and the potential for decarbonizing delivery fleets by switching to electric vehicles. Key findings suggest that while these innovative strategies offer substantial environmental benefits and reduce operational costs, they also present challenges like higher initial investments and operational hurdles. The study emphasizes the need for ongoing innovation and careful strategy implementation to balance sustainability with urban delivery systems’ economic and service reliability demands.
