Recent itsdavis_ncst_whitepapers items

Shifting Gears to Sustainability: A Deep-Dive into Solar-Powered Bike Pathways

Wed, 17 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This white paper evaluates the feasibility of solar-powered bike paths in California, integrating renewable energy generation with sustainable transportation. Drawing on global case studies—including Germany’s solar cycle path roofing project, the Netherlands’ SolaRoad, and South Korea’s solar-integrated bike path—the study highlights the environmental, economic, and technical benefits of these systems. A conceptual case study along the Santa Ana River Trail in Riverside, California, modeled a 1 megawatt solar bike path capable of producing 2,022,041 kilowatt-hours (kWh) annually and offsetting 734 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions. The analysis used advanced tools like PVWatts (a solar energy output estimation tool), System Advisor Model (SAM), and Jobs and Economic Development Impact (JEDI) to assess energy production, financial viability, and job creation. The Riverside project demonstrated a levelized cost of energy of 12.64 cents per kWh and job creation of...

Local and State Government Procurement to Reduce Transportation Infrastructure Environmental Impacts

Thu, 16 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Green Public Procurement is to be understood as a set of policies, actions and practices that leverage acquisitions to address all types of environmental challenges. This white paper lays out the case and a recommended approach for establishing public procurement programs to reduce, as fast as possible, the environmental impacts of keeping and improving transportation infrastructure functionality. The white paper covers various motivations and potential goals, benefits and co-benefits, readiness of industry and state and federal initiatives, identification and addressing of risks and challenges, basic definitions and tools to be used, the overall recommended approach, and a summary of the program elements needed to implement such a program.

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Sustainable EV Market Incentives: Lessons Learned from European Feebates for a Zero Emissions Future

Tue, 10 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Strong policies are needed to accelerate the zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) transition so that it occurs at a pace in line with international climate goals. The purchase price of new vehicles tends to be the variable that most affects consumer decisions. With urgency for a ZEV transition, fiscal pressure for governments can be high as rebates for consumers and incentives supporting manufacturers in the switch to ZEV technologies will be needed for a mass-market transition. Fees on high-polluting vehicles—and rebates on clean ones—have become an effective and increasingly common strategy in European countries. The feebate mechanism can raise the necessary capital for financing a ZEV transition in combination with other regulatory mechanisms. This paper reviews and assesses feebate design types, issues, and implementation strategies in France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. These examples show that feebates can be designed in a variety of ways to meet unique policy...

Sustainable EV Market Incentives: Equitable Revenue-Neutral Incentives for Zero-emission Vehicles in the United States

Tue, 10 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The United States (US), under the Biden Administration, has set a goal of reaching a 50% sales share for zero-emission vehicles by 2030. The administration is pursuing a combination of aggressive fuel economy and greenhouse gas performance standards along with tax credits for consumers who purchase electric vehicles (EVs). Given the anticipated high costs of the EV transition and limited public funds, policy mechanisms that generate extra-budgetary funding are enticing. Feebates—where a fee charged on some purchases is used to offer a rebate for others—can serve as a self-sustaining tool. Feebates have been attempted at the state and federal level in the US but did not pass legislatures due to a lack of political support for levying a fee on internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. However, as governments face increasing fiscal constraints, there is greater support for self- funding EV incentive programs. Feebate policies can provide certainty for both producers and consumers...

Mode Share Changes in California: An Exploratory Analysis of Factors Affecting Decreases in Walking, Biking and Transit Use from 2012 to 2017

Thu, 21 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This study explores the factors associated with observed changes in transportation mode shares over the period from 2012 to 2017 (corresponding with the period between the two most recent household travel surveys conducted in California). In contrast with the goals of the California Department of Transportation and the State Transportation agency, walking, biking, and using transit all decreased during this period, and driving and the use of personal vehicles increased. There are a number of factors typically associated with transportation mode choices, including socio-demographics, attitudes, life stages, land use and infrastructure availability. Further, large scale events may also have an effect on travel trends; for example, the Great Recessionmay have impacted individuals’ ability to own a personal vehicle and therefore increased the use of alternative means of transportation during the years leading up to our survey period. Similarly, the 2013 passage of legislation allowing...

Recommended Approach for Use of Cradle-to-Gate Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) in Procurement of Civil Infrastructure Materials

Mon, 17 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Procurement of more environmentally sustainable materials for civil infrastructure can be supported using environmental product declarations (EPDs). An EPD is a standardized label that is a scientifically sound way to communicate the potential environmental impacts and selected resource use and waste production flows from all or part of the life cycle of a product. To be called a Type III EPD, the life cycle assessment (LCA) for products used in civil infrastructure must be performed in accordance with ISO standards and the relevant product category rule (PCR) for the product type. Most EPDs for civil infrastructure materials in North America are “cradle-to-gate”, i.e., they include the impacts from the extraction of raw materials from the earth and end at the point at which the product is ready to leave the gate of the last manufacturing location. The steps leading to publication of an EPD include: 1) Developing the PCR, 2) Developing the LCA for the EPD, 3) Creating the EPD,...

MOVES-Matrix 3.0 for High-Performance On-Road Energy and Emission Rate Modeling Applications

Fri, 7 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This white paper summarizes the development of MOVES-Matrix 3.0 based on EPA’s latest MOVES model known as MOVES3 (version 3.0.4). The research team updated the programs to account for changes in data structures and source sub-types and applied the same conceptual design used in MOVES-Matrix 2.0. The review of the MOVES3 and MOVES 2014b databases indicated a finer definition of the regions in terms of the unique combinations of fuel supply regions vs. Inspection/Maintenance (I/M) programs, with 40 fuel scenarios and 87 I/M scenarios in MOVES3 and 22 fuel scenarios and 84 I/M scenarios in MOVES 2014b. The increased number of fuel scenarios is due to the increased number of formulation regions and the one-to-many corresponding relationship between counties vs. fuel formulation regions by year. A total of 122 regions are defined in MOVES3 compared with 109 regions in MOVES 2014b, and the team anticipates at least 10% more running time to generate matrices for MOVES3, given the...

Pass-Through of Alternative Fuel Policy Incentives: Evidence from Diesel and Biodiesel Markets, the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard, and Low Carbon Fuel Standards in California and Oregon

Thu, 19 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Biodiesel and hydrotreated renewable diesel (RD)—or collectively biomass-based diesel (BBD)—have become integral components of compliance with policies aiming to reduce U.S. transportation sector greenhouse gas emissions. Such policies include the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS), and Oregon’s Clean Fuel Program (CFP). These policies, along with a federal Blender’s BBD Tax Credit (BTC), provide financial incentives for BBD. In this white paper, the authors study pass-through of implicit taxes and subsidies, introduced by federal and state policies, to a variety of diesel and soy biodiesel fuel prices in the context of the U.S. diesel sector, focusing on fossil diesel and soy biodiesel. They apply time series methods techniques to estimate how a variety of diesel fuel price spreads across the country and in California and Oregon responds to changes in the implicit taxes placed on petroleum diesel and the implicit subsidies awarded...

Jobs and Automated Freight Transportation: How Automation Affects the Freight Industry and What to Do About It

Fri, 2 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The expansion of automation in the U.S. economy is increasingly tangible and will presumably entail positive and negative impacts that are not yet well understood. In the freight sector, there is uncertainty about how and when automation will impact labor. Beyond this, there are further unknowns about what the impacts will be on such freight subsectors as warehousing, long- and short-haul. It is expected that penetration rates of freight automation will vary across subsectors. In some subsectors, new jobs will be created and/or working conditions will improve. Other subsectors will see declining job quality and/or job losses that require workers to transition to new roles or sectors entirely, when possible. Changes in job opportunities and quality will vary within sectors and subsectors, by region, and/or by firm. This study offers an overview and recommendations in three directions. First, despite the uncertainties and based on past and present examples of automation, it provides...

From LOS to VMT: Repurposing Impact Fee Programs Since Adoption of SB 743

Mon, 28 Nov 2022 00:00:00 +0000

This white paper assesses how cities are modifying transportation impact fees in response to Senate Bill (SB) 743, adopted in 2013 to orient environmental review of transportation impacts of development projects and plans in California to support sustainable development. SB 743 and its implementing guidelines eliminated “level of service” (LOS) standards for automobile traffic delay as an environmental impact to be addressed under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), recommending instead that localities and other lead agencies responsible for CEQA review analyze, and if possible, mitigate impacts on vehicle miles traveled (VMT) instead. As cities proceed to implement SB 743, some are going further than the minimum required to analyze and mitigate for VMT at the development project level. Instead, they are also pursuing “programmatic” approaches, including altering citywide impact fees imposed on developers, to support more systematic analysis and mitigation than...

Workforce Implications of Transitioning to Zero-Emission Buses in Public Transit

Mon, 18 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

This white paper provides educational and policy-driven approaches to sustainable transportation workforce development in the transit sector with a focus on knowledge transfer and training strategies for zero-emission bus technologies. The authors draw from a comprehensive survey of national research, interviews with transit leaders, and case studies to identify the most critical technology transfer gaps in the adoption of zero-emission bus technologies. The paper concludes with strategic transit workforce priorities and related recommendations for transit leaders, educational partners, and policy makers.

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The Current and Future Performance and Costs of Battery Electric Trucks: Review of Key Studies and A Detailed Comparison of Their Cost Modeling Scope and Coverage

Wed, 29 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

This project aims to assess the current and future performance and costs of battery electric trucking, through reviewing key recent studies in the U.S. and presenting a detailed comparison of their cost modeling scope and coverage. This white paper presents a review of 10 recent studies of the total cost of ownership (TCO) of battery electric trucks (BET), now and in the future, compared to a baseline diesel truck, for the following 3 important types of truck: heavy-duty long-haul trucks, medium-duty delivery trucks, and heavy-duty drayage/short-haul trucks. The researchers break down the studies into their estimates for a range of important cost and operating factors, such as vehicle purchase cost, efficiency, fuel cost, maintenance cost, required range and thus battery pack sizing, and other factors. Of note are differences in major assumptions of studies and variables that are included or excluded from consideration. The authors do not judge these studies against each other...

Improving the Transfer of Knowledge from Scientists to Policy Makers: Best Practices and New Opportunities to Engage

Thu, 23 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Many scientific projects are intended to inform public policy, however there are often difficulties transferring or translating research from scientists to policy makers. This paper reviews the existing literature on the quality of communication between scientists or field experts and policy makers and the challenges they face in conveying their research. A majority of best practice recommendations related to effective communication are rooted in anecdotal evidence and have not yet been subjected to systematic scientific study. This is, in part, because the nature of public policy makes data collection, randomization, or correcting for confounding factors extremely challenging. Studies that do put these recommendations to the test are most commonly fielded as national surveys of field experts and policy makers in comparative contexts. Few studies examine this subject in the United States, however, and most find mixed results as to the efficacy of well-accepted scientific communication...

Environmental Plans and Freight Movement at the San Pedro Bay Ports: A Quick Strike Analysis

Mon, 4 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Critical to freight movement in Southern California are environmental plans at the Port of Los Angeles (POLA) and Port of Long Beach (POLB). The combined port complex is the single largest fixed source of air pollution in the South Coast Air Basin. This white paper presents three case studies from the San Pedro Bay Ports Clean Air Action Plan (CAAP), including brief analyses of their effects on freight movement in the region. This research also includes a case study of a private-sector, yet-to-be-built infrastructure project designed to support the faster movement of freight out of the San Pedro Bay Ports called the Southern California International Gateway (SCIG). The case studies are provided to elucidate how self-regulating agreements and operator-led programs contribute to regional environmental goals for freight operations. The findings indicate in part that stakeholder power relationships influence the ability to both develop environmental strategies and determine their...

Challenges and Opportunities for Publicly Funded Electric Vehicle Carsharing

Tue, 1 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Over the last six years, from 2016 through 2021, a wave of new federal, state, and local funding has supported carsharing services that use electric vehicles and install electric vehicle chargers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) and address climate change. In addition, many of these same funding programs allow support for the location of services in underserved communities with fare levels that enable community members to access these services. This study first explores the potential climate change benefits for carsharing services and the need for these services in underserved areas by reviewing the available published literature. Next, the study discusses the evolution of carsharing in the U.S., including non-profit, for-profit, and recent government-funded carsharing, drawing on published reports, newspaper articles, and expert interviews. Finally, the authors draw conclusions of relevance for future government-funded carsharing programs.

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What Happened and Will Happen with Biofuels? Review and Prospects for Non-Conventional Biofuels in California and the U.S.: Supply, Cost, and Potential GHG Reductions

Tue, 30 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This paper examines past and future trends for non-conventional biofuels in transportation in the next decade and beyond in California and the U.S., drawing on existing literature. It finds policy was geared toward expanding use of technology-ready biofuels in the 2010s; hydroprocessed renewable diesel from lipid feedstocks and biogas were beneficiaries alongside conventional ethanol and biodiesel. Cellulosic ventures largely failed due to lack of technological readiness, high cost, and an uncertain and insufficient policy environment. Policy goals for competitive cellulosic fuels remain, yet fuels from technologies already in the market may suffice to meet low carbon fuel policy targets, at least in California until 2030, considerably more oilcrop-based biofuels. How much biofuel will be needed there and elsewhere to meet climate targets hinges critically on the pace and scope of zero emission vehicle, and particularly electric vehicle, rollout. Analysis of unintended market...

Workforce Development Needs of Transportation Sector Climate Adaptation Professionals

Wed, 7 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Climate adaptation is now a well-documented need in the transportation sector, and there are strong conceptual frameworks for the adaptation process. Since climate adaptation is an emerging field, the pathways for developing the skills and competencies for adaptation careers are not well established. This white paper assesses the workforce development needs and current training opportunities related to transportation-sector climate adaptation. To do so, training needs were examined and opportunities identified by state and regional transportation agencies; training needs of aspiring and early-career climate adaptation professionals were cataloged; and a scan was completed of the educational opportunities in climate adaptation currently offered by universities in the United States. There is evidence of convergence on the areas of content knowledge, technical expertise, and soft skills that form the core competencies necessary to support climate adaptation within the transportation...

Building a GIS Workshop for High School Students

Thu, 1 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Geographic information systems (GIS) are an increasingly relevant tool being used in a variety of workforces. While education on GIS is well developed at the collegiate level and in workforce training programs, it is underutilized in K-12 settings. Research indicates that learning GIS can improve spatial and critical thinking skills in students, key elements for excelling in a variety of careers. Best practices indicate that teaching GIS through projects in a cross disciplinary setting (i.e., including math, science, and writing elements to projects), students may retain even more information about the subject matters and develop a greater interest in STEM and GIS related fields. Incorporating projects that are salient to student life such as themes of sustainability may increase student interest as well. Instructor fluency in GIS and mapping was found to be key to successful GIS education as well. When developing a GIS workshop, the authors recommend incorporating interdisciplinary...

Setting TNC Policies to Increase Sustainability

Thu, 22 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Cities and states across the U.S. are assessing fees or taxes on transportation network company (TNC) platforms, such as Uber and Lyft. The goals of these policies include traffic and emissions mitigation, as well as revenue generation, among other objectives. This research aims to assess the goals and effectiveness of these fees in achieving some of these policy objectives, primarily congestion and emissions mitigation. The analysis addresses a core difficulty in comparing TNC fees—some fees are assessed per mile and others per trip. The researchers compared 21 fees implemented by state and local governments across the United States and apply a methodology to compare these diverse fees and taxes based on a hypothetical ride informed by Uber’s fare calculator, as well as other sources. The findings show that when adjusted for comparison, the highest fees, by a wide margin, are assessed in downtown New York City and Chicago (during peak hours). A key policy implication of this...

What California Gains from Reducing Car Dependence

Fri, 8 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Cars provide an unparalleled level of mobility but have negative financial, public health, environmental, and social impacts. Reducing the need for driving in California would produce a range of household- and community-level benefits. Driving is associated with adverse health effects (e.g., obesity, high blood pressure, depression, injuries, fatalities), while commuting by walking or biking provides numerous physical and mental health benefits. A reduction in driving would also improve public health by decreasing air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. It would save substantial sums of money: households spend about $9,000/year or 16% of their expenses on private vehicle ownership (2017 data) and the state spends over $500 million per year on highway maintenance. A less car-dependent society would also be more equitable for those with limited income or limited physical abilities who cannot drive, to the benefit not just of those individuals but the community as a whole....

User Perceptions of Safety and Security: A Framework for a Transition to Electric-Shared-Automated Vehicles

Wed, 22 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The confluence of vehicle electrification, sharing and pooling, and automation alters petroleum-fueled, human-piloted, and privately-owned and operated vehicles for personal mobility in ways that raises such questions as, “Are such systems safe and secure?” and, “Who is being kept safe and secure from what (or whom)?” Answers are implied by filling in the “who” and “whom” of the second question: system, product, producer, road, and user. This white paper focuses on (actual and potential) users of systems of electrically-powered, shared, and automated vehicles (e-SAVs) as well as other road-users, e.g., pedestrians and cyclists. The role of user perceptions of safety and security are reviewed to create an initial framework to evaluate how they may affect who will initially use systems of e-SAVs for personal mobility and how safety and security will have to be addressed to foster sustained transitions. The paper will primarily be a resource for e-SAV user research, but will also...

Lessons Learned for Designing Programs to Charge for Road Use, Congestion, and Emissions

Fri, 3 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Pricing externalities from vehicle use such as road damage, vehicular emissions (both greenhouse gases and local pollutants), and congestion has become an important topic in the transportation sector in recent years. Road user charge pilot programs are being explored in various states in the U.S.; cities like New York and San Francisco are following in the footsteps of Stockholm and London by announcing plans to implement congestion pricing; and numerous cities and countries have announced gasoline vehicle phase-outs or bans. In this study, we provide an overview of the academic literature related to vehicle pricing, we examine case studies of locations where pricing has been implemented, and we investigate the design choices for programs that would address each of three major externalities related to vehicle use: road damage, emissions (both greenhouse gases and local pollutants), and congestion. Our analysis finds opportunities for integrating technology across multiple pricing...

Understanding the Early Adopters of Fuel Cell Vehicles

Fri, 25 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

In this study, the author presents results from a survey of 906 FCV and 12,910 BEV households in California. They investigated the sociodemographic profile of FCV buyers and compare them to BEV households. FCV and BEV households are similar in many areas. There is no significant difference in household income, number of people in the household, number of vehicles in the household, gender, or level of education. However, FCV and BEV households do differ in some key areas. Compared to BEV households, FCV households are slightly older; less own their own home; more live in an apartment, condo, or townhouse; they have owned more alternative fuel vehicles previously (but fewer BEVs); they have higher VMT; and slightly longer commutes. These differences may explain why these households choose to adopt a FCV. As fewer FCV households own their home, and more live in multi-unit dwellings they may have more barriers to accessing recharging from home, which may be why they selected a...

Strategies to Maximize Asset Utilization in the California Freight System: General Recommendations and Potential Improvement Strategies

Thu, 23 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

A number of stakeholders met with the ultimate goal of identifying inefficiencies faced by the freight system and putting forward a set of strategies to achieve a more efficient freight system. In doing so, a key first step was to provide insight as to the possible root cause(s) of major inefficiencies affecting the system. In addition to assessing inefficiencies, this research describes some of the aspects and necessary conditions that need to be considered when defining or identifying remediating strategies. Moreover, the research discusses a number of efficiency improvement strategies. These include:

• Voluntary Off-Hour Delivery Programs.

• Receiver-led Consolidation.

• Development of a Chassis Pool of Pools Fully Integrated System.

• Improvement of Traffic Mitigation Fee Programs.

• Implement Advanced Appointment/ Reservation Systems.

• Developing an Integrated System for Dray Operations and Services.

• Load Matching and Maximizing...

Strategies for Transitioning to Low-Carbon Emission Trucks in the United States

Mon, 8 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0000

This white paper reviews previous studies on prospects for reducing CO2 emissions from trucks. It provides a new investigation into the feasibility of achieving an 80% reduction in CO2-equivalent (CO2e) greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the United States and California from trucks by 2050. The authors assess the technological and economic potential of achieving deep market penetrations of low-carbon vehicles and fuels, including vehicles operating on electricity, hydrogen, and biofuels. Achieving such a target for trucks will be very challenging and, if focused on hydrogen and electric zero emission vehicle (ZEV) technologies, will require strong sales growth beginning no later than 2025.

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We Can Get There From Here: New Perspectives on Transportation Equity