University of California Transportation Center

“Sustainable Transportation: The Future of the Automobile in an Environmentally Constrained World” has analyzed the nature of the problems confronting the transportation systems of industrialized countries. We seek to understand how travel and energy use for travel (and freight) is changing, how these changes may affect the environment, and how the environmental problems may in turn affect future travel and freight activity. During its first three years, the study focused on the automobile. During the final two years, we aim to examine other modes of transportation more closely, in order to produce an integrated picture of the options facing the U.S. and other developed nations. Although we have focused on the U.S. and other major industrialized countries, we acknowledge that problems facing rapidly growing transportation demand are manifest in the Third World and in the economies in transition in Central and Eastern Europe.