ITS Berkeley Events

Previous literature on the distribution of willingness to pay has focused on its heterogeneity distribution without addressing the interval estimation problem. In this paper we derive and analyze Bayesian confidence sets for quantifying uncertainty in the determination of willingness to pay for carbon dioxide abatement. We use two empirical case studies: household decisions of energy-efficient heating versus insulation, and purchase decisions of ultra-low-emission vehicles. We first show that deriving credible sets using the posterior distribution of the willingness to pay is straightforward in the case of deterministic consumer heterogeneity. However, when using individual estimates, which is the case for the random parameters of the mixed logit model, it is complex to define the distribution of interest for the interval estimation problem. This latter problem is actually more involved than determining the moments of the heterogeneity distribution of the willingness to pay using frequentist econometrics. A solution that we propose is to derive and then summarize the distribution of the point estimates of the individual willingness to pay.

Through the use of a profit-maximizing continuum approximation model, this presentation systematically analyzes the development and structure of informal transit systems as a function of the network, user, and modal characteristics. The study examines the evening commute problem along a linear corridor where passengers with a constant trip generation rate at the CBD travel to destinations uniformly distributed along the corridor. Informal transit drivers who are profit-maximizing will be compared against the traditional case of coordinated, government service that aims to maximize the total welfare. Policies, such as fare regulation and vehicle licensing schemes, will be presented to help rationalize informal transit service using a government-operated service as the baseline.

In this presentation, we explore the safety problem of drivers violating yield signs in a freeway context. Drivers violating traffic controls is a common problem, and agencies have a collection of strategies that they often use to address the problem. These include increasing the size of the traffic control, adding an advanced warning upstream, installing pavement markings, or using LEDs to capture drivers' attention. As common as these (and other) compliance measures are, however, no research has been done to properly evaluate how they compare in terms of effectiveness.

In cooperation with Caltrans, two different compliance strategies—increasing the size of the control, and adding supplemental pavement markings—were implemented on Interstate 10 in Los Angeles so that the effectiveness of each could be measured in the field. Although our experiments involve yield sign violations, the insights obtained can be adapted to other contexts as well, such as pedestrian crosswalks or turn prohibitions at intersections.

We will explore the outcomes of these two experiments and, using a method we have developed to allow for responsible comparisons of effectiveness, will come to conclusions about the performance of each one. Our analysis offers insights into the mechanisms behind the observed behavioral response that occurs in drivers over time after a strategy is implemented (including what happens in the often-ignored "unstable" or "novelty" phase), which we can then use to inform our assessments of each compliance strategy. Our results will reveal flaws with the conventional before-and-after approach used to evaluate compliance measures, and will show how such errors can be avoided or corrected.

An urban transit system can be made more efficient by improving the access to it. Efforts in this vein often entail the provision of greater mobility, as when high-speed feeder buses are used to carry commuters to and from trunk-line stations. Other efforts have focused on the creation of more favorable land-use patterns, as occurs when households within a Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) are tightly clustered around trunk stations. The efficacy of these mobility and land-use solutions are separately examined in the present work. To this end, continuum approximation models are used to determine the design parameters that minimize the generalized costs to both the users and the operators of hypothetical transit networks.

Though idealized, these assessments furnish useful and very general insights. They confirm that if transit is accessed by slowly on foot, as is commonly assumed in the literature, then the optimal spacings between routes, and between the stations along those routes, are quite small. This typically places capital-intensive rail systems at a competitive disadvantage with transit systems that feature buses instead. However, these spacings expand when access speeds increase. Hence, we show how Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and Metro-Rail can become a preferred option for trunk-line service when accessed via faster-moving feeder buses.

By comparison, the influence of altered land use patterns brought by TODs is less dramatic when all users walk to Metro-rail stations. We find that that clustering households around these stations justifies larger spacings between them, but produces only modest reductions in generalized costs. This is because the larger spacings penalize transit users who reside outside of the TODs.

Data mining applications are becoming increasingly popular for many applications across a set of very divergent fields. Analysis of crash data is no exception. Association analysis or market basket analysis is used by retailers all over the world to determine which items are purchased together by consumers. It is then applied to stock items (e.g., Salsa and Chips) close to each other. In traffic safety research based on association rule mining, crashes are analyzed as supermarket transactions to detect interdependence among crash characteristics. The results from the analysis include simple rules that indicate which crash characteristics are associated with each other. Results will be presented from two of research articles in which this application is demonstrated using crash data from Florida.

This talk summarizes the key messages of a recently released book that examines, through the specific lens of low-carbon development, the lessons of the World Bank’s activities related to urban development in China. Amid unprecedented levels of urban migration, rapidly increasing incomes, double digit annual growth in motorization and expanding city forms, many Chinese cities are already on a high carbon-emission growth path. With China set to add an estimated 350 million residents to its cities over the next 20 years, the case for urgent action is strong.

On one hand, China's cities are already reacting to ambitious commitments their leaders have made to reduce the carbon and energy intensity of the economy and transition to a low-carbon growth path. The country's current (12th) Five-Year Plan includes, for the first time ever, an explicit target to reduce carbon intensity by 17 percent by the end of 2015. However, the imperative to reduce carbon intensity is only one of many competing priorities for government officials in the midst of unprecedented urbanization, modernization, and economic development.

What are the choices Chinese cities are making? And what are the implications? Achievements and challenges to low-carbon city development in China will be discussed with a particular focus on transport, land-use and urban spatial development.

The Fifth Bioeconomy Conference will celebrate the career and achievements of Anthony Fisher, a pioneer of environmental and resource economics. The presentations on the first day, dedicated to Dr. Fisher, will introduce cutting-edge results in renewable resources, energy, environmental economics, and climate change. The second and third days will address both the results of economic and policy research as well as new developments in biofuels and impacts of biotechnology. The analyses will combine conceptual, empirical, and policy pieces. The conference will address some of the most contentious issues, e.g., greenhouse gases of biofuel, environmental impact of biotechnology, indirect land use of biofuel, the potential and economics of second generation biofuel, and the future of biofuel and energy policies.

Speakers include Markus Pauly, Chris Somerville, Michael Hanemann, Mary Bohman, and many others.

The Fifth Bioeconomy Conference will celebrate the career and achievements of Anthony Fisher, a pioneer of environmental and resource economics. The presentations on the first day, dedicated to Dr. Fisher, will introduce cutting-edge results in renewable resources, energy, environmental economics, and climate change. The second and third days will address both the results of economic and policy research as well as new developments in biofuels and impacts of biotechnology. The analyses will combine conceptual, empirical, and policy pieces. The conference will address some of the most contentious issues, e.g., greenhouse gases of biofuel, environmental impact of biotechnology, indirect land use of biofuel, the potential and economics of second generation biofuel, and the future of biofuel and energy policies.

Speakers include Markus Pauly, Chris Somerville, Michael Hanemann, Mary Bohman, and many others.

The Fifth Bioeconomy Conference will celebrate the career and achievements of Anthony Fisher, a pioneer of environmental and resource economics. The presentations on the first day, dedicated to Dr. Fisher, will introduce cutting-edge results in renewable resources, energy, environmental economics, and climate change. The second and third days will address both the results of economic and policy research as well as new developments in biofuels and impacts of biotechnology. The analyses will combine conceptual, empirical, and policy pieces. The conference will address some of the most contentious issues, e.g., greenhouse gases of biofuel, environmental impact of biotechnology, indirect land use of biofuel, the potential and economics of second generation biofuel, and the future of biofuel and energy policies.

Speakers include Markus Pauly, Chris Somerville, Michael Hanemann, Mary Bohman, and many others.

This talk will present some thoughts on the consideration of design variations in the analysis of network safety, with a focus on strategic guidance on probing the effects of design variations in depth. Strategic guidance will be described through example models estimated empirically using statistical methods. The talk reflects ongoing research activity and integrates insights from the speaker's prior experience in decision-making in design policy matters at state governmental levels.

Traffic responsive control with transit signal priority (TSP) is a strategy that is increasingly used to improve transit operations in urban networks. However, none of the existing real-time signal control systems has explicitly incorporated the passenger occupancy of transit vehicles in granting priority, or has effectively address issues such as the provision of priority to transit vehicles traveling in conflicting directions at signalized intersections. A person-based traffic responsive signal control system with TSP is presented that provides priority to transit vehicles while minimizing the negative impacts on the auto traffic even when transit vehicles travel in conflicting directions. The objective is to minimize the total person delay at the intersection by explicitly considering the vehicles’ occupancy and schedule adherence. Such a system has been made feasible by advanced technologies which provide real-time information such as Automated Vehicle Location systems and passenger counters.

The proposed traffic responsive signal control system was first developed for isolated intersections, and extended to arterial signalized networks. Evaluation tests for a wide range of traffic and transit operational characteristics show that the proposed system can achieve substantial reductions in transit delays with no significant increase in auto delays, and can outperform signal settings provided by commonly used optimization tools that minimize vehicle delays. The contribution of this research is the development of readily implementable strategies that take advantage of existing infrastructure to improve transit and traffic operations in congested metropolitan areas.

The Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami on March 11, 2011 stressed the importance of reconsidering catastrophic disaster and risk management in international transportation policies and markets. This presentation will examine the impacts of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster on port activities and maritime transportation in Japan, with emphasis on the effect of port traffic diversion as international vessels began avoiding areas of high radiation including ports in Tokyo/Yokohama and the Tohoku region. The process used by shipping companies to make these diversion decisions will be investigated, through a combination of literature review and interviews with port authorities and shippers. This presentation will also examine the reactions of port users to the high levels of radiation, as well as the countermeasures taken by port authorities to discourage traffic diversion. Key lessons are drawn from Japan’s experiences for international transportation engineers, policy makers and business leaders.

There are many aspects of mass transit passengers and their travel that are often difficult to observe, but which are very useful for transit service planning. These aspects include the passengers' basic travel characteristics, such as origins and destinations, time of travel, associated activities during the day, and the level of temporal and spatial access to different land uses. Traditional on-board and regional household surveys, and even newer electronic methods of observation, often have limitations on the data available for transit passengers. In this context, we explore methods that use a combination of different data sources to infer passengers' behavior. Preliminary findings, based on transit data from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, suggest some progress in understanding this behavior. However, there remain some very interesting challenges for further research.

Significant growth is anticipated in global air transportation over the coming decades, which is expected to have local and global environmental impacts. This presentation describes a model that predicts airline flight network, frequency and fleet changes in response to policy measures that aim to reduce the environmental impact of aviation. Such airline operational responses to policy measures are not considered by most integrated aviation-environment modelling tools. By not modelling these effects the capability of the air transport system to adjust under changing conditions is neglected, resulting in the forecasting of potentially misleading system and local responses to constraints.

This research creates and uses macroscopic traffic models to describe the aggregate behavior of vehicles on urban street networks. Insights gained from these models can then be used to design network-wide policies that may increase the ability of these networks to serve vehicle-trips. In particular, this work focuses on the turning maneuvers that exist in networks with multiple routes. The presence of multiple routes and turning maneuvers are found to have two effects on aggregate vehicle behavior: 1) they cause unstable and inefficient behavior when a network is congested; and, 2) they may reduce maximum vehicle flows across the network. Fortunately, this work finds that limiting the rate at which vehicles are allowed to enter a network and providing drivers with real-time information on current traffic conditions can help mitigate the first effect and allow the network to operate more efficiently. It is also found that the second effect may not always be harmful—lower network flows do not necessarily result in decreased network efficiency if the lower flows are accompanied by more direct vehicle routing. In fact, two-way networks, which accommodate conflicting left-turns and result in lower maximum vehicle flows than one-way networks, are found to serve trips at a higher rate because drivers travel shorter distances on average. Thus, in many cities, maximum network efficiency can be improved by converting one-way streets to two-way operation.

The urban transport sector's environmental footprint is huge and growing – around a third of energy consumption and CO2 emissions in U.S. cities is in the transport sector. The debate on how to shrink the sector's footprint has splintered into two camps: those arguing for technological solutions (e.g., clean-fuel vehicles; smart cars) and those contending that policies (e.g., congestion pricing) and land-use management (e.g., TOD) that reduce the demand for car travel offer considerable, if not more, promise. The debate and rhetoric has become fractious and at times divisive. In modeling how to comply with AB32, for example, CARB (California Air Resources Board) estimates that some 90% of the targeted CO2 emission reductions will come from technological advances and a much smaller share (5% or so) might come from land-use initiatives like TOD. Many smart-growth policy advocates dispute this.

The technology versus policy debate could very well be a false dichotomy. Is it possible that the two might effectively work together in tandem, promoting cross-purposes? Need the two points-of-view always be at loggerheads? Might there be synergies/win-win outcomes associated with aggressively pursuing the two strategies in tandem.

Sponsored by the Ted and Doris Lee Fund at the College of Environmental Design and Berkeley Law, managed by the Institute of Urban & Regional Development. Individual conferences organized by the Berkeley Program on Housing and Urban Policy, the Institute of Urban & Regional Development, and the University of California Transportation Center.

In return for free public transportation passes, a sample of habitual car commuters in Switzerland and at MIT agreed to commute to work by public transportation for a few days. Their travel happiness, commute satisfaction, mode choice, perceptions, and attitudes were measured before and after the intervention (or treatment). Significant differences in their reported pre- and post-treatment happiness with car commuting were found in both experiments. While none of the Swiss participants switched to public transportation post-treatment, about a third of MIT participants gave up their parking permits and switched to public transportation post-treatment.

This talk will describe some behavioral mechanisms driving the dynamics of satisfaction ratings, analyze the differences in mode switching behavior between the Swiss and MIT cases, and present a modeling framework that incorporates the satisfaction measures as indicators of utility in a random utility mode switching model.

Huang Weikai's one-of-a-kind documentary captures the anarchy, violence, and seething anxiety animating China's major cities today. As urbanization advances at a breakneck pace, Chinese cities teeter on the brink of mayhem. This experimental film combines more than twenty street scenes into a strikingly visual collage that takes an unflinching look at the absurdity and anarchy of urban life in contemporary China.
$5 students, $10 public.

Traffic modeling has frequently considered and accounted for variability in driver behavior and characteristics. For example, microscopic traffic simulators have the capability to replicate vehicular movements (such as lane changing) considering driver characteristics to a significant level of detail. Such traffic simulators can typically replicate traffic streams with several different driver types which are based on driver aggressiveness. Vehicular movements (such as car following) are then determined based on the respective action of the particular driver type. However, a limited amount of research has been reported to categorize driver types or to link particular driving actions with a set of driver types and their characteristics. Car-following, lane changing, and gap acceptance algorithms have rarely been calibrated to match various driver types, and it is not always clear how micro-simulators incorporate driver behavior aspects into these algorithms. This presentation will describe two approaches to collecting driver behavior and characteristics-related data so that they can be used to improve traffic micro-simulators. The first approach is based on focus groups, while the second is based on in-vehicle field data collection with an instrumented vehicle. The presentation will describe these two data collection approaches and will provide three example applications related to freeway merging, car-following, and arterial lane changing.

The Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system is approaching 40 years of service, and BART is preparing for a large reinvestment program, including replacing overage vehicles and aging infrastructure to keep BART in a state of good repair (SGR). However, some of the funding for this program is uncertain and therefore it is possible that some of the planned investment in the replacement of equipment and infrastructure will have to be deferred. This presentation examines the levels and types of investment needed to maintain BART in a state of good repair, identifies the kinds of deterioration in BART services that are likely if less money is available for SGR than needed, evaluates how service deterioration would affect BART ridership, and assesses the consequences for the Bay Area’s transportation system, the economy, and the environment. Stakeholder perspectives on funding for SGR also are investigated.