Shared Mobility

The Many Modes of Transportation

February 13, 2022
Viewpoints Radio

Screenshot of the many modes podcast

Susan Shaheen, the Transportation Sustainability Research Center Co-Director, talks with Viewpoints Radio about the United States' current infrastructure and what more needs to be done to promote greater citizen mobility with bikes, scooters, and other non-motor modes of transportation.

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Shared Mobility and Automated Vehicles: Responding to socio-technical changes and pandemics

February 2, 2022
Ata M. Khan, Susan Shaheen

Responding to socio-technical changes and pandemics"

Transportation Sustainability Research Center Co-Director Susan Shaheen publishes a book that provides information on how to shape future shared vehicle systems.

Click here for further information.

To Pool or Not To Pool?

December 1, 2021
Jessica Lazarus and Susan Shaheen

Image of a highway with a blur of vehicle lights over it

Over the past decade, on-demand mobility services have changed the way people travel. These services include app-based ride-hailing companies (also known as transportation network companies or TNCs), such as Lyft and Uber. TNCs offer flexible, on-demand rides that can supplement public transit and personal vehicles, and can lower the barriers to living car-...

Impacts of Transportation Network Companies on Vehicle Miles Traveled, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, and Travel Behavior Analysis from the Washington D.C., Los Angeles, and San Francisco Markets

Elliot Martin, PhD, Susan Shaheen, PhD, Adam Stocker
2021

Transportation Network Companies (TNCs) like Lyft, Uber, and their global counterparts have expanded around the world over the past decade and have changed the way that people travel around cities and regions. The individual mobility benefits provided by TNCs have been clear. Passengers can summon a vehicle quickly via smartphone from almost anywhere to take them almost anywhere, with advance communication on estimated wait time, travel time, and cost. TNCs may also provide users with added mobility benefits, especially for those living in areas where public transit service is...

Understanding Curb Management and Targeted Incentive Policies to Increase Transportation Network Company Pooling and Public Transit Linkages

Susan Shaheen, Wesley Darling, Jacquelyn Broader, Adam Cohen
2021

Transportation network company (TNCs) rides that are shared amongst users (i.e., pooled) can offer a variety of benefits including increased mobility and reduced transportation emissions. However, very few TNC users select pooled trips and not all pooled rides are matched with other riders. This report supports increased poolingby exploring different pooling strategies and incentives. TNC userswere actively engagedto offer insightsthrough the...

Urban Air Mobility: Opportunities and Obstacles

Adam Cohen, Susan Shaheen, PhD
2021

Urban Air Mobility (UAM, also known as advanced air mobility) is an emerging concept that envisions a safe, sustainable, affordable, and accessible air transportation system for emergency management, cargo delivery, and passenger mobility within or traversing a metropolitan area. While numerous societal concerns have been raised about these approaches (e.g., privacy, safety, security, social equity), on-demand aviation has the potential to provide options for emergency services, goods delivery, and passenger mobility in urban and rural areas using small piloted and autonomous...

A Legal and Regulatory Assessment for the Potential of Urban Air Mobility (UAM)

Jacqueline Serrao, Sarah Nilsson, Shawn Kimmel
2018

This paper reviews existing and anticipated legal and regulatory requirements for urban air mobility. It also discusses variations in requirements observed at the local and state levels of government; international developments; certification issues; and opportunities to address legal barriers and gaps.

An Initial Assessment of the Potential Weather Barriers of Urban Air Mobility

Colleen Reiche, PhD, Adam Cohen, Chris Fernando
2021

Urban Air Mobility (UAM), a subset of advanced air mobility, is a concept that envisions safe, sustainable, affordable, and accessible air transportation for passenger mobility, cargo delivery, and emergency management within or traversing a metropolitan area. In recent years, several companies have designed and tested enabling elements of this concept, including; prototypes of vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft, operational concepts, and market studies to understand potential business models. While UAM may be enabled by the convergence of several factors, a number of barriers...

The Potential Societal Barriers of Urban Air Mobility

Susan Shaheen, PhD, Adam Cohen, Emily Farrar
2018

Community perceptions of users and non-users could present challenges to adoption and mainstreaming of urban air mobility (UAM). A few potential concerns include noise and visual pollution; privacy (particularly for flights over sensitive land uses); social equity; and safety and security. This exploratory study reports the findings of two focus groups in Los Angeles and Washington D.C., and a five-city general population survey consisting of 1,700 respondents in Houston, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. (approximately 350 respondents per city). The focus...

Top Ten California Automated Vehicle Policy Strategies

September 23, 2021
Mollie D'Agostino, Susan Shaheen, and Daniel Sperling

Image of a small, red boxy automated vehicle in front of some trees and shrubbery on a road

Research teams at the University of California Davis and Berkeley campuses have developed a menu of options to set California on a path toward automated vehicle safety, social equity, mobility, and sustainability.

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