Integrated Hydrogen and Intelligent Transportation Systems Evaluation for the California Department of Transportation

This “Integrated Hydrogen/Intelligent Transportation Systems Evaluation for the California Department of Transportation” project was conceived to investigate hydrogen activities in the State and around the U.S. that might impact the California Department of Transportation’s (Caltrans) operations. The project is intended to review these activities and to suggest potential interesting applications of combined hydrogen and intelligent transportation system (ITS) technologies. This project was conducted by researchers at the University of California – Berkeley under California Partners for Advanced Transportation and Highways (PATH) Task Order 5112. The main theme underlying this study is the potential for synergies between two rapidly evolving areas of advanced transportation and energy technology: hydrogen energy systems and ITS. We hypothesize that concepts and schemes that combine these two types of technologies can help to enable the potential use of hydrogen infrastructure by, first and foremost, allowing communication and mapping/navigation technologies to optimize the access to and operation of initially sparse hydrogen refueling networks. Additional benefits include helping to contend with the potentially limited driving range of initial hydrogen-powered vehicles and exposing consumers to new technologies in ways that do not require purchasing them, such as through fleet/motor pool, transit, and carsharing (i.e., short-term vehicle rentals) organization operations.