In The News

Uber rolls out cheaper Express Pool service that rivals transit buses

February 22, 2018

While ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft started out with individual riders, “what we want to do is encourage them to move to pooling services because they’re the ones that provide real societal benefit, because they provide access and mobility for more people, especially in suburban areas and small cities which have poor transit service,” said Daniel Sperling, director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California-Davis.

USA Today

Robot cars could add CO2 by circling block, grabbing pizza

February 21, 2018

“We’re on the cusp of a revolution with automated vehicles, and we’re already at the early stages of the sharing economy and electrification,” Dan Sperling of CARB and ITS-Davis told the California Senate Transportation and Housing Committee. “Of these three revolutions automated vehicles are potentially the most transformational. But if they’re combined with the other two, they will be even more transformational and more disruptive, but also more in the public interest.”

ClimateWire/E&E News

New Study Finds Consumers are Behind the Curve on EVs

February 14, 2018

“There are no paths to meet the PEV commitments and promises being made by automakers and politicians unless consumers are engaged in the transition to electric drive,” write report authors Ken Kurani and Scott Hardman of UC Davis. So, what’s to be done? Kurani and Hardman recommend social marketing to promote the need for EVs; traditional marketing by automakers, utilities and charging infrastructure suppliers;  more ride-and-drive events; more PEVs in shared mobility and vehicle rental applications; and auto dealer education and motivation programs.

Charged EV Magazine

How Lyft and Uber Can Fix—Not Cause—Congestion

February 7, 2018

“Though app-based car services may increase congestion in this limited regard, there is even greater—yet largely ignored—potential for such services to reduce net congestion by facilitating multi-passenger pooling.”

– by Dan Sperling, ITS-Davis, and Austin Brown, UC Davis Policy Institute

Dan Sperling, Austin Brown

Planetizen

The Beguiling Science of Making Planet-Saving Pavement

February 2, 2018

“I got into this because there was so much pavement greenwashing and so much marketing and cherry-picking isolated facts,” says John Harvey, a civil and environmental engineer who heads up the University of California Pavement Research Center. “We’re trying to bring order and standardization and fill the gaps so that everybody can assess any pavement claim, or any decision.”

Wired Magazine

Sacramento’s transit future: Order a bus to your front door

January 14, 2018

“[Microtransit] is brand new,” UC Davis transportation expert Dan Sperling said. And it’s uncertain whether riders will go for it and whether it is financially viable long-term. “The reality is there is very little experience with this.”

Sacramento Bee

Will Self-Driving Cars Usher in a Transportation Utopia or Dystopia?

January 10, 2018

“For the first time in half a century, real transformative innovations are coming to our world of passenger transportation — with the promise of huge energy, environmental, and social benefits.”—ITS-Davis Director Dan Sperling, writes in his book, “Three Revolutions: Steering Automated, Shared, and Electric Vehicles to a Better Future,” to be published in March.

Yale Environment 360

California is Set to Hit its Green-Energy Goals a Decade Early

January 3, 2018

“It shows the importance of bold goals,” declared Dr. Austin Brown, executive director of the UC Davis Policy Institute for Energy, Environment, and the Economy. “When you put a marker way out there and say, ‘We’re going to go achieve that, we’re going to write this down as a matter of policy and then go do it,’ you can accomplish an enormous amount.”

Engadget

Tax Overhaul Hammers Clean Energy and Electric Cars

December 11, 2017

A series of proposals in both the House and Senate tax overhaul bills would pummel the renewable-energy and electric-vehicle industries. “It’s headed backwards at a very crucial time, because things are just taking off,” says Tom Turrentine, director of the Plug-In Hybrid & Electric Vehicle Research Center at the University of California, Davis.

MIT Technology Review

All About EVs: Why There Isn’t a Ford in Your Future

December 1, 2017

Daniel Sperling, director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis, has long warned that state and local regulation must jump ahead of the technological transformation to avert such a nightmare scenario. “Cities and states need to look at the policy levers they have,” he says, to “discourage single- and zero-occupant automated vehicles.”

LA Progressive