Time

1:40pm - 3:00pm

Location

1605 Tilia, Room 1103, West Village

Speaker(s)

Susan Shaheen, Ph.D., Adjunct Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering | Director, Innovative Mobility Research | Co-Director, Transportation Sustainability Research Center, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA

Abstract

Technology, entrepreneurship and changing customer expectations are disrupting traditional models for mobility and challenging how public transportation operates. According to the American Public Transportation Association, Americans took 10.4 billion trips on public transport in 2016, up 34% in 20 years. This growth outpaced population growth by 13% and slightly exceeded vehicle miles traveled (34%) over the same period. However, this growth has slowed in the past few years, and there have been decreases in public transit ridership in many metropolitan areas. Dr. Susan Shaheen was among the first to observe, research, and write about changing dynamics in shared mobility and will describe the forces driving the sharing economy and the likely scenarios through which automated vehicles will gain prominence. Crisis can indeed be a time of opportunity. Public transportation can be the backbone of multi-modal lifestyles and take advantage of the emerging array of choices available to travelers. In the coming months and years, public transit agencies will face important, strategic decisions, each of which will need to be considered through the lens of adaptation. Dr. Shaheen will frame and discuss many of the critical questions facing public transportation today.

Biographical Sketch

Susan Shaheen is a co-director of the Transportation Sustainability Research Center (TSRC) of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California (UC), Berkeley. She is also an adjunct professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley. She was the first Honda Distinguished Scholar in Transportation at the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Davis from 2000 to 2012. She served as the Policy and Behavioral Research Program Leader at California Partners for Advanced Transit and Highways from 2003 to 2007, and as a special assistant to the Director’s Office of the California Department of Transportation from 2001 to 2004.

She has a Ph.D. in ecology, focusing on the energy and environmental aspects of transportation, from UC Davis and a M.S. in public policy analysis from the University of Rochester. After completing her master’s degree, she worked as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, D.C. From 2000 to 2001, she was a post-doctoral researcher at UC Berkeley. She has authored 60 journal articles, over 120 reports and proceedings articles, nine book chapters, and co-edited two books. She has also served as a guest editor for Transport Policy, Energies, and the International Journal of Sustainable Transportation (IJST). Her research projects on carsharing, smart parking, and older mobility have received national awards. She received the 2017 Roy W. Crum award from the Transportation Research Board for her distinguished achievements in transportation research. In May 2016, she was named one of the top 10 academic thought leaders in transportation by the Eno Transportation Foundation. In 2010 and 2007, she received an “Excellence in Management” award from UC Berkeley. She has served on the ITS World Congress program committee since 2002 and was the chair of the Emerging and Innovative Public Transport and Technologies Committee of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) from 2004 to 2011. She serves as a desk editor for Transport Policy and is a member of the editorial board of IJST (2011to present) and the International Journal of Transportation Science and Technology (2015 to present). She is a member of the ITS Program Advisory Committee to the U.S. DOT Secretary (2014 to Present) and the Mobile Source Technical Review Subcommittee to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Air Act Advisory Committee (2016 to Present). She is chair of the subcommittee for Shared-Use Vehicle Public Transport Systems of TRB (2013 to present).