On Monday, April 27, 2020, the 3 Revolutions Policy Initiative kicked off a Webinar series with a discussion on how Covid-19 is changing transportation worldwide. Nearly 800 people logged-on from 21 countries to listen as Dr. Dan Sperling, founder and Director of ITS-Davis, moderate a discussion with panelists Dr. Susan Shaheen, Director of Resilient and Innovative Mobility Initiative, UC ITS and Seleta Reynolds, General Manager of the Los Angeles Department of Transportation.

These experts discussed the rapidly changing transportation environment resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic and debated how changes in travel behaviors may persist beyond stay-at-home orders.  They also addressed how policymakers could best approach social distancing and the disruption of public transit.

Sperling launched the webinar with a brief history of the three revolutions in transportation—electrification, shared mobility, and automation—and how the current pandemic has affected the public’s attitudes toward sharing of cars, buses, and planes, and asked whether this reluctance to share space is likely to persist and what that might mean for the future of transit and car ownership. Throughout the webinar, he highlighted the role of public policy to reinforce “good” trends and mitigate “bad” trends in transportation. Sperling further noted the importance of looking at transit systems from a user perspective, and tailoring them to users’ needs.

In her remarks, Shaheen voiced concerns about social equity during the pandemic. Both traditional public transit and shared mobility (like ridehailing, microtransit, and micromobility access) are limited by new restrictions. Shaheen noted the crucial relationship between jobs, food access, and transportation. She warned that limited mobility could exacerbate poverty and homelessness. She also suggested that policy makers need to carefully consider how to best assist those who have recently lost their jobs and access to mobility. While the overall trend of reduced vehicle miles traveled during the pandemic has dramatically improved air quality, Shaheen expressed concerns that a reduction of gas tax revenues could delay future road-work and infrastructure plans.

As General Manager of the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, Reynolds shared insight into how Los Angeles is meeting transportation challenges in response to Covid-19. She agreed with Shaheen that public transit inadequacies can cause hardships for people who need to travel to work and long distances due to spatial mismatch between home and work locations. Reynolds shared data about public transit changes in Los Angeles: overall vehicle traffic is down 40-50%, but driving speeds are up 12-30%. With fewer cars on the roads, Los Angeles traffic deaths are down 22%. Meanwhile, bike riding is only down about 13%, but bus ridership is down about 75%.  ‘Life-line’ bus services are providing essential mobility for front-line and healthcare workers.

Despite the reduction in travel in Los Angeles, traffic officers and crossing guards are spending almost double the amount of time directing traffic at food pantry sites and testing centers due to increased demand for these services. Reynolds mentioned several new initiatives to help Angelinos combat the pandemic. The Department of Transportation has busses on loan to the Los Angeles Fire Department to provide mobile testing centers for people living outside. Meal delivery services for older adults are also rolling out. She also expressed concern for the experiences of at-risk populations, like elderly sign shop workers who cannot work on site.

Attendees of the webinar posed about 100 questions. With limited time, the panelists focused on questions related to public transit, avoiding a possible surge in single-occupant vehicle travel, and the role of micromobility, including e-scooters and bikesharing programs.

Each panelist, including Sperling, advocated for innovation and change to the transportation sector in response to Covid-19. Shaheen described the current situation as a time for policymakers and researchers to “be bold” and to allocate the $25 billion of federal relief funds for public transit agencies that provides flexibility and a “people- and context-sensitive” response. She suggested making public transit free or highly subsidizing it for vulnerable populations, along with adding more late-night transportation services. Reynolds also advocated for boldness, saying “professionals in the transportation industry need to change or revise their agenda and realize it’s time to have a different approach to public transit.”

Future public transit changes suggested by Reynolds include more protective bike and bus-only lanes. Due to well-documented traffic issues in Los Angeles, she also said that the City needs to make sure auto-ownership is ‘disentangled’ from auto-access while the city works to increase the number of electric vehicles available, implying a need for additional carsharing and rental programs. Reynolds also envisioned a future in which each person in Los Angeles could have a virtual ‘mobility wallet’ that would afford them basic transportation funds.

Despite the clear need for innovation and change in public transit, Reynolds also cautioned that government agencies should take thoughtful actions. Listening to community voices will mean agencies can  avoid a “heavy handed” approach when planning and building transportation infrastructure. Shaheen echoed the importance of equitable strategies, such as a mobility wallet, to extend access to transportation and to provide travelers with transparency about their transportation choices, travel times, and costs. Both Shaheen and Sperling mentioned a growth in telecommuting as one potential way to counteract a reactive surge in single-occupant vehicles.

The panelists raised many important and nuanced points during this presentation and the full webinar can be viewed here. These discussions will continue during the ongoing 3 Revolutions Policy Initiative Webinar Series. The next installment will be on May 18, 2020, and will focus on climate, equity, and community. You can register for that installment of this webinar series here: https://3rev.ucdavis.edu/events/equity-community-and-3-revolutions-transportation

Kicking off a series of Capitol briefings on transportation issues, last week, researchers from the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Davis and at UC Berkeley (ITS-Davis & ITS-Berkeley) met with members of the legislative staff, transit agencies, non-governmental organizations, regulatory agencies, and the public. The briefing, organized by the California Senate Office of Research and UC Institute of Transportation Studies, was held to inform policy makers on current progress and potential future policies that can help California simultaneously achieve its goals for electric vehicle (EV) adoption and sustainable energy.

Gil Tal, Director of the Plug-In Hybrid and Electric Vehicle Research Center at ITS-Davis reviewed the current EV market and vehicle charging behavior. Tim Lipman, Co-Director of the Transportation Sustainability Research Center at ITS-Berkeley, proposed how EV-charging could be managed so that it uses more renewable energy. He also suggested tools to help utility customers charge EVs but avoid brief, sharp increases in their electricity use that lead to expensive “demand charges.” Austin Brown, Executive Director of the Policy Institute for Energy, Environment and the Economy at UC Davis, moderated the discussion and highlighted policy implications.

The presenters fielded a number of questions from the attendees, addressing issues such as whether it would be possible to manage charging times for large fleets, like electric buses, in addition to private single-vehicle owners; and whether remote control of vehicle settings or controlling the charger would be the better way to manage when a plugged-in EV is charged.

Following the briefing, Randy Chinn, Chief Consultant for the Senate Transportation Committee reflected: “These briefings are very useful, and this is a good time of year for them. It gives us in the Legislature time to digest the information before we are swamped in the next few months with legislative analysis and hearings.”

Key Take-Away Messages

• 5 million EVs(the 2030 goal for California) will need 1-1.5 million “while-at-work” chargers and some DC fast chargers
• Free charging is good for selling EVs but is not sustainable over the long-term and will lead to congestion at chargers.
• Almost all (92-95%) of charging occurs at the origin or destination of a trip and not in between; so, we do not need many fast chargers to function like mid-trip gas stations.
• Most EV charging occurs at home from 6 pm–midnight, which places the greatest demand on non-renewable sources of energy, while renewable sources (like solar) that are abundant during the day can sometimes go to waste.
• We can change where and when people charge with pricing and charger availability, especially free vs. paid. (Smaller differences in the charge per kW-hour does not usually affect charging behavior.)
• The widespread development and use of vehicle-to-grid interaction—where car charging patterns can be shifted both at a given location and between locations—can greatly increase the use of renewable energy.
• Tesla still dominates the new EV market. (In 2019, 51% of new EVs sold in California were Teslas.)

Policy Implications and Recommendations:

• Change our thinking and terminology on chargers from “home vs. work-place chargers” to “while-at-home vs. while-at-work.” This will foster policy thinking and infrastructure planning that will achieve greater socioeconomic equity, cleaner energy use, and reduced vehicle miles traveled. For example, using the terms “while-at-work” rather than “work-place” chargers opens our thinking, planning, and subsidizing to include chargers at commuter rail stops, public parking lots, and locations other than employers’ property. A while-at-home charger expands the discussion to encompass chargers available to multi-unit residences, not simply single-family residences.
• Make while-at-work charging easier and less expensive for more people–i.e., facilitate a shift away from free work-place charging used on a first-come-first-served basis by very few EV owners with select employers.
• Change timing mechanisms so that vehicle owners specify when they need the charge to be completed by (departure time) rather than when to start the charging.
• Encourage EV owners to plug-in frequently and allow experts at car manufacturers or utility groups to control the time of charging through remote vehicle controllers or charger controllers. A pilot project showed that these methods can make the entire system more efficient and reduce the loss of renewable energy.

Three more briefings on other transportation topics are scheduled for March 6, 11, and 20. For more information, please visit: https://www.ucits.org/events/upcoming-events/