By Jamie Knapp • J Knapp Communications

It’s hard to imagine ITS-Davis without Pat Mokhtarian. The beloved and respected Civil and Environmental Engineering professor, who has served as the Institute’s associate director for education and as founding chair and graduate advisor of the Transportation Technology and Policy (TTP) Graduate Group, retired in June.

Since 1990, when she arrived in Davis, Mokhtarian has mentored students, conducted probing and thought-provoking research, and inspired colleagues around the world.

“It’s impossible to put into words how much Pat means to ITS-Davis and to me, personally,” said friend and colleague Susan Handy, professor and chair of Environmental Science and Policy. “I started out as a post-doc with Pat 20 years ago. She made my career in so many different ways.”

Current and former students echo Handy’s sentiment, recalling fondly Mokhtarian’s notoriously tough, but rewarding, Transportation Survey Methods course, TTP 200, as one of their best classes.

“I’ll never look at a survey again without a skeptical eye – thanks to the training that Pat provided,” said alumnus Anthony Eggert, who now directs the UC Davis Policy Institute for Energy, Environment and the Economy.

“I’m your forever student, wherever you go,” said alumnus Sangho Choo, via video, from Seoul where he is an assistant professor in the Department of Urban Design and Planning at Hongik University.

Mokhtarian has served on 136 thesis and dissertation committees, instilling in students an appreciation for the application of rigorous quantitative methods to the study of travel behavior, her research specialty.

“My legacy is in the lives of students that I advise and teach,” Mokhtarian said. “I hope I’m helping to train them to think critically and evaluate all alternatives, not taking their own predispositions for granted. If I succeed in helping them do that, they’ll be better professionals – whether their career finds them in academia, private business or government. It’s good training for life,” she said.

Mokhtarian has further demonstrated her commitment to teaching as one of the driving forces behind the creation of the TTP Graduate Group, which she chaired for 15 years before stepping down last fall.

“I will remember her always for her leadership in building and running TTP,” said ITS-Davis Director Dan Sperling. “Her commitment and focus have elevated TTP into a premier graduate program.”

In addition to her legacy as a dedicated teacher and mentor, Mokhtarian is a highly skilled and productive researcher. She has authored or co-authored more than 160 technical reports, including more than 120 refereed journal articles. She is the founding chair of the Committee on Telecommunications and Travel Behavior (now the Committee on the Effects of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) on Travel Choices) of the Transportation Research Board. She is often quoted in the mainstream media as the “go-to” expert on telecommuting, and her entire body of research has challenged conventional wisdom in several ways: with respect to the impacts of ICT on travel more generally; attitudes toward travel itself; and the role of attitudinal self-selection in understanding the influence of land use on travel behavior.

Mokhtarian is returning to her Southern roots and will be a professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “The opportunity to be closer to family and to work at an outstanding school was a powerful combination,” she says.

Still, she adds, leaving Davis is bittersweet.

“This has been my dream job. I couldn’t have asked for a better academic position. I’ve been amazingly happy here for the last 23 years. I’m looking forward to being a professor emerita of UC Davis for life.”

We will miss you, Pat.

Photo: Pat Mokhtarian smiles as students, faculty members and alumni share their farewell speeches at her retirement celebration on June 29 at the UC Davis Beuhler Alumni and Visitors Center. In the background is one of her former students, Cynthia Chen (Ph.D., 2001). (Dorian Toy – UC Davis)

The city of Davis was named the “Coolest California City” on June 27 by the California Air Resources Board for its success in reducing households’ carbon footprints. ARB Chairman Mary D. Nichols said that Davis, runners-up Chula Vista and Tracy, and five other competing cities collectively reduced greenhouse gas emissions by more than 220 metric tons.

The eight cities were asked to motivate residents to take every day actions, such as biking instead of driving, that would reduce overall energy use and carbon emissions in order to earn points, which represented how much carbon emissions were reduced. Participants were also able to monitor their energy usage through the coolcalifornia.org website, developed by researchers at the ARB, the nonprofit Next 10, and UC Berkeley.

This challenge, launched and funded by the ARB to “inform future efforts to promote and quantify carbon footprint reductions and help establish best practices for citizen engagement,” allowed researchers to examine how best to engage city residents in reducing energy usage and carbon emissions.

According to an ARB spokesperson, “Davis successfully engaged hundreds of residents to track and reduce their energy use and miles driven — to collectively reduce the city’s carbon footprint. Davis has set a goal to engage 75 percent of its households in voluntary greenhouse gas reduction activities by 2015.” Over 439 households in Davis participated to reduce 59 metric tons of carbon emissions.

Daniel Sperling, director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Davis, comments: “The City of Davis earned this award through decades of leadership on energy efficiency and environmental stewardship. ITS-Davis plays an important role in providing the research to support city policies, through its cutting-edge research,  but also through the contributions of many of our researchers, students and staff who participate as private individuals in many of the city’s programs  Davis.  Not only do we think globally, we act locally!”

An event on Sept. 5 will be held to honor the participants in the CoolCalifornia Challenge, and a second round will be announced as well.

For more information, visit: http://www.arb.ca.gov/newsrel/newsrelease.php?id=468

June 18, 2013

Daniel Sperling, Ph.D., director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis, is one of two recipients of the 2013 Blue Planet Prize. The prize, announced today by the Asahi Glass Foundation of Tokyo, has been described as the Nobel Prize for the environmental sciences.

Sperling is an international expert on transportation technology, fuels and policy, with a focus on energy and environment. His research is directed at accelerating the global transition to cleaner, more efficient transportation and energy, and mitigating climate change. The award recognizes Sperling for his unique ability to bring together the top thinkers and strategists in academia, government and industry to develop new vehicle- and fuels-policy approaches that are models for the world.

“I am deeply honored to receive the Blue Planet Prize, and I share it with my many brilliant and passionate collaborators,” Sperling said. “I hope to use this time in the spotlight to promote universities’ tremendous reservoir of policy-relevant knowledge – particularly policy that averts the pending disaster of global climate change. My primary goal is to bring science to policy.”

“UC Davis faculty work every day to bring sound science to the world’s most pressing problems, and Daniel Sperling is a wonderful example of that,” said UC Davis chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi. “We are proud of his accomplishments and pleased that his efforts are being recognized through this prestigious prize.”

Sperling was chosen to receive the Blue Planet Prize from among 106 candidates representing 27 countries. Also being honored this year is Taroh Matsuno, principal scientist at the Research Institute for Global Change, in the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology.

A professor of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science and Policy, Sperling founded the Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS-Davis) in 1991. ITS-Davis is now the world’s leading academic program in transportation technology and policy, thanks to Sperling’s talent for building enduring partnerships with industry, government and the environmental community; integrating interdisciplinary research and education programs; and connecting research with public outreach and education. Today the Institute is home to 60 affiliated faculty and researchers and 120 graduate students, and a $12 million budget.

ITS-Davis researchers pursue topics as diverse as:

• Consumer response to advanced vehicle technologies, such as hybrid and electric cars
• Bike- and pedestrian-friendly community planning
• Traffic-flow theory
• Battery and ultracapacitor capabilities and comparisons
• World geopolitical implications of oil and natural gas development
• Biofuels investment and production strategies
• Multitasking and telecommuting
• Hydrogen fueling infrastructure, and
• The potential for converting the globe to 100 percent renewable energy.

Diverse though their interests may be, ITS-Davis researchers have in common a desire to educate the next generation and explore important research questions that contribute to knowledge. Many share a unique desire to apply their expertise and inform policy making at the local, state and national level.

Sperling championed early research into lifecycle analysis, with his students going on to develop the world’s most widely used lifecycle-analysis models for transportation fuels, and led the effort to transfer lifecycle assessment from labs into policy. For transportation fuel, lifecycle assessment means accounting for the emissions that occur in every stage of a fuel’s production and use.

The lifecycle approach is a critically important tool used to calculate greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change, and other emissions that harm the environment. It forms the basis of many new climate and environmental policies around the globe.

“This year the world passed an ominous threshold—the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere exceeded 400 parts per million for the first time in human civilization,” Sperling said. Still, he is optimistic.

“Solutions are all around us. New technologies and new behaviors will transform our cities and energy systems. Policies are needed to stimulate innovation and encourage those changes in behavior, leading us to a tipping point of sustainable development. It is not easy, but with great effort we can recover our healthy blue planet,” he said.

A serial academic entrepreneur, Sperling has launched a diverse array of research centers under the auspices of ITS-Davis. They include the China Center on Energy and Transportation; the Energy Efficiency Center, the first university-based energy efficiency center in the United States; and the new Policy Institute for Energy, Environment and the Economy. Fifteen years ago, he created the Graduate Group in Transportation Technology and Policy, the unique, multidisciplinary program at the heart of ITS-Davis’s academic offerings. He also co-directs the Institute’s Sustainable Transportation Energy Pathways program, a four-year, multidisciplinary research program funded through a consortium of private and governmental organizations. He has advised corporations and governments around the world.

In 2007, then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed Sperling to the state’s globally influential Air Resources Board, where his understanding of transportation and energy inform clean-air and energy policies. Sperling co-led the California Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) study, which formed the basis of the revolutionary standard, the first of its kind to tackle carbon pollution from transportation fuel. The LCFS is in effect today in California and under consideration in other states. It is a model for similar polices in Canada and the European Union. ITS-Davis researchers provide technical support to California as it implements its clean fuels standard.

In the past 25 years, Sperling has authored or co-authored over 200 technical papers and 12 books, including “Two Billion Cars” (Oxford University Press, 2009). He has made 500 professional presentations in his career, including over 60 keynote talks in the past four years. He serves on numerous academic and research panels and in 2010 received a Heinz Award.

The Heinz Awards, awarded annually by the Heinz Family Foundation, honor the late U.S. Senator John Heinz by recognizing the extraordinary achievements of individuals in the areas of greatest importance to him. In 2010, the awards honored Sperling and nine other environmental innovators who are addressing global change caused by the impact of human activities and natural processes on the environment.

This year is the 22^nd year of the Blue Planet Prize. Previous recipients include: Amory B. Lovins, chairman and chief scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute; Paul R. Ehrlich, director of the Center of Conservation Biology at Stanford University; Jane Lubchenco, under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and administrator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA); James Hansen, recently retired director of the U.S. NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies; Joseph L. Sax, professor emeritus, University of California, Berkeley; David R. Brower, chairman of the Earth Island Institute; and Lester R. Brown, founder and president of the Worldwatch Institute.

“Many of my heroes have won this award, and I am humbled to join this distinguished group,” Sperling said.

Sperling will travel to Tokyo for the awards ceremony on October 30 and give a commemorative lecture on October 31. Each Blue Planet Prize recipient receives a certificate of merit, a commemorative trophy and a supplementary award of 50 million yen (about $500,000 U.S.).

Listen to Daniel Sperling discuss the Blue Planet Prize here: http://www.capradio.org/news/insight/2013/06/14/insight-062813/

U.S. Rep. John Garamendi remarks on the House Floor on the Blue Planet Prize: http://garamendi.house.gov/press-release/congressman-garamendi-highlights-uc-davis-efforts-combat-climate-change-promote-clean

The Transportation Research Board comments on the Blue Planet Prize: http://www.trb.org/Main/Blurbs/169141.aspx

About the Blue Planet Prize

The Blue Planet Prize was established in 1992 by the Asahi Glass Foundation of Tokyo. The award’s name was inspired by remarks of Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space, who observed that our blue planet is beautiful and we should work to preserve it. The Asahi Glass Foundation named the prize in the hope that “our blue planet will be a shared asset capable of sustaining human life far into the future.” http://www.af-info.or.jp/en/

About UC Davis

For more than 100 years, UC Davis has engaged in teaching, research and public service that matter to California and transform the world. Located close to the state capital, UC Davis has more than 33,000 students, more than 2,500 faculty and more than 21,000 staff, an annual research budget of nearly $750 million, a comprehensive health system and 13 specialized research centers. The university offers interdisciplinary graduate study and more than 100 undergraduate majors in four colleges — Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Biological Sciences, Engineering, and Letters and Science. It also houses six professional schools — Education, Law, Management, Medicine, Veterinary Medicine and the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing.

Media contacts

• Daniel Sperling, UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies, (510) 387-5438, dsperling@ucdavis.edu

• Tetsuro Yasuda, Asahi Glass Foundation, Tokyo, 81-3-5275-0620, post@af-info.or.jp

• Sylvia Wright, UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies, swright@ucdavis.edu

In a public talk on June 27, ITS-Davis director Dan Sperling will document how we pioneered car-centric cities and lifestyles founded on abundant petroleum. He will explore opportunities for more sustainable transportation, focusing on the role of innovation and policy in bringing about low carbon fuels, electric-drive vehicles, socially-responsible behavior, enhanced mobility services, and low-carbon cities.

When: Thursday, June 27th, 2013
Time: Registration and networking: 5:30 pm – 6 pm, Presentation 6 pm – 7:30 pm
Where: UC Davis: Young Hall Room 194
Cost: AIA/USGBC members: $15, non-members $20 ($20, $25 at the door) 

Download flyer: http://www.aiacv.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Visionary_Sperling_flyer_FINAL.pdf

Purchase tickets: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/e/393408

Hosts of this event are AIA Central Valley, the local chapter of The American Institute of Architects, which serves architects and the public in 17 northern California counties, and the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization committed to a prosperous and sustainable future for our nation through cost-efficient and energy-saving green buildings.

By Alston Lim • UC Davis 2014

Mark Delucchi, a research scientist for the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies, is featured in an international report for his work, which highlights the potential for existing technologies to deliver rapid de-carbonization in long-term renewable energy sources.

The report, published by the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute at the University of Melbourne, is part of the Post Carbon Pathways project and includes in-depth interviews from top post-carbon economy researchers and policy makers from around the world.

Delucchi is quoted in the new Melbourne report for his findings in an influential article on renewable energy which he co-authored with Mark Jacobson at Stanford University that appeared in an October 2006 issue of Scientific American.

In the article, Delucchi says that using wind, water and solar sources to provide energy to meet projected demand in the long run “is possible and definitely worth looking at in detail.”

Delucchi additionally told the report authors that the change required for rapid de-carbonization is “indeed socially and politically feasible.”

To read the full report, click here

Photo: Mark Delucchi said he believes that switching the global energy system to 100% renewable energy by 2030 will require strong political and policy leadership and regulation. Photo credit: iStockphoto/Thinkstock

By Alston Lim • UC Davis 2014

ITS-Davis Ph.D. candidate David Friedman has been appointed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration as its new deputy administrator.

Friedman, who passed his Ph.D. exam with a proposal to mathematically model fuel cell stacks and systems, was previously a transportation analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, where he pushed for stricter fuel economy standards and lower oil consumption.

Friedman played a lead role with ITS-Davis’s first industry-government research consortium on fuel cell vehicle modeling and co-authored 12 technical publications during his graduate studies.

Photo: ITS-Davis director Daniel Sperling (left) and David Friedman prepare to testify on the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment

By Alston Lim • UC Davis 2014

Amy Myers Jaffe, executive director of Energy and Sustainability at UC Davis, testified about international energy trade before the U.S. House subcommittee on Energy and Power on May 7.

In her testimony, Jaffe explained why open trade and global investments in energy is integral to U.S. vital interests, and provided many reasons to how it can “enhance American power and influence by strengthening our ties to important allies and trading partners.”

Jaffe said that energy exports also improve the country’s balance of trade while maintaining the America’s free trade obligations to important neighbors such as Mexico and Canada, as well as more distant long-standing allies such as South Korea.

For Jaffe’s full testimony, click here

April 24, 2013

UC Davis researchers have released the second in a series of periodic progress reports on California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS). “Status Review of California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard, Spring 2013” is authored by ITS-Davis research engineer Sonia Yeh, assistant project scientist Julie Witcover, and Transportation Technology and Policy Ph.D. student Jeff Kessler. The work is funded through a California Air Resources Board (ARB) research contract.

Adopted by ARB in 2009, the LCFS requires transportation fuel providers such as oil companies and refiners to gradually reduce the carbon intensity of their fuel by at least 10 percent by 2020. The state began implementing the rule in 2011.

Like the first status review, published in November 2012, this data-rich report provides an update on LCFS compliance and markets, analyzes trends, identifies potential challenges and addresses a special topic. This report’s special topic is issues that affect compliance.

The report finds that fuel providers have been lowering the carbon intensity of fuels used in California. It also finds that, through December 2012, regulated industries accumulated LCFS credits that total about half their compliance obligation in 2013.

The exercise illustrates how the status quo relates to requirements for increased stringency in upcoming years, and is not meant to predict or project how the next few years will play out, the report indicates.

To comply in the future, industry will need to continue reducing the carbon intensity of fuels. Strategies include continued reductions in carbon intensity values of existing biofuels, greater use of low carbon intensity fuels such as liquid and gaseous biofuels made from wastes, new investments in cellulosic biofuels, and increased use of natural gas in trucks and buses, electricity in plug-in cars, and hydrogen in fuel cell vehicles.

To read the full report, visit: http://www.its.ucdavis.edu/?page_id=10063&pub_id=1861

To read the April 30 UC Davis news story, visit: http://news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=10562 

To read a related May 8 editorial in the journal Nature, visit: http://www.nature.com/news/the-cleaner-state-1.12944

Photo: The study found that, of net LCFS credits in 2012, 12% were from natural gas and bio-based gases. Photo credit: iStockphoto/Thinkstock

By Jonathan Mao • UC Davis 2014

The UC Davis Policy Institute for Energy, Environment and the Economy hosted three forums in April and May to address the impact of California’s freight sector on air quality and climate change.

• April 19, 11:30 – 1:00 pm : The Role of Freight Transportation in Achieving Clean Air, Climate Goals, Economic Growth and Healthy Communities in California
• April 26, 11:30 – 1:00 pm: Advanced Rail and Truck Technology Development and Deployment
• May 10, 11:30 – 1:00 pm: Planning for Change: How Regions are Planning to Modernize the Freight System in California

California has one of the largest freight industries in the country, and it is expected to grow rapidly in the near future. However, California is also the largest contributor to ozone-causing nitrogen oxide emissions and diesel particulate pollution, and a major contributor to climate change, including emissions of carbon dioxide and black carbon.

Recent incentive programs aimed at lowering emissions within California’s freight industry include AB118, the Carl Moyer program, and the AB32 Scoping Plan. Policy support, however, is not on the same level for low-emission freight transport as it is for light-duty passenger vehicles.

The forum series discussed how new freight transport technologies can help California achieve its clean-air goals by drawing on research that analyzes the ways in which researchers, policymakers, industry stakeholders and other experts can inform better policy.

For more information and to view the forum presentations, click here: http://policyinstitute.ucdavis.edu/?page_id=2319

By Alston Lim • UC Davis 2014

The city of Davis was the site of the first Biciculture Roadshow on April 16-17, a student-run symposium that included a wide variety of events to introduce and educate the public about the culture of bicycling.

The Biciculture Roadshow, which was held at the U.S. Bicycling Hall of Fame in Davis, gathered activists and scholars from around the nation to talk, ride and share bicycling culture to the community. The event also discussed the topic of bicycle research and activism and how the two intersect with policy, research and recreation.

Natalie Popovich, a Transportation Technology and Policy graduate student at ITS-Davis, and Sarah Rebolloso McCullough, a Ph.D. candidate in the UC Davis Department of Cultural Studies, spoke at the conference.

Popovich discussed her research on electric-bike users in the Davis-Sacramento Region.

McCullough disucussed cultural influences and outcomes of the origins and growth of mountain biking.

“What most excites us about this event is that we found a large number of scholars doing work on bicycling cultures in relative isolation,” said McCullough. “Bringing this community together in one space with advocates provides us the opportunity to jumpstart more comprehensive conversations about the role of culture on bicycling in the past, present and future.”

The free event was co-sponsored by the University of California Transportation Center.

 

For the complete program of events, visit: https://bicicultures.wordpress.com/bicicultures-roadshow/davis-program/

For more information about the Biciculture Roadshow, visit: https://bicicultures.wordpress.com/bicicultures-roadshow/

 

Photo: A student stands in a sea of bicycles commonly found on the UC Davis campus (Gregory Urquiaga, UC Davis)