As California moves forward to reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions and secure a more sustainable future, research plays a key role in informing which policies should be implemented. California’s SB 375, a regional planning and smart growth initiative, requires many of the state’s regions to meet a target for reductions of greenhouse gas emissions from transportation. Regions and cities will coordinate their plans for new development and new transportation infrastructure in an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and create more sustainable regions. An important, but very difficult, part of this process is planners’ ability to predict how people will respond to the new development and transportation infrastructure. Also difficult to predict is the resulting greenhouse gas emissions.
The UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation recently convened a group of California’s top thinkers to discuss how the state can predict greenhouse gas emissions from transportation. Included in this group were leading faculty from the University of California System, influential policymakers and stakeholders, and some of the state’s leading technical expertise.
The diverse group discussed the future of travel and emissions modeling in California. “Modeling tools were developed 40 years ago and as we look 40 years in the future, we can expect more major changes in both travel patterns and how we measure greenhouse gases from transportation,” said Jerry Walters of Fehr & Peers, a modeling expert.
The symposium discussed these major changes, and how they were app. In the first panel, symposium participants discussed the integration of parcel-based economic land-use models, activity-based travel demand models, and modal vehicle emissions models to accurately model future greenhouse gas emissions. Later, the group discussed how greenhouse gas emissions from transportation could be attributed to the various levels of government, with a specific focus on how reductions in emissions could be attributed. The group discussed how natural experimentation and panel data could help researchers evaluate specific policies greenhouse gas reduction policies and better weigh greenhouse gas reductions along with other effects of the policies.
Later in the symposium, attendees discussed how to move forward. “Improving travel and greenhouse gas modeling will require researchers and those in the policy community to work together to develop new methods that improve our understanding of the effects of specific policy changes on greenhouse gas emissions from transportation,” said Juan Matute of the UCLA Program on Local Government Climate Action Policies. “The Symposium has jump-started this coordination to help California move toward a more sustainable future,” he added.
The “Measuring Progress towards Transportation GHG Goals” Symposium was co-sponsored by the UC Institute of Transportation Studies Multi-campus Research Program and Initiative and held March 5, 2010 on the UCLA Campus. More information on the symposium, including background materials and audio of the proceedings, are available on the symposium’s web site.
The event was co-sponsored by the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation and the UC Institute of Transportation Studies Multi-campus Research Program and Initiative on Sustainable Transport.
Download the audio recordings on the proceedings from iTunes.
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