Transportation

RESEARCH OVERVIEW

Automobile use in the developed and developing world is driving environmental, health, and quality of life impacts in and around cities, from greenhouse gas emissions, to pollution and traffic accidents, to long commutes and heavy congestion. Mobility futures in urban areas will need to evolve away from their existing form in order to avoid continued negative outcomes. Autonomous (self-driving) vehicles (AVs) are an emerging technology that may drive much of this change. However, in the absence of suitable policy and planning, widespread use of self-driving vehicles could significantly increase motorized travel and many of its associated impacts.

Part of the urban mobility challenge will require shifting the public’s mode choices toward transit, biking, walking, and vehicle sharing (car-, bike-, or ride- sharing). This requires understanding human motivation at the individual and household scale, as well as understanding the land use patterns at a community and citywide level that are conducive to sustainable forms of urban mobility. At the city and regional scales, it is important to understand which factors shape how cities coordinate sustainable land use-transportation planning and finance in metropolitan planning organizations and across the governments and authorities within their boundaries.

The network’s transportation-related work is concerned with better understanding these, as well as other, multi-scale factors affecting sustainable mobility futures, while also making connections to key societal outcomes and pathways of change.