Daniel Sperling

1. The Three Transportation Revolutions
… a call to action
Daniel Sperling
Distinguished Blue Planet Prize Professor and Founding Director
Institute of Transportation Studies
University of California, Davis
and
Board Member, California Air Resources Board
6 November 2018

2. UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies
World’s Premier University Center for
Sustainable Transportation
• 60 faculty and Ph.D. researchers
• 110 graduate students
• 100+ publications/year
Engagement/Sponsorship
• 60+ Company sponsorships
• 15 Government agencies
• Environmental NGO participation
2
Governor Schwarzenegger
announces California’s
Hydrogen Highway at UC Davis
Local and global focus
China-U.S. ZEV Policy Lab
Asilomar Conference on Transport
and Energy (biennial since 1988)
 National Center for Sustainable
Transportation (w/Georgia Tech, USC,
UC Riverside, and Univ Vermont)

3. Los Angeles (California) Pioneered Car-Centric Cities and
Lifestyles 100 Years Ago…. With Huge Economic, Environmental and
Social Benefits.
I-105 & I-110 in Los Angeles

4. But Gone Too Far … It Is Not a Sustainable Model

5. Innovations and Changes Needed to Create
More Sustainable Transport

6. 6
Shared
(pooled)
Electric
(ZEV)
Automated
(connected)
Electrification + Automation + Pooling/Sharing
… less cost, VKT, GHGs, pollution
… more accessibility/mobility

7. More Choice and Pooling are Key
… supported by policy
STRATEGIES
1. Encourage entrepreneurship
2. Incentivize “pooling” and more choice
3. Improve first/last mile access (transit
partnerships)
4. Introduce new options to poorly
served areas (including micro-transit)
 Reducing individual ownership
Pooling
Micro-transit
Pooling
Pooling

8. The 3 Revolutions Will Be Disruptive
• Taxis
• Transit
• Automotive industry (especially with MaaS)
• Oil companies
…. plus rental cars, insurance, parking, vehicle service and repair,
aftermarket vehicle parts suppliers, etc.

9. First Disruption: Taxis
In US, taxis lost half their passengers and continue to decline
Transit data from APTA, Taxi data from US Census, and
projections from Schaller Consulting (2018)
Lyft/Uber

10. Electric Vehicles Will Dominate… Not If, But When
(battery electric, plug-in hybrid, and hydrogen fuel cell electric)

11. Rapid Expansion in EVs Expected, Led by China
• E-buses
 increase from 370,000 in 2017 to 1.5M in 2030 (IEA)
• PEVs
 increase from 3.7M in 2017 to 13M in 2030 (+24%/yr)
• China
 PEVs increase from 2.2% of sales in 2017 (1/2 of global
sales) to 25% in 2030
Source: Global Forecasts by International Energy Agency (May 2018)

12. Global PEV Sales
12
China
USA
Norway
Germany
UK
France
Sweden
Canada
Belgium
South Korea
Netherlands
0
200000
400000
600000
800000
1000000
1200000
1400000
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
(YTD)
Annualsales
China USA Norway Germany
Japan UK France Sweden
Canada Belgium South Korea Netherlands
Other (70 nations)

13. E-Buses Will Be Low-Cost Option by 2030?
13
With State
Incentives
(HVIP + LCFS)
Ambrose et al (UC Davis), Exploring the Costs of
Electrification for California’s Transit Agencies,

14. All electric!

15. AVs Will Also Dominate and Be Even More Disruptive…
Hopefully With Large Public Benefits
Baidu working with Beijing Auto
using open source strategy
Zoox (California start-up) with
automated, shared, electric car (2020?)
DanaHull/Bloomberg

16. Key Uncertainty
Personally Owned or in a Mobility Service (pooled)?

17. 17
Source: Early findings from UC Davis/Berkeley “chauffer” study: Harb, M., Xiao, Y., Circella, G., Mokhtarian, P., &
Walker, J., presented at TRB Meeting, Washington D.C., January 8, 2018.
Pooling is Crucial… Huge Increase in VKT/VMT With
Individually Owned AVs (Hell Scenario)

18. Good News
3 Revs Will Likely Generate Large Increase in Jobs
Uncompensated personal “work” (driving) commercial activity
(mobility service companies) = many new jobs
• Housework analogy
• Automation + outsourcing
• “Chauffer” service increases
PMT from ~3% to 30+%

19. Key Issues and Insights… Toward Pooling and Pricing
• Encourage choice and entrepreneurship (dockless bikes/e-scooters,
microtransit, collectivos, car sharing—using new
information/communication technologies)
• Goal: VKT PKT
• Vision:
 Promote micro-mobility (dockless bikes and scooters, as well as walking!)
 Focus buses on what they do well (serving dense populations)
 Champion pooling as central strategy (cars, microtransit, bus, rail)
 Gradually reduce personal car ownership
• EVs central to low carbon future
• Need more active policy intervention to direct investments and behavior
toward pooling and “integration” of transit and pooling services