Ecodriving and Carbon Footprinting: Understanding How Public Education Can Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Fuel Use

Ecodriving is a collection of changes to driving behavior and vehicle maintenance designed to impact fuel consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in existing vehicles. Because of its promise to improve fuel economy within the existing fleet, ecodriving has gained increased attention in North America. One strategy to improve ecodriving is through public education with information on how to ecodrive. This report provides a review and study of ecodriving from several angles. The report offers a literature review of previous work and programs in ecodriving across the world. In addition, researchers completed interviews with experts in the field of public relations and public message campaigns to ascertain best practices for public campaigns. Further, the study also completed a set of focus groups evaluating consumer response to a series of websites that displayed ecodriving information. Finally, researchers conducted a set of surveys, including a controlled stated-response study conducted with approximately 100 University of California, Berkeley faculty, staff, and students, assessing the effectiveness of static ecodriving web-based information as well as an intercept clipboard survey in the San Francisco Bay Area. The stated-response study consisted of a comparison of the experimental and control groups. It found that exposure to ecodriving information influenced people’s driving behavior and some maintenance practices. The experimental group’s distributional shift was statistically significant, particularly for key practices including: lower highway cruising speed, driving behavior adjustment, and proper tire inflation. Within the experimental group (N = 51), fewer respondents significantly changed their maintenance practices (16%) than the majority that altered some driving practices (71%). This suggests intentionally altering driving behavior is easier than planning better maintenance practices. While it was evident that not everyone modifies their behavior as a result of reviewing the ecodriving website, even small shifts in behavior due to inexpensive information dissemination could be deemed cost effective in reducing fuel consumption and emissions

Innovative Corridors Initiative: Call for Submission Process and Evaluation

The Innovative Corridors Initiative (ICI) represents an innovative business model for public agencies to partner with private industry to improve transportation system management and provide real-time information to users. The Call for Submissions (CFS) issued by Caltrans, MTC, LA MTA, ITS America, and CCIT offered private industry access to public rights-of-way and data. However, no funds were offered as part of the CFS, meaning the companies that submitted a proposal and participated needed to have the capacity to self-fund their projects. This report provides a summary of the processes to implement the CFS including: public outreach, proposal review, negotiations between the public agencies and private companies, operations, coordination with the 2005 ITS World Congress in San Francisco, and project closure. Researchers chronicled the lessons learned throughout the process through a series of interviews conducted with the parties involved. Especially important were findings related to the public-private partnership for ITS deployment that the ICI project pioneered.UCD-ITS-RR-07-06, Civil Engineering

Innovative Corridors Initiative: Call for Submission Process and Evaluation

The Innovative Corridors Initiative (ICI) represents an innovative business model for public agencies to partner with private industry to improve transportation system management and provide real-time information to users. The Call for Submissions (CFS) issued by Caltrans, MTC, LA MTA, ITS America, and CCIT offered private industry access to public rights-of-way and data. However, no funds were offered as part of the CFS, meaning the companies that submitted a proposal and participated needed to have the capacity to self-fund their projects. This report provides a summary of the processes to implement the CFS including: public outreach, proposal review, negotiations between the public agencies and private companies, operations, coordination with the 2005 ITS World Congress in San Francisco, and project closure. Researchers chronicled the lessons learned throughout the process through a series of interviews conducted with the parties involved. Especially important were findings related to the public-private partnership for ITS deployment that the ICI project pioneered

Accelerating Deployment & Commercialization of ITS Technologies: California's Innovative Corridors Initiative

Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) show great potential for improving transportation system efficiency for users and system operators. Over the past decade, ITS technologies have been deployed in every major U.S. metropolitan area, on rural highways, and in smaller cities. However, institutional questions (e.g., interoperability and access to public rights-of-way) related to public-private partnerships must be addressed to facilitate ITS deployment and mainstreaming. Public agencies need to see tangible system management benefits, and the private sector must be able to demonstrate compelling business models. California's Innovative Corridors Initiative (ICI) is a multi-year effort with the goal of accelerating the development, testing, commercialization, and deployment of innovative Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) technologies, products, and services along major California corridors. The public sector is testing "a new way of doing business," by partnering with other governmental entities and the private sector, while streamlining processes to expedite the development and deployment of ITS technologies. A strategic partnership among the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA), the Intelligent Transportation Society of America (ITSA), and the California Center for Innovative Transportation (CCIT) merges the goals of the ICI with that of the ITS World Congress to promote awareness and deployment of ITS technologies and improve safety, reliability, convenience, and accessibility within the transportation network. The 2005 ITS World Congress in San Francisco, California will serve as a showcase platform for demonstrating pilot projects resulting from the Innovative Corridors Initiative