News Tagged: Vmt

OTREC Research Featured in RITA UTC Spotlight Conference

Posted on November 13, 2012

The USDOT’s Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA) 7^th Annual UTC Spotlight Conference on Sustainable Energy and Transportation: Strategies, Research, and Data was held on November 8-9 in Washington, DC and featured OTREC energy related research from Portland State University and Oregon State University. This year’s conference focused on promoting dialogue and coordination among University Transportation Centers (UTCs), federal agencies, industry, and state and local agencies on research to address the complex and challenging issues concerning sustainable energy and transportation. The plenary and breakout sessions focused on research to improve energy efficiency, reduce dependence on fossil fuels, and identify of effective strategies to promote USDOT's strategic goals. As the U.S. moves toward a performance-based transportation bill, energy-focused environmental sustainability is expected to become one of the pillars against which success is measured if it is to become a national priority.

Dr. B. Starr McMullen, Oregon State University, took part on a plenary panel discussion on the interconnection of energy use, pricing and finance and highlighted two OTREC funded projects The Relationship Between VMT and Economic Activity and Socio-economic Effect of Vehicle Mileage Fees.

Dr. Jennifer Dill and John MacArthur presented research in an evening poster session:

• Portland State University’s Electric Avenue - A Living Lab for Transportation Electrification (John MacArthur, OTREC, Portland State University) PDF
• Reducing Energy Use by Using Data to Improve Multimodal Transportation Planning and Policy Decision Making in Metropolitan Areas (Jennifer Dill, OTREC, Portland State University) PDF

The conference created great dialogue, identified existing knowledge gaps and generated promising ideas for future research, which will be published in a conference proceedings. OTREC looks forward to continuing to address critical transportation needs in sync with national priorities and taking part in these valuable national dialogues.

Tags: electric vehicles, energy, jennifer dill, john macarthur, research, rita, starr mcmullen, utc, vehicle mileage fees, vmt

Report: Driving less won’t hurt the economy

Posted on June 4, 2012

With various governments encouraging people to drive less, economists have wondered if such goals can have the side effect of harming the economy. In most cases, the answer is no, OTREC researcher B. Starr McMullen concluded in a research report.

• Click here to read more about the research and to download the report.

It’s more than an academic question: driving and the economy do tend to rise and fall together. McMullen, a transportation economics professor at Oregon State University, examined the relationship between the two by looking at which happens first—a change in driving or a change in economic activity.

In general, economic growth leads to more driving, not the other way around, McMullen said. That’s particularly true for metropolitan areas, the very places most likely to pursue policies that reduce driving.

“The more economic activity you have, the more VMT [vehicle miles traveled] you’re going to have,” McMullen said.

On the other hand, if there are policies to reduce VMT and driving decreases, “you’re not going to have the economy fall apart," as some have suggested.

If a state sets a goal to reduce VMT or transportation emissions, it is reasonable to expect big urban areas to enact policies first, as they have the most emissions and the worst congestion. “The place it’s most obvious to do it is the metropolitan level,” McMullen said. “This is where the debate is right now and where a lot of (transportation) policy is made.”

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Tags: derived demand, economic activity, emissions, granger causality, greenhouse gases, starr mcmullen, transportation policy, vehicle miles traveled, vmt