Cal State Long Beach and five other institutions are taking part in a two-year, $11.2-million research consortium to address climate change and the environmental sustainability of transportation.
The new National Center for Sustainable Transportation (NCST), comprised of the six institutions, will be based at the University of California, Davis Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS). UC Davis was selected in a national competition to lead the consortium for the U.S. Department of Transportation.
UC Davis professor of environmental science and NCST Director Susan Handy said that the center’s goal is to help the federal agency reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from passenger and freight travel that contribute to climate change.
The NCST will receive $5.6 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation and $5.6 million in matching funds from state, regional and local agencies to support its research, according to Handy.
The other institutions in the consortium include University of California, Riverside; University of Vermont; Georgia Institute of Technology; and the University of Southern California.
UC Davis ITS Director Dan Sperling, who is also executive director at NCST, said that each university in the consortium will work on many projects focused on sustainable transportation.
“We’re going to do much research [like] coming up with strategies, policies, technologies for alternate fuels, for more efficient low-carbon vehicles, better forms of mobility and better infrastructure design,” Sperling said.
Handy said that funding from NCST will support campus research projects that employ graduate students and create new courses, seminars and extracurricular activities that focus on sustainable transportation.
According to Thomas O’Brien, director of the on-campus Research Center for International Trade and Transportation, CSULB is a sub-recipient of the grants awarded to continue and expand their work.
While the center’s technical start date was Sept. 30, the first meeting is planned for November, and projects are expected to begin in January, according to Handy.
Each of the centers is required to have a thematic focus, as well as research, education, and outreach components, according to O’Brien.
O’Brien said he is interested in focusing on the workforce capacity of CSULB’s transportation agencies.
“Whether [it’s through] education [or] training on college campuses, we want to prepare our students to do the work that needs to be done to make sure that our transportation systems are competitive,” O’Brien said. “We want to make sure that we are preparing you as students to meet the workforce challenges that are rapidly changing because of technology.”