Project Summary
As emissions from millions of vehicles increase substantially every year, air quality is currently a major problem in California and it seems increasingly difficult to find effective solutions. These three independent yet related projects attempt to propose possible solutions to deal with California’s air pollution problem. The first project will evaluate and analyze the increasing interest for hybrid cars in California by quantifying the short term impacts of concerns for air pollution, energy efficiency policies, allowing single-occupant hybrid vehicle to use high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes in terms of availability, and long term impacts for air pollution and global warming. The second project attempts to analyze social and environmental impacts of pollution from freight train traffic from/to Southern California ports through Alameda Corridor.   The final project revises the work by Giuliano, Hwang and Wachs on the performance of Employee Trip Reduction Program (Rule 2202) in Southern California. This project will review, evaluate, and analyze the program with is part of Transportation Demand Management (TDM) for improving air quality and traffic congestion and making policy recommendations.
