CITRIS Research Exchange - If Telecommunication is Such a Good Substitute for Travel, Why does Congestion Continue to Get Worse?

September 19, 2007: 11:00am - 12:00pm
Location: 290 Hearst Memorial Mining Building, the Maria & Dado Banatao Conference Room, UC Berkeley

Please join us for a talk by Patricia Mokhtarian, Faculty Associate of the Institute of Transportation Studies and Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UC Davis, on "If Telecommunication is Such a Good Substitute for Travel, Why does Congestion Continue to Get Worse?" on Sept. 19 at noon in 290 HMMB, UC Berkeley.

View talk online.

Part of the CITRIS Research Exchange at UC Berkeley. The complete schedule for the fall semester is online at RE-Fall2007. Sponsored by Infineon Technologies.

Abstract:

Since the dawn of recorded history, humans have devised means of communicating at a distance, and saving travel has been at least an implicit motivation for the creation of telecommunication technologies from the beginning. In recent years then, as information and communication technology (ICT) has gotten cheaper, easier to use, more effective, and more widely available, and as its use, therefore, has soared – surely its impact on congestion must be quite powerful by now? It does not seem so: travel by any measure continues to increase, and metropolitan congestion in particular shows little sign of abating. This talk explores a number of reasons for this counterintuitive result, and discusses the policy implications.

Biography:

Patricia L. Mokhtarian is a Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Associate Director for Education of the Institute of Transportation Studies, and Chair of the interdisciplinary graduate program in Transportation Technology and Policy at the University of California, Davis. She joined UC Davis in 1990, after nine years in regional planning and consulting in Southern California.

Dr. Mokhtarian has specialized in the study of travel behavior for 30 years. A key research interest has been the impact of telecommunications technology on travel behavior, with additional interests in congestion-response behavior, attitudes toward mobility, adoption of new transportation technologies, land use and transportation interactions and the transportation/air quality impacts of transportation demand management measures. She has authored or co-authored more than 160 refereed journal articles, technical reports, and other publications.

Dr. Mokhtarian is active with the Transportation Research Board, including serving as the founding chair (now emeritus member) of the standing Telecommunications and Travel Behavior Committee, as well as on several other standing committees and study panels. She is on the editorial boards of the Transportation Research Part A and Transportation journals. Her Ph.D. is in Operations Research, from Northwestern University.