Thi event explored innovation and disruption in urban mobility. There have been many new forms of mobility emerging in the urban transportation environment. This has led to increased traveler choice and controversy among the new entrants and existing service providers. Much of this can be attributed to external forces (e.g., rise in smartphones, decrease in driver’s license rates, socio-demographic changes, and recent economic decline), as well as the sharing economy (access to goods and services, which are rented or loaned, in contrast to ownership). Since 2010, there have been notable changes in the shared-use mobility arena, including ongoing growth in program memberships and fleet size, new entrants, and diversifying business models. Professor Shaheen examined trends, recent developments, and the impacts of these services. She has studied the social and environmental impacts of carsharing, bikesharing, ridesharing, and ridesourcing (e.g., UberX, Lyft, and Sidecar) in her research on shared mobility for over 15 years. She also discussed the current policy framework and how it is evolving to address these services.
Dr. Susan Shaheen is a co-director of the Transportation Sustainability Research Center (TSRC) of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California (UC), Berkeley. She is also an adjunct professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley. She was the first Honda Distinguished Scholar in Transportation at the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Davis from 2000 to 2012. She served as the Policy and Behavioral Research Program Leader at California Partners for Advanced Transit and Highways from 2003 to 2007, and as a special assistant to the Director’s Office of the California Department of Transportation from 2001 to 2004.
She has a Ph.D. in ecology, focusing on the energy and environmental aspects of transportation, from UC Davis and an M.S. in public policy analysis from the University of Rochester. After completing her master’s degree, she worked as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, D.C. From 2000 to 2001, she was a post-doctoral researcher at UC Berkeley.
She has authored 51 journal articles, over 100 reports and proceedings articles, three book chapters, and co-edited one book. She has also served as a guest editor for Energies and the International Journal of Sustainable Transportation (IJST). Her research projects on carsharing, smart parking, and older mobility have received national awards. In May 2010 and 2007, she received an “Excellence in Management” award from UC Berkeley. She has served on the ITS World Congress program committee since 2002 and was the chair of the Emerging and Innovative Public Transport and Technologies Committee of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) from 2004 to 2011. She is on the editorial board of IJST (2011 to present), a member of the National Academies’ Transit Research Analysis Committee (2011 to present) and member of the ITS Program Advisory Committee to the U.S. DOT Secretary, and chair of the subcommittee for Shared-Use Vehicle Public Transport Systems of TRB (2013 to present).