The University of California Transportation Center (UCTC) is a multi-campus organization headquartered on the UC Berkeley campus.
UCTC carries out basic and applied research, published in journals and on the Center’s web site. UTCs are asked to identify a “theme”, and the UCTC theme is transportation systems analysis and policy.
We organize and participate in conferences and workshops to discuss our research findings, inform public policy, and identify new and emerging research needs. We work with international, national, state, regional and local agencies and private organizations to put our research findings into practice.
We offer fellowships and mount new courses to entice the best students
into careers in transportation. We support education programs of UC academic departments offering
transportation degrees, run training sessions, lectures, and symposia for practitioners, and publish a
magazine designed to communicate our work to a broad nontechnical audience.
We are funded by the US Department of Transportation and the California Department of Transportation.
2008-2009 was UCTC’s 21st year as the Federal Region 9 University Transportation Center (UTC).
On the research front, a total of 15 new faculty initiated projects were started in 2008-9, along with another 15 projects that were carried forward from 2007-2008. A total of 36 faculty research reports were submitted during 2008-2009.
In addition, UCTC partnered with several organizations including the UC Transportation Sustainability Research Center, the Global Metropolitan Studies Center, the Traffic Safety Center, and the Center for a Sustainable California to expand research horizons and inform contemporary policy debates in the transportation field.
UCTC also undertook a number of educational and tech transfer activities, supporting the UCLA Lake Arrowhead conference, the UCTC student conference held this year at Riverside, a speaker series devoted to achieving California’s greenhouse reduction targets through sustainable transportation initiatives, and various activities of the Transportation Research Board.
FY 2008-2009 saw a change in UCTC directorship. On March 1, 2009, Professor Elizabeth Deakin stepped down as UCTC Director after 10 years of devoted leadership. Betty’s departure leaves big shoes to fill however fortunately for all, she will remain active in UCTC affairs. Under Betty’s stewardship, a new Strategic Plan for UCTC covering the 2007-2009 period was approved in February of this year.
UCTC’s mission is to significantly advance the state of the art in transportation research and practice and to expand the workforce of transportation professionals. To accomplish this, we 1) carry out basic and applied research, 2) support top-flight, multidisciplinary education programs, 3) provide an ongoing technology transfer programs that make research results available to a wide range of users in forms that can be readily implemented or applied. and 4) co-sponsor new transportation research, education, and tech transfer activities and entrerprises during their critical start-up phases.
