California Air Resources Board

Online Seminar May 1, 2025: Register to Attend

CARB will host a seminar for a research study that updates and adds to a series of papers (policy briefs) that contain the latest research on the effects of transportation and land use policies and strategies on vehicle use and greenhouse gas emissions. This information may be of use to metropolitan planning organizations as they create sustainable communities strategies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions to comply with SB 375 and to others as they consider similar issues. The seminar will discuss the outcomes of the strategies, their relative costs, and how quickly they can be expected to take effect when implemented.

Date: Thursday, May 1, 2025
Time: 1:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.
Location: Zoom webinar (register)

Policy Briefs

CARB staff collaborated with researchers at the University of California at Davis and University of Southern California to examine the existing scientific literature on the effects of key transportation- and land use-related policies as strategies to reduce vehicle miles traveled and greenhouse gas emissions. The goal of this effort is to help strengthen the technical underpinnings of regional planning processes and identify important data gaps and research needs in support of SB 375.

The culmination of this collaborative effort is presented for each policy in the tables below. For earlier versions, this includes two documents: a policy brief and a more detailed technical background document for practitioners. For updates and new briefs completed in a new research project to be finalized in 2025, there is a single document containing a summary, policy brief, and technical background.

These materials may be used to help inform development of, and potential improvements to, the analytical models and tools used by metropolitan planning organizations and other public agencies for SB 375 implementation.

For the previous research, Susan Handy, Ph.D., UC Davis, discussed the results of research that support the policy briefs and technical background documents at a CARB research seminar held on October 7, 2014 (more information here). Additional information about the 2025 research project is forthcoming, and an online seminar is to be held on May 1, 2025.

Transportation-Related Policies

Land Use-Related Policies