Original article appeared on the UCLA Samueli website
The Federal Highway Administration — an agency within the U.S. Department of Transportation — announced Tuesday it has awarded a five-year, $7.5 million grant to establish the Center of Excellence on New Mobility and Automated Vehicles at UCLA. The award will support research on the impacts of new mobility technologies and highly automated vehicles on the evolving transportation system when deployed at scale.
The Mobility Center of Excellence, as it will be informally known, is funded through the landmark 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (Infrastructure Investment and Job Act), which authorizes $1.2 trillion for transportation and infrastructure spending to improve transportation experience and equity.
“Digital connectivity, automation and electrification have dramatically changed the way we transport, both in terms of how people travel and how goods are delivered,” said center director Jiaqi Ma, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at UCLA Samueli and the associate director of the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies. “We will study the impacts of these new technologies and how they can be better leveraged to improve equitable access to transportation and job participation.”
Link to the complete article on the UCLA Samueli website, “$7.5 Million in Federal Funds to Establish Mobility Center of Excellence at UCLA”: https://samueli.ucla.edu/7-5-million-in-federal-funds-to-establish-mobility-center-of-excellence-at-ucla/