About Mark Delucchi (Edit profile)

Mark Delucchi is a research scientist at the Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS) at the University of California, Berkeley (madelucchi@ucdavis.edu).

Can We Have Sustainable Transportation without Making People Drive Less or Giving up Suburban Living?

Mark Delucchi

City planners, transportation analysts, and policymakers have struggled to reconcile the promises and problems created by suburban land use and automobiles. On the one hand, automobile use and suburban living are widely and highly valued; as people become wealthier, they tend to buy cars and live in bigger homes farther away from central cities. Many urban planners, however, blame automobiles and automobile-driven sprawl for a wide range of problems, including climate change, road fatalities and injuries, rising traffic congestion, ugly urban form, oil dependency, and increasing social fragmentation. Most approaches to these problems focus on curtailing automobile use and its impacts. Outside of densely populated cities, however, it is hard to reduce personal automobile use.

Should We Try to Get the Prices Right?

Mark Delucchi

There is considerable interest these days in “getting the prices right” in transportation. Some environmentalists and supporters of mass transit believe the “right” prices will induce a lot of people to switch from cars to public transit. So they advocate a variety of additional charges on vehicles, fuel, road use, emissions, and so on. Some economists believe that the “right” prices will lead to an economically efficient and socially desirable use of transportation modes and fuels. In a society seeming to become ever more leery of government regulations, and concomitantly more enamored of “market” solutions to difficult social problems, there can be strong appeal to getting the prices right in transportation. Arguably, if we can estimate and implement transportation prices intelligently, without slighting efforts towards important social objectives that are not well addressed by pricing, then perhaps we ought to try to “get the prices right.” But that’s a big “if.”

Download the PDF.

The Total Cost of Motor-Vehicle Use

Mark Delucchi

What costs are involved in motor vehicle transportation? Many people consider only the dollars they spend on cars, maintenance, repair, fuel, lubricants, tires, parts, insurance, parking, tolls, registration, and fees. But motor vehicles cost society much more than what drivers spend on explicitly priced goods and services.

Download the PDF.

The Promise of Fuel-Cell Vehicles

Mark Delucchi and David Swan

In 1990 General Motors unveiled a new battery-powered electric vehicle, called the Impact – the flashiest, best-engineered electric vehicle ever. Thanks to an advanced electric drivetrain and a lightweight aerodynamic, energy-conversing body, the Impact accelerates faster than comparable gasoline-powered cars. However, even under the best conditions, despite its advanced technology and its state-of-the-art lead-acid battery, it will go no more than 120 miles and, as with all battery-powered vehicles, it requires hours to recharge.

Download the PDF.

2022-09-22T19:08:12+00:00Categories: ACCESS 03, Fall 1993|Tags: |

Environmentally Benign Automobiles

Daniel Sperling, Lee Schipper, Mark Delucchi, and Quanlu Wang

His dream has come true. There's now more than one vehicle for every licensed driver in the United States, and other developed countries are not far behind. But has the car's success created the conditions for its own demise? Conventional wisdom of market researchers, consultants, and other experts is that the automobile and its petroleum-powered internal combustion engine will be with us for a long time and that any energy and environmental problems can be readily solved. The automotive industry would very much like to believe that cheery prognosis - and perhaps it's correct.

Download the PDF.