Accessibility: the Future of Mobility

Innovation allowing us to use our time more flexibly and efficiently has become more important than finding ways to speed up travel. The implications for automakers are profound.

In August 1975, I headed west from Michigan in my new Chevy Van, personally customized for living on the road. My destination was the University of California, Berkeley, where I was enrolled to pursue a doctorate In transportation engineering. My van allowed me to experience the parks, mountains, and forests along the way. I felt like a prospector driven by the Gold Rush, but I was searching for new adventures instead of gold. My “rush” came from the freedom to go where I had never been before. As it turned out, this freedom ultimately motivated my research at Berkeley.

At the time, roadway transportation was a hot topic as significant safety, fuel economy and emissions regulations were established. Roadway transportation planning was fixated on the trips people made and the modes they used, with personal automobiles by far being the mode of choice. Governments collected data on trip origins and destinations, and then used it to plan highway projects and transit systems to accommodate predicted travel patterns.