The Transportation Sector accounts for the largest share (37%) of California’s total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, 27% from light duty vehicles.

 Since 2003, the most important energy-saving factor has been the increase in new-vehicle fuel economy. The new federal fuel economy standards will lead to at least 25% lower energy use and emissions in the future. However, these fuel economy standards are not sufficient to achieve the state’s 2050 GHG goals of reducing GHG emissions to 80% below 1990 levels. Even the more immediate 2020 passenger vehicle emission targets of 5 million megatons of GHG reductions cannot be achieved without better integrated land use development patterns in coordination with transportation networks.

As stated in the 2007 Integrated Energy Policy Report (IEPR), further research on land use and the impacts of development is necessary to both explain and quantify potential energy savings from better community design and integrated land use and transportation practices. Analytical data, scenario-based tools, methods, case studies, and a statewide model are needed to assist Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) and local governments in developing regional land use strategies to further reduce both Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) and GHG emissions.

There is little research that accounts for the total energy used in community systems, broadly defined to include all processes and products across geographically defined California communities. Many state programs and policies to reduce GHG emissions are implemented as single programs in isolation. Interdisciplinary research is needed to monitor their effectiveness. There is a need to expand on available research data on this subject and to comprehensively investigate the relationships among location, type of development, and energy use. A more coordinated and integrated understanding of the total energy and GHG emissions associated with transportation is needed, including the embedded energy in the vehicles and infrastructure.

Local elected officials, planners, consultants, policy-makers, and developers often lack guidance on how to translate state policies and regional plans into development criteria for individual cities and projects. Land use planning, natural resource management, economic development, and physical infrastructure planning are typically fragmented between different public agencies at the city, county, regional, and state levels. Existing planning tools are often ill-suited to support land-use decision makers in local governments to engage in an integrated sustainable energy systems approach.

Research is needed to help California communities become more sustainable. The research sponsored by this agreement will produce insights, syntheses, and tools that directly support the "technology transfer and outreach" of the sustainable energy systems approach to local government planners and decision-makers. The research findings will be made available to practitioners and local governments through a variety of technology transfer activities.