The transpotation revolution: On track for a better future
Patricia Hu and Jennifer Young, both of ORNL`s Center for Transportation Analysis, paint a foreboding picture of life on America`s crowded highways. Their work shows that rush hour has become nearly an all-day affair, stretching from dawn until dusk, with only a brief midmorning lull. Their report, based on a U.S. Department of Transportation survey of more than 21,000 households across the country, suggests a number of reasons for this trend. More drivers are driving more cars more often than ever before. More women are working outside the home, and more women are getting drivers` licenses. Teenagers are driving more too - nearly twice as much as they did in the 1960`s. Even retirement-aged folks are getting in on the act, driving 40% more than they did 25 years ago. And society itself is changing: Referring to urban sprawl, Hu says, `You can`t really compare driving habits people has 30 years ago with the way we drive today. Thirty years ago, people could walk to the store, to school, even to work. Most of us can`t do that anymore.` Carmakers and policymakers have been taking these trends into account for some time. So have scientists, who see technology as the source of solutions to the issues the travel boom has brought about - issues such as increases in traffic congestion, energy consumption, and emissions of pollutants that may threaten personal health and the global climate`s stability. To help solve these problems and help keep the revolution rolling without derailing the economies it has bolstered, ORNL has joined forces with other laboratories, corporations, and universities. In fact, transportation research in Oak Ridge is a $100-million-a-year business, bringing together world-class scientists with specialities from advanced materials to communications technologies to supercomputing. The goal is to keep people in the driver`s seat of a transportation system that will carry us, as well as our children and grandchildren, through the next century.
- OSTI ID:
- 254565
- Journal Information:
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory Review, Vol. 28, Issue 2-3; Other Information: PBD: 1995
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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