Introduction

I am delighted to welcome you to our inaugural issue of Transfers, the Pacific Southwest Region University Transportation Center’s research magazine. At the eight PSR partner campuses, transportation scholars try to unpack the many challenges of moving people and goods around a vast, complicated, and diverse region that includes California, Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii, and the Pacific Islands. Our region includes eight metropolitan areas of more than a million people, four of the nation’s busiest airports and its largest port complex, and the most influential high tech region in the world. It’s also home to rural farmland, sparse deserts, and remote islands.

As PSR director, I’m honored to lead a consortium of partners at the top of their fields in transportation research, education, and technology transfer. They include internationally-renowned experts in public transit, goods movement, system management, environmental resilience, alternative fuel vehicles, connected and automated vehicles, infrastructure engineering, and much more.

Transfers is our venue to present cutting-edge, often highly technical research in cogent, readable articles that will engage students, policymakers and practitioners, the wider transportation community, and the general public. Transfers will publish two digital issues each year, bringing recent scholarly findings to life through accessible writing, clear visuals, and, most importantly, straightforward policy implications that point the way toward real-world action.

This inaugural issue features captivating new work on generational travel patterns, people-powered mobility, technology’s impact on traffic safety, and municipal planning priorities. I’m grateful to UCLA professors Donald Shoup and Martin Wachs for their editorial leadership and to our editorial board, comprised of my fellow PSR campus directors, for steering the magazine forward. Future issues will offer the chance for scholars from across our region to convert their knowledge into action.

Thank you for reading, subscribing to, and spreading the word about Transfers. It’s a pleasure to have you aboard.