The UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS) is one of the leading transportation policy research centers in the U.S. The ITS works closely with and is generously funded by two organizations-the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies and the University of California Transportation Center (UCTC). Each year dozens of ITS faculty, students, and research staff collaborate on a wide array of transportation policy and planning studies, ranging from an analysis of the travel trends and transportation needs of immigrants and low-income workers, to the testing and evaluation of innovative fare programs to increase public transit use.

Transportation research at UCLA has made a difference. ITS-affiliated research has been cited by President Clinton in announcing changes to federal welfare policy, has lead changes in the federal Internal Revenue Code to encourage commuting by alternative travel modes, and ITS research on measuring public transit costs recently won the top transportation policy research award from the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies of Science and Engineering. In 2003, "The Geography of Transit Crime: Documentation and Evaluation of Crime Incidence on and Around the Green Line Stations in Los Angeles" by Professors Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris and Robin Liggett, and PhD student Hiroyuki Iseki, won the annual Chester Rapkin Award for the best paper in the Journal of Planning Education and Research. In 2004, our students swept the CUTC (Council of University Transportation Centers) Transportation Awards. In the following years, students Paul Sorensen, Stephen Crosley, and Andrea Osgood have received Neville A. Parker Awards for their papers.

ITS students also make a difference. Graduates of the three ITS-affiliated degree programs in the Department of Policy Studies (Master of Public Policy) and Urban Planning (Master of Arts in Urban Planning, PhD in Urban Planning) are in leading positions in government, the private sector, and research. Since 1992 ITS has supported hundreds of these graduate transportation students with over $1,000,000 in Institute fellowships. In addition, ITS-affiliated research projects have trained and supported hundreds of graduate transportation students over the past decade.

ITS is also active in linking transportation research with policy and planning practice. Each fall since 1991, ITS researchers co-host (with the UCLA Extension Public Policy Program) the UCLA Lake Arrowhead Symposium on the Transportation – Land Use – Environment Connection. This invitation-only symposium brings leading transportation, land use, and environmental scholars together with top policy and planning practitioners from around the globe at a three day retreat in the San Bernardino Mountains. In 1995, 1999, 2003, and 2007, ITS-affiliated students hosted the system-wide University of California Transportation Research Conference. And, in addition, ITS has recently co-hosted three additional major conference and dozens of public lectures on a wide variety of topics, including Transportation and the Environment, and Transportation and Welfare Reform.

For further information please visit the ITS Web site.