The Center for Understanding Future Travel Behavior and Demand (TBD) is a National University Transportation Center established in 2023 by the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT). TBD’s vision is to undertake breakthrough research that will fundamentally re-examine and transform the scientific base for measuring, monitoring, modeling, and managing traveler behavior, thus fostering the design, development, and operation of a people-centric, multimodal, intelligent transportation system that meets the needs of people, institutions, and businesses for generations to come.

TBD aims to improve the mobility of people and goods within the nation’s transportation systems through:

1. Developing novel insights into travel behavior related to new technologies and mobility options in rural and urban areas, through integrated multidisciplinary streams of scientific inquiry,
2. Transferring knowledge to inform decision-making, and disseminating innovative solutions, technologies, and methods to the profession for implementation,
3. Educating the next generation of transportation professionals in fundamental concepts and emerging interdisciplinary techniques.

Led by The University of Texas at Austin and in partnership with Arizona State University, California State Polytechnic University – Pomona, Diné College, Georgia Institute of Technology, the City College of New York, University of Michigan, and University of Washington, the TBD Consortium is committed to serving all communities and the entirety of the US economy through the safe, efficient, accessible, equitable, and sustainable movement of people and goods. TBD’s focus is on breakthrough research that can transform practice, while also fully engaging people, communities, businesses, DOTs, and planning agencies to ensure that all research is motivated by its potential to make a real-world impact and that all TBD activities create opportunities for all.