Robert Cervero

Transit-oriented development is yet another domain where scholars disagree about its transportation impacts. A 2016 issue of Planning magazine referred to Robert Cervero as "the world's top expert on transit-oriented development". Research by him and others has linked TOD to reduced car ownership and usage, and correspondingly high ridership levels among those living and working near transit. Paul Mees, among others, has argued that the quality of transit services is more important in drawing people out of cars and into trains and buses than the location or density of development. Such debates aside, others point to other reasons for advancing TOD including increasing housing choices, physical activity, and social interaction.

While UC Berkeley was home for much of his academic life, Cervero has had visiting academic and research appointments at a number of other universities and institutions, including: University of Cambridge (Churchill College, Overseas Fellow); Nanyang Technological University (SMRT Visiting Professor); NYU-Abu Dhabi (Visiting Professor); University College London (Visiting Professor); University of Pennsylvania (Faculty Fellow); King Saud University (Academic Expert); Tongji University; University of Melbourne; Universidade Federal Do Rio de Janeiro; Institute of Technology Bandung; Korean Research Institute for Human Settlements; Harvard Institute for International Development; Dortmund University; and Urban Land Institute (Fellow). He has also chaired the International Association of Urban Environments, served on the Advisory Board of the World Economic Forum's Future of Urban Development and was a contributing author to the IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change) Fifth Assessment (2014) and UN-Habitat's Global Report on Sustainable Urban Mobility (2013).

Currently professor emeritus of City and Regional Planning, Cervero twice chaired Berkeley's urban planning department and also served as director of two research units: the University of California Transportation Center (UCTC, 2009-2017) and the Institute of Urban and Regional Development (IURD, 2009-2014). He held Berkeley planning department's first distinguished chair appointment, the Carmel P. Friesen Chair in Urban Studies from 2011 to 2016. Among his books are Beyond Mobility (2017), Transforming Cities with Transit (2013), Informal Transport in the Developing World (2001), The Transit Metropolis (1998), Transit Villages in the 21st Century (1997), Paratransit in America (1997), America's Suburban Centers (1989) and Suburban Gridlock (1986). His research earned him the first-ever Dale Prize for Excellence in Urban Planning Research and the Hsue-shen Tsien Gold Medal award for the translated version of The Transit Metropolis. In 2013, UMB's Future Cities ranked him among the top 100 City Innovators Worldwide. Cervero twice received the Article of the Year Award from the Journal of the American Planning Association .

In the early 2000s, Cervero got involved with the Active Living movement, serving as chair of the National Advisory Committee of the Active Living Research (ALR) program for more than decade. This affiliation with active-living research prompted him to become more physically active himself. In his fifties to mid-sixties, he averaged a marathon or ultramarathon a month, run mostly on trails. Running and active living extended into his transportation research as well, including involvement in several National Academy projects and research on "Running to Work".