Stockton UBM Program

As the county seat and largest city within San Joaquin County, Stockton is a relatively dense urban and

suburban environment compared to the otherwise rural Central Valley of California. Stockton is centrally located in California, historically contributing to its role as an economic and commercial transportation hub for the Valley's agricultural industry. Residents of Stockton often contend with long travel times to nearby cities and towns; the average travel time to work is over 30 minutes according to 2017-2021 Census data. The San Joaquin Council of Governments (SJCOG) identified an area of South Stockton as the location for its Stockton Mobility Collective (SMC) pilot, funded by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) Sustainable Transportation Equity Project (STEP). The project area has both a higher rate of poverty and higher concentration of people of color relative to greater Stockton, as well as a much higher rate of zero-vehicle households.

The SMC pilot includes several mobility initiatives: An EV carsharing service, a mobility-as-a-service mobile application, and a transportation incentives pilot. The incentives pilot, known as Transit and Shared Mobility Incentives, provides up to $300 in quarterly travel funds to income-eligible participants for a period of 18 months (beginning in July 2023). The funds can be used towards the EV carshare and e-bike pilots operating in Stockton, as well as public transit and intercity bus and rail such as Amtrak and Greyhound.

The SMC project team coordinated with local community-based organizations (CBOs) to recruit applicants for the Transit and Shared Mobility Incentives pilot, and approved applications at in-person community events based on income and residence address qualifications. The pilot enrolled an initial group of 350 participants in the summer and fall of 2023, with a plan to continually enroll additional applicants throughout the pilot pending available funds: As the prepaid debit cards will be loaded up to a balance of $300 per quarter, any unspent funds can be used towards additional cards.

Stockton also conducted a Universal Basic Income (UBI) pilot in 2019 called the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration (SEED), which provided $500 per month to 125 residents for a period of 24 months. While the Transit and Shared Mobility Incentives pilot is an initiative in UBM rather than UBI, the two concepts share certain principles and there may be opportunities for the two pilots to be mutually informative to each other regarding conceptual opportunities, challenges, and outcomes.