Information Needs to Support State and Local Transportation Decision Making Into the 21st Century


Book Description

The conference provided an opportunity for participants to (a) identify the types of data that are critical for planning and policy analysis; (b) identify data-collection requirements; (c) discuss the appropriate roles of and relationships among federal, state, and local agencies in the context of data collection and dissemination; and (d) review the impact of technological advances on data collection and dissemination. The invitation-only conference included participants from state departments of transportation (DOTs), metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), and federal agencies providing broad representation of the transportation planning and policy communities. Significant effort was made to include a full spectrum of policy, management, and front-line analysts who have extensive experience in answering policy questions, supporting the planning process, and responding to federal reporting requirements.




Transportation Statistics Beyond ISTEA


Book Description

In the years prior to passage of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) of 1991, the quality and quantity of transportation data had reached a low ebb. Many federal data-collection programs had come to an end or had been pared back, reflecting increased costs of traditional methods of data collection, shrinking budgets, and curtailed reporting requirements brough about by economic deregulation. In response to the growing information gap, ISTEA resurrected several key data-collection programs, created the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), and required BTS to identify information needs on an ongoing basis. This report summarizes key transportation information needs based on the Bureau's experience in responding to requests for statistics from decisionmakers, and on surveys, research, and conferences that BTS has held or co-sponsored with other organizations.










Environmental Information Management and Decision Support System


Book Description

The objective of this project was to develop a system for environmental information management and decision support for transportation plans, programs, projects, operations, and maintenance activities. This document contains the following appendixes to the implementation handbook: (B) Survey Results; (C) Use Cases; (D) Best Practices; (E) Laws and Regulations; and (F) Definitions of Entities.




Information Requirements for Transportation Economic Analysis


Book Description

Conference participants sought to identify gaps in the data and analytic tools needed to support economic analysis as related to transportation investment and to develop research proposals designed to fill those gaps. The opening day of the conference featured presentations by economists, transportation analysts, and policy makers on the theory and practice of economic analysis and its usefulness to decision makers. The second and third days of the conference revolved around participatory workshops. Six separate working groups deliberated over three questions: (1) What is the appropriate level of investment in transportation to encourage economic health? (2) How should projects be prioritized within a multimodal transportation program? (3) How much revenue is likely to flow from user charges, tolls, and other sources? At the conclusion of its deliberations, each working group developed a list of research proposals, which it then presented to the conference as a whole.




Refocusing Transportation Planning for the 21st Century


Book Description

Two conferences on Refocusing Transportation Planning for the 21st Century were held in 1999 following passage of the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21). The first conference focused on the identification of key trends, issues, and general areas of research. The results of Conference I, which produced stand-alone products, were used as input for Conference II. The second conference had the specific objective of producing research problem statements. Its mission was to review the results of the first conference by developing these statements. Conference II produced a number of detailed research statements that form the basis for the National Agenda for Transportation Planning Research. The proceedings of both conferences are presented in this report.




Measuring Personal Travel and Goods Movement


Book Description

TRB Special Report 277 - Measuring Personal Travel and Goods Movement recommends a series of actions the U.S. Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) should take to render its flagship surveys -- the National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) and the Commodity Flow Survey (CFS) -- more effective in meeting the needs of a broad spectrum of data users. The report also recommends approaches BTS and its survey partners should adopt to develop more effective survey methods and address institutional issues affecting survey stability and quality. Report Summary published in the October-September 2004 issue of the TR News.







Location, Transport and Land-Use


Book Description

1. Theme and focus Few books are available to integrate the models for facilities siting, transportation, and land-use. Employing state-of-the-art quantitative-models and case-studies, this book would guide the siting of such facilities as transportation terminals, warehouses, nuclear power plants, military bases, landfills, emergency shelters, state parks, and industrial plants. The book also shows the use of statistical tools for forecasting and analyzing implications of land-use decisions. The idea is that la- use on a map is necessarily a consequence of individual, and often conflicting, siting decisions over time. Since facilities often develop to form a community, these decisions are interrelated spatially—i. e. , they need to be accessible to one another via the transportation system. It is our thesis that a common methodological procedure exists to analyze all these spatial-temporal constructs. While there are several monographs and texts on subjects related to this book's, this volume is unique in that it integrates existing practical and theoretical works on facility-location, transportation, and land-use. Instead of dealing with individual facility-location, transportation, or the resulting land-use pattern individually, it provides the underlying principles that are behind these types of models. Particularly of interest is the emphasis on counter-intuitive decisions that often escape our minds unless deliberate steps of analysis are taken. Oriented toward the fundamental principles of infrastructure management, the book transcends the traditional engineering and planning disciplines, where the main concerns are often exclusively either physical design, fiscal, socioeconomic or political considerations.