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TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 660: Transportation Performance Management: Insight from Practitioners explores the concept of performance management and examines how transportation agencies bring performance management into the decision-making process. The report provides insight in four key areas of performance management - helping an organization focus on its key issues and challenges; engaging, empowering, and motivating employees; focusing on and understanding customer needs and concerns; and sustaining and expanding performance management throughout an organization. 
This guide, released by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials’ (AASHTO) Standing Committee on Rail Transportation (SCORT) in May 2010, provides a template for rail plan development and serves as flexible guidance to states launching state rail plans for the first time or for veteran programs looking to renew older plans with an eye to the future—and new funding.
A new report, titled European-United States Transportation Research Collaboration: Challenges and Opportunities, recognizes FHWA’s and Cambridge Systematics’ collaborative research program, Next Generation SIMulation (NGSIM), as a reference model for successful collaboration in transportation research between the United States and the European Union. Successful collaboration practices, such as NGSIM, are becoming more and more necessary in this day and age of rapid technological advances and reduced research resources.
TRB’s second Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP 2) Report, Performance Measurement Framework for Highway Capacity Decision-Making, explores a performance measurement framework that is designed to support the collaborative decision-making framework (CDMF) for additions to highway capacity being developed under the SHRP 2 Capacity research program. The report examines five broad areas of performance including transportation, environment, economics, community, and cost. Under these headings, the report identifies 17 performance factors, each of which are linked to key decision points in the CDMF.
Public sector agencies around the country are seeking creative solutions to closing an increasing gap between transportation infrastructure costs and funding. Public–private partnerships (PPPs) have the potential to provide part of this needed investment. In addition, some believe that PPPs can bring cost savings and efficiencies on project delivery and operations; however, there is not a lot of evidence to confirm this belief. This synthesis examines the information available in the United States and internationally that is needed to properly evaluate the benefits and risks associated with allowing the private sector to have a greater role in the financing and development of highway infrastructure, and how that information can be used in the decision-making process.
In March 2008, Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and contractor staff visited five Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPO) with proven track records of using travel model results to support the transportation planning process. A summary report documenting the findings of the visits is now available from the FHWA. The report summarizes how travel demand models and the resulting travel forecasts have been used in the regional planning process and how the travel demand models are used to address emerging issues. The report also summarizes the levels of support the regions have dedicated to the travel forecasting process and their plans for further enhancing the travel forecasting process.
Commissioned by the Association of American Railroads (AAR) at the request of the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission, this study examined the long-term capacity expansion needs of the continental U.S. freight railroads. The study focused on 52,340 miles of primary rail freight corridors, which constitute about one-third of all continental U.S. rail freight miles, and are expected to absorb the bulk of the forecast traffic and nearly all of the investment to expand capacity. The final report provides the first nationwide approximation of the rail freight infrastructure improvements and investments needed to meet the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT) projected demand for rail freight transportation in 2035.
Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Report 95: Traveler Response to Transportation System Changes, Chapter 17 - Transit-Oriented Development explores the transit-oriented development (TOD) land use strategy and its transportation impacts in terms of regional context, land use mix, and primary transit mode. This report is part of TCRP’s Traveler Response to Transportation System Changes Handbook series. The objective of the Handbook is to equip members of the transportation profession with a comprehensive, readily accessible, interpretive documentation of results and experience obtained across the United States and elsewhere.
This report, prepared for the USC Keston Institute for Public Finance and Infrastructure Policy, explores how the public interest can be protected when transportation concession agreements are executed. The report examines public concerns related to long-term concessions, reviews information that has been provided to decision-makers for recent concession deals, and highlights potential strategies to protect the public interest.
The Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC) is a proposed multi-use, statewide network of transportation routes that will incorporate existing and new highways, railways and utility right of ways. The Ports-to-Plains Corridor extends from the United States/Mexico border in Texas through Oklahoma and New Mexico to Denver, Colorado. In Texas, the Corridor spans more than 600 miles from Laredo to north of Amarillo. The Texas Department of Transportation (DOT) sponsored a case study to determine the impact the TTC may have on the Ports-to-Plains Corridor. The study revealed the TTC has the potential to enhance mobility and economic development along the Ports-to-Plains Corridor by providing new infrastructure capacity and options to existing and emerging industries, including cotton, ethanol and electricity. The TTC could also provide additional rail terminals and connectivity that could increase freight efficiency in the Ports-to-Plains Corridor.
The Florida DOT has experienced dramatic increases in highway construction costs over the past three years and has been forced to announce a number of project deferrals as a result. Cambridge Systematics has been assessing the Florida DOT's transportation capital project cost increases to determine which of the recent increases are short-term or cyclical and which may be long-term. The resulting report presents the key findings to date, provides a summary of the activities undertaken, and identifies a number of continuing actions that are designed to help the Florida DOT keep track of the current state and direction of the State's construction market, and enhance its planning and decision-making ability moving forward.
The final product of National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Project 20-24(49), is a report describing future financing options to meet the nation’s highway and transit investment needs from now through 2017. The report describes the gap between current revenues and the levels of investment needed to maintain and improve the nation’s highway and transit systems over the next decade. The report outlines short- and longer-term revenue options, both conventional and innovative, to generate additional revenues and close the funding gap. The options examined by the study would help sustain the Federal Highway Trust Fund (HTF) and enable all levels of government to respond to highway and transit system funding needs on a sustainable basis.
This 2007 Report is the sixth Annual Attainment Report on Transportation System Performance for the Maryland Department of Transportation (DOT). The purpose of this report is to evaluate the progress of the Maryland DOT, its five modal administrations, and the Maryland DOT’s sister agency the Maryland Transportation Authority (MdTA), in implementing the Maryland Transportation Plan (MTP) and the Consolidated Transportation Program (CTP). This report highlights MDOT’s performance and provides elected officials and the general public with information on the effectiveness of policies, programs, and investments in improving the State’s transportation services and facilities.
The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has published a Freight Financing Improvements Guidebook that describes funding and financing tools available for freight investments. The Guidebook has been designed to provide information to the FHWA, states, metropolitan planning organizations (MPO), and other parties interested in investing in freight infrastructure. The Guidebook is composed of four sections: 1) Funding and Financing Tools for Freight Investment, 2) Case Studies of Freight Financing, 3) References, and 4) Glossary of Terms.
As overall fuel efficiency of vehicles improves, the amount of state fuel tax collected may not be sufficient to maintain the condition and performance of the existing transportation system. To better understand how improved fuel efficiency might impact fuel tax revenues in Texas, CS developed a forecast of the Texas motor fleet fuel efficiency for the period of 2007 to 2031 and developed a model to determine how future state fuel tax revenues might be impacted.
The Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) Innovative Finance Quarterly newsletter features the latest information in Innovative Finance such as project highlights, SIB updates, legislative briefings, and more. Cambridge Systematics has been the managing editor of the newsletter since it was launched in 1996.
Prototype Software for an Environmental Information Management and Decision Support System (November 2006)
Effects of the Panama Canal Expansion on Texas Ports and Highway Corridor (October 2006)
Bay Area/California High-Speed Rail Ridership and Revenue Forecasting Study (2006)
Future Highway and Public Transportation Finance: Phase I: Current Outlook and Short-Term Solutions (May 2005)
Montana Highway Reconfiguration Study (May 2005)
Arizona DOT Regional Transportation Profile Guidelines (March 2005)
Blueprint Mississippi: A Business Approach to Mississippi’s Future (August 2004)
2010 and Beyond: A Vision of America’s Transportation Future (July 2004)
Do New Highways Attract Businesses? Case Study for North Country, New York (December 2003)
Florida New Cornerstone Economic Development Study (September 2003)
Economic Growth Effects of High-Speed Rail in California (July 2003)
Performance Measures for Small Communities (May 2003)
Mid-Atlantic Rail Operations Study (April 2003)
Regional Economic Effects of the I-5 Corridor/Columbia River Crossing Transportation Choke Points (April 2003)
Macroeconomic Impacts of the Florida Department of Transportation Work Program (February 2003)
Freight-Rail Bottom Line Report (January 2003)
New Paradigms for Local Public Transportation – Research Results Digest (December 2002)
The I-69 Evansville-to-Indianapolis Study, Economic Impact Summary Report (September 2002)
Transportation Management System Master Plan (September 2002)
Small Communities Benefits: Innovative Traffic Management Practices in Small Communities (August 2002)
Freight Impacts on Ohio’s Roadway System (March 2002)
The Benefits of Public Transportation Synthesis: An Overview (March 2002)
Federal Lands Alternative Transportation Systems Study (August 2001)
New Paradigms for Local Public Transportation – Task 5 Report (2000)
Public Transportation and the Nation’s Economy: A Quantitative Analysis of Public Transportation’s Economic Impact (October 1999)
New Paradigms for Local Public Transportation – Task 1 Report (1999)
Quick Response Freight Manual (September 1996)
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