Increased urbanization, population growth, and economic development within the U.S. have led to an increased demand for freight travel to meet the needs of individuals and businesses. Consequently, freight transportation has grown significantly over time and has expanded beyond the capacity of infrastructure, which has caused new challenges in many regions. To maintain quality of life and enhance public safety, more effort must be dedicated to investigating and planning in the area of traffic management and to assessing the impact of trucks on highway systems. Traffic diversion is an effective strategy to reduce the impact of incident-induced congestion, but alternative routes for truck traffic must be carefully selected based on a route’s restrictions on the size and weight of commercial vehicles, route’s operational characteristics, and safety considerations.
This pioneering text provides a holistic approach to decisionmaking in transportation project development and programming, whichcan help transportation professionals to optimize their investmentchoices. The authors present a proven set of methodologies forevaluating transportation projects that ensures that all costs andimpacts are taken into consideration. The text's logical organization gets readers started with asolid foundation in basic principles and then progressively buildson that foundation. Topics covered include: Developing performance measures for evaluation, estimatingtravel demand, and costing transportation projects Performing an economic efficiency evaluation that accounts forsuch factors as travel time, safety, and vehicle operatingcosts Evaluating a project's impact on economic development and landuse as well as its impact on society and culture Assessing a project's environmental impact, including airquality, noise, ecology, water resources, and aesthetics Evaluating alternative projects on the basis of multipleperformance criteria Programming transportation investments so that resources can beoptimally allocated to meet facility-specific and system-widegoals Each chapter begins with basic definitions and concepts followedby a methodology for impact assessment. Relevant legislation isdiscussed and available software for performing evaluations ispresented. At the end of each chapter, readers are providedresources for detailed investigation of particular topics. Theseinclude Internet sites and publications of international anddomestic agencies and research institutions. The authors alsoprovide a companion Web site that offers updates, data foranalysis, and case histories of project evaluation and decisionmaking. Given that billions of dollars are spent each year ontransportation systems in the United States alone, and that thereis a need for thorough and rational evaluation and decision makingfor cost-effective system preservation and improvement, this textshould be on the desks of all transportation planners, engineers,and educators. With exercises in every chapter, this text is anideal coursebook for the subject of transportation systems analysisand evaluation.
A multi-disciplinary approach to transportation planning fundamentals The Transportation Planning Handbook is a comprehensive, practice-oriented reference that presents the fundamental concepts of transportation planning alongside proven techniques. This new fourth edition is more strongly focused on serving the needs of all users, the role of safety in the planning process, and transportation planning in the context of societal concerns, including the development of more sustainable transportation solutions. The content structure has been redesigned with a new format that promotes a more functionally driven multimodal approach to planning, design, and implementation, including guidance toward the latest tools and technology. The material has been updated to reflect the latest changes to major transportation resources such as the HCM, MUTCD, HSM, and more, including the most current ADA accessibility regulations. Transportation planning has historically followed the rational planning model of defining objectives, identifying problems, generating and evaluating alternatives, and developing plans. Planners are increasingly expected to adopt a more multi-disciplinary approach, especially in light of the rising importance of sustainability and environmental concerns. This book presents the fundamentals of transportation planning in a multidisciplinary context, giving readers a practical reference for day-to-day answers. Serve the needs of all users Incorporate safety into the planning process Examine the latest transportation planning software packages Get up to date on the latest standards, recommendations, and codes Developed by The Institute of Transportation Engineers, this book is the culmination of over seventy years of transportation planning solutions, fully updated to reflect the needs of a changing society. For a comprehensive guide with practical answers, The Transportation Planning Handbook is an essential reference.
This open access book is the first to systematically introduce the principles of urban informatics and its application to every aspect of the city that involves its functioning, control, management, and future planning. It introduces new models and tools being developed to understand and implement these technologies that enable cities to function more efficiently – to become ‘smart’ and ‘sustainable’. The smart city has quickly emerged as computers have become ever smaller to the point where they can be embedded into the very fabric of the city, as well as being central to new ways in which the population can communicate and act. When cities are wired in this way, they have the potential to become sentient and responsive, generating massive streams of ‘big’ data in real time as well as providing immense opportunities for extracting new forms of urban data through crowdsourcing. This book offers a comprehensive review of the methods that form the core of urban informatics from various kinds of urban remote sensing to new approaches to machine learning and statistical modelling. It provides a detailed technical introduction to the wide array of tools information scientists need to develop the key urban analytics that are fundamental to learning about the smart city, and it outlines ways in which these tools can be used to inform design and policy so that cities can become more efficient with a greater concern for environment and equity.
NCHRP Report 649/NCFRP Report 3: Separation of Vehicles - CMV-Only Lanes presents an extensive compendium of information about CMV-only lanes and examines major issues and concepts that should be understood in developing new applications of CMV-only lane concepts as a potential method for both easing congestion and reducing the number of traffic accidents on highways. Appendices to this report, including an annotated literature review, performance evaluation criteria, benefits monetization factors and unit costs, and net present value calculations for benefit-cost analysis, are available on the TRB website. This report and the supplemental information can be used by public agencies that may be considering CMV-only lane concepts in corridor studies or other planning applications. The report provides data such agencies can use to support their own evaluations of CMV-only lane projects.
This synthesis will be of interest to staff of state departments of transportation responsible for highway routing, traffic engineering, traffic operations and signing, and maintenance. It will also be useful to state police, who may also be responsible for routing, and other enforcement personnel, as well as to emergency and fire personnel. The trucking industry will also find the information of value to their operations. Information is presented on the current practices of states for the highway routing of vehicles that transport hazardous materials. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) in 1994 issued Guidelines for Applying Criteria to Designate Routes for Transporting Hazardous Materials, which are used by agencies that elect to designate such routes. This report of the Transportation Research Board is based on information obtained from a survey of states concerning the routing of hazardous materials vehicles that asked respondents to rate the importance of 24 factors in the categories of roadway, environment, population, or other criteria in establishing routing policy. The survey also identified the principal agencies responsible for routing, as well as other agencies that typically participate in the routing plan. Enforcement and cost issues are discussed, as is risk assessment. This report presents a unique discussion of the issues as identified by interviews with trucking trade associations and other organizations involved with hazardous materials transport. In addition, technology applicable to more effective monitoring and enforcement is described. The appendices include commodity flow studies and route designation case studies for selected jurisdictions.
"TRB's National Cooperative Freight Research Program (NCFRP) Research Report 38: Guide for Conducting Benefit-Cost Analyses of Multimodal, Multijurisdictional Freight Corridor Investments explores how to conduct benefit-cost analyses (BCAs). A BCA is an analytical framework used to evaluate public investment decisions including transportation investments. BCA is defined as a collection of methods and rules for assessing the social costs and benefits of alternative public policies. It promotes efficiency by identifying the set of feasible projects that would yield the largest positive net benefits to society." --
This report makes recommendations for good practice bringing the results of economic appraisals and environmental assessments before decision makers in the transport sector on the basis of reviews of recent experience in infrastructure planning and policy development in seven countries.
