TRANSPORTATION ECONOMICS COMMITTEE (ABE20)
|
Committee |
Committee Name |
Liaison(s) |
A0030T |
Task Force on Data for Decisions and Performance Measures |
Nancy Bergeron |
ABC30 |
Performance Measurement |
Valentin Vulov |
ABC40 |
Transportation Asset Management |
Rimon Rafiah |
ABE10 |
Revenue and Finance |
Brian Weatherford |
ABE25 |
Congestion Pricing |
Brian Weatherford |
ABE30 |
Transportation Issues in Major US Cities |
Rabinder Bains |
ABE50 |
Transportation Demand Management |
Sisinnio Concas |
ADA50 |
Transportation Planning, Programming and Systems Evaluation |
Shiva K. Shrestha |
ADB10 |
Travel Behavior and Values |
Lei Zhang |
ADB40 |
Transportation Demand Forecasting |
Lei Zhang |
ADC10 |
Environmental Analysis in Transportation |
|
ADD10 |
Transportation and Economic Development |
Brian Weatherford /Nadia Gkritza |
ADD20 |
Social and Economic Factors of Transportation |
Rabinder Bains |
ADD30 |
Transportation and Land Development |
Kara Kockelman |
ADD40 |
Transportation and Sustainability |
|
ADD50 |
Environmental Justice in Transportation |
|
AHB15 |
Intelligent Transportation Systems |
Peter Rafferty |
AHB35 |
HOV, HOT, and MLs |
Mark Burris |
ANB20 |
Safety Data, Analysis and Evaluation |
Nancy Bergeron |
APO50 |
Bus Transit Systems |
|
ATO10 |
Freight Transportation Economics and Regulation |
Victor Aragonés / Nadia Gkritza / Paul Bingham |
AHB 10 |
Regional Transportation Systems Management and Operations |
Valentin Vulov |
AVO40 |
Aviation Economics and Forecasting Committee |
Katherine Harback |
(d) Review and update responsibilities for liaison with related TRB committees and other groups.
Technology Transfer: The committee recently took over the BCA website (formerly on CalTrans servers, now at bca.transportationeconomics.org) and has greatly enhanced the BCA website plus our own committee website (www.transportationeconomics.org). The committee’s internet working group includes:
· Internet Website/Webmaster – Sabya Mishra with help from Peter Rafferty, Sara Khoeini and Shanjiang Zhu.
The committee’s communication coordinator (Sabya Mishra) is a member of this working group which helps to keep the website coordinated with all of our other activities.
The committee’s BCA Task Force (who both help with the BCA website, but also work on BCA research and best practices) includes:
· Benefit Cost Analysis (http://bca.transportationeconomics.org/) – headed by Chris Williges with help from: Lei Zhang, Glen Weisbrod, Darren Timothy, Dan Brod, Rimon Rafiah, Mike Lawrence, Gui Sherin, Bryan Gibson and others. Chris Williges has produced a Google doc and Lei Zhang has created a wiki for the BCA website.
Additionally, we post the minutes of each meeting on the committee’s website. The committee secretary (Rabinder Bains with help from Darren Timothy) is charged with taking the minutes.
Other technology transfer items are noted above (under budgetary environment). Finally, we also use the TRB paper publishing process to transfer technology. The member in charge of the paper review is:
· Paper Review – Nancy Bergeron.
Rabinder Bains helps with the paper review process. Other volunteers are welcome.
Federal Initiatives on Transportation Economics: Federal efforts to promote economics-based decisions into the statewide and regional transportation planning processes will lead to the need for more guidance, research, and professional capacity building on the Committee strategies, analysis methods, and policy advice for a broader set of stakeholders.
Key Trends: There are some very strong trends, at the Federal, State, and regional levels that are propelling the transportation profession towards an increased need for and use of economic methods and measurements in the short-term of the next few years. These were discussed above, with the example of the TIGER grant process.
EXTERNAL FACTORS AND INFLUENCES THAT WILL SHAPE THE WORK OF THE COMMITTEE:
LONG TERM (2017 – 2021)
The Transportation Economics Committee is well positioned to monitor and at some point support the following longer term external factors that will influence transportation programs in general:
- Transportation re-authorization,
- Congestion Pricing, and
- Benefit-Cost Analysis.
All three of these items are related to one another and rapidly increasing in importance. Congestion pricing will likely play a much larger role in any new facilities and BCA will likely play a larger role in project selection. Both of these items are likely to be key aspects of new transportation legislation.
COMMITTEE PLAN
The Transportation Economics Committee recognizes that there are emerging, critical, and cross-cutting issues within transportation that may influence transportation economics applications over the next three years, especially from the perspective of strategic planning, decision making, and interaction with elected officials. In order to accomplish its goals, given these issues and both the short-term and long-term factors that can influence its mission, the Transportation Economics Committee has the following action plan for the next three years in three major categories: Outreach and Collaboration; Knowledge Transfer and Program Support; and Research and Technical Development. The major action items for these three categories of Transportation Economics Committee activity are outlined as follows.
Outreach and Collaboration
- Extend and encourage the application of economic concepts, perspectives, and methods on major issues in transportation (including TRB’s Critical Issues) by
- Preparing new research problem statements based on emerging issues, including joint sponsorship with other committees on crosscutting issues;
- Research Coordinator – Lei Zhang
- Research Needs Statements – Lei Zhang
- Maintaining a compendium of ongoing research projects and reporting on their status at the annual meeting;
- The committee chair writing to committee members and friends about three times per year;
- Marketing and enhancing the committee website (www.transportationeconomics.org) in order for it to be a one-stop site for information pertaining to transportation economics and benefit-cost analysis (bca.transportationeconomics.org) developments, activities, and best practices case examples.
- Illuminate the many applications of economic analysis to transportation decisions by
- Identifying potential topics for presentations at committee meetings;
- Considering opportunities for special events that focus on transportation economics; assigning a task force to plan and carry out each special event (see the working group “Papers, Sessions, and Conferences” above).
Knowledge Transfer and Program Support
- Work synergistically with related economics committees (ADD10, ABE10, ABE25, ATO10) to reinforce the use of economic concepts and methods, and strengthen and enhance the application of economic concepts and methods in those committees not primarily concerned with economics by
- Actively seeking out co-sponsoring opportunities with other TRB committees for sessions and events including crosscutting issues;
- Foster research collaboration with other committees through joint subcommittees. Current joint-subcommittees include:
- Joint Subcommittee on the Economics of Pricing, Darren Timothy, Chair, in conjunction with ABE25 – Congestion Pricing.
- Joint Subcommittee on Parking Pricing, Rachel Weinberger, Chair, in conjunction with ABE50 – Transportation Demand Management.
- Joint Subcommittee on Public-Private Partnerships, Jennifer Mayer, Chair, in conjunction with ABE10 – Revenue and Finance Committee, ALO10 –Transportation Law Committee, and AFH15 – Project Delivery Methods Committee.
- Joint Subcommittee on Risk and Resilience in Assessment and Planning, Silvana Croope, Chair, in conjunction with ABE40 Critical Transportation Infrastructure Protection.
- Maintaining a list of co-sponsored research, conferences, and sessions, and make the list available on the Transportation Economics Website.
- Ensure we maintain a focus on the goals and objectives of the committee. This includes continuous improvement and monitoring of our strategic plan. Valentin Vulov is heading this effort.
Research and Technical Development
- Improve the quality of TRB papers applying economics in transportation by
- Developing a one-page call for papers every March.
- Focus on generating Research Needs Statements and maintaining the RNS database. o The statements under development are available at http://www.transportationeconomics.org/research.
- The Committee formed a Task Force on Automated Vehicles in order to facilitate the formulation of RNS as well as outreach to the industry and coordinating research efforts in this area. The members of this Task Force are Mark Burris, Steven Bert, Hyeonshic Shin, Amy Kim, Rimon Rafiah, Micheal Lawerence, Richard Mudge, Nancy Bergeron, Susan Binder, Adrian Moore, Kara Kockelman, James Gillespie, Yafeng Yin, Jonathan Rubin, Darrnell Grisby, Silvana Croope, Pierre Vilain, Scott Peterson, Lei Zhang, Rabinder Bains, Cameron Gordon, Adrian Moore, Jon Skolnik, Eirini Kastrouni, and Karen White.
- Encourage significant involvement of the committee’s diverse and young members thru key appointments to sub-committee chairs and working task groups.
Planning
Near-Term Plan
Additional collaboration between committees is being developed by the Policy and Operations Group. Initial discussions identified the following three consensus research areas and issues within each of direct interest to our committee:
- Congestion Issues
- More experimental economics and behavioral economics research
- The why behind travel behavior changes
- Finance and infrastructure
- Managing infrastructure investment in a period of financial constraints
- Asset management
- Revenue and finance
- Public-private partnerships
- Technology Development, application and evaluation
- Managing infrastructure investment in a period of financial constraints
- Automated and connected vehicles. Formed a task force to determine what role we have to play in understanding the economic implications of this transformative technology.