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    <copyright>Copyright © 2026. National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.</copyright>
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    <managingEditor>tris-trb@nas.edu (Bill McLeod)</managingEditor>
    <webMaster>tris-trb@nas.edu (Bill McLeod)</webMaster>
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      <title>Review of Freight Investment Decision-Making Proceses in the Public Sector</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1331879</link>
      <description><![CDATA[While private-sector firms must rigorously justify investment decisions to show that they contribute to corporate and community goals, public-sector transportation agency decisions must consider a much wider set of concerns. The economic impacts of public-sector investment decisions on the freight system can often be influenced by other issues, and it is important to develop a better understanding of the cause and effect relationships. The objective of this project is to recommend methods that public sector transportation agencies, at all levels of government, can use to consider system performance, freight movement, and economic impact issues in making rational investment decisions. Determining a project's return on investment is of particular interest. Case studies of individual projects should be conducted that show 1) how freight impacts were considered in the project selection process, 2) the freight and economic objectives of the project, 3) the eventual outcome of the project with regard to the impact on freight movement efficiency and productivity, and 4) how the project outcomes relate to the original project goals. The case studies should cover significant public programs that affect all surface freight modes. The report should 1) compile successful practices and lessons learned; 2) discuss procedures for identifying projects that are likely to generate the greatest economic return, nationally, or regionally; and 3) identify the need for and benefits from potential statutory, regulatory, and institutional changes. It will be especially important that this project make explicit how measures of system performance and factors and techniques to quantify benefits and costs were employed.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 21 Nov 2014 01:05:17 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1331879</guid>
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      <title>Congestion and Accessibility: What's the Relationship?</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1233010</link>
      <description><![CDATA[This research examines how measures of transportation accessibility and congestion vary and relate in metropolitan areas. While congestion has been a perennial concern for transportation policymakers, planners, and researchers, traditional measures of congestion say little about the range and extent of opportunities that individuals are either gaining access to or missing out on because of the regional transportation system's functionality. Using GIS-based methods, empirical measures of accessibility will be developed that account both for mobility constraints at a given location and the potential destinations accessible within those constraints. These measures of accessibility will be compared to common measures of congestion at the local and regional scales. The project hypothesizes that within a region, the effects of congestion on accessibility are likely to vary considerably across a single region. Because of these differences, empirical measures of accessibility may provide researchers, engineers, planners, and policymakers with different insights into the transportation system's performance by emphasizing potential benefits for travelers rather than the mechanistic functioning of the infrastructure as do measures of congestion. This research, in other words, seeks to shift the unit of analysis in congestion measurement from the transportation network to travelers by focusing on accessibility instead of system performance.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 03 Jan 2013 14:49:14 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1233010</guid>
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      <title>A Comprehensive Approach for Evaluating Value Pricing and Innovative Financing Policies</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1231918</link>
      <description><![CDATA[This project will develop a comprehensive quantitative approach for evaluating the impact of value pricing and innovative financing policies on transportation system performance, considering both the revenue generation and reinvestment stages (hence the word "comprehensive" in the project title). System performance measures include efficiency (e.g. delay, travel time), equity (e.g. distributional effects on various income groups), and sustainability (e.g. fuel consumption, emissions). This research will achieve the research objectives by answering the following specific questions: How is transportation revenue (fuel tax revenue, toll revenue etc.) currently invested by various authorities? What are the impacts of value pricing and innovative financing policies on transportation system performance and various user groups in the long run, under the existing investment process? How about under alternative investment processes (e.g. revenue dedicated to highway capacity expansion, or more revenue invested on transit, or direct compensation to certain user groups)? How will the consideration of user benefits from revenue reinvestment influence the evaluation results? How can findings from this research be incorporated into policy debates on congestion pricing, transportation revenue generation, and transportation investment?]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 03 Jan 2013 14:28:35 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1231918</guid>
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      <title>Strategic Management System with Performance Measures for Rhode Island Department of Transportation</title>
      <link>https://rip.trb.org/View/1231909</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Performance measures have been incorporated almost universally by government and the private sector to monitor the effectiveness of operational strategies and to evaluate the success of achieving agency targets. A system of performance measures which flow from a sound strategy with strategic initiatives and goals have a variety of benefits. They provide accountability as well as feedback on the effectiveness of long-term strategies, and can drive improvement in processes for the delivery of transportation services. Performance measures in planning are used in reporting trends, conditions, and outcomes resulting from improvements to the transportation system. The ability to measure performance of key functional areas is essential to evaluating the organizational benefits of these functions. In the context of government, those functions that can demonstrate greater societal benefits garner political support and the corresponding budgetary support. However, those governmental functions that can't demonstrate and demonstrate their benefits to society have problems justifying their existence and budgetary support. Therefore, it is important that metrics be developed to measure the performance of governmental functions with links to financial benefits to society. In doing so, a function can easily justify its existence and can quantify increased budgetary support.  The aim of the project is to develop a Mission, Vision, Shared values, Agency level Strategy with selected strategic initiatives and key performance indicators that are consistent with the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Strategic Plan and that of the State of Rhode Island.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 03 Jan 2013 14:28:24 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://rip.trb.org/View/1231909</guid>
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