Travel Importance and Strategic Investment in Vermont's Transportation Assets

Studies of the stated preferences of travelers indicate that different travelers value trips differently and suggest that non-discretionary trips should be treated differently from discretionary trips. The current Network Robustness Index (NRI) calculation treats all trips as equally valuable and equally important. While treating all trips as equally important can be considered a socially-equitable approach and it is the approach that is most common in practice, this project argues that the inclusion of trip-importance with respect to the reason for a trip is needed to move toward a more efficient modeling approach which provides information that is useful for strategic re-investment and strategic disinvestment. This project proposes to include consideration of the reason for travel, and the monetary value of different trip purposes, into the NRI methodology. Including trip values in the modeling approach will allow decision-makers to examine the impacts of travel-time delays to both discretionary and non-discretionary passenger trips on the entire network. In addition, consideration will be given to how delays to freight may affect the network. The types of decisions that are affected include prioritization of maintenance and improvement projects, influencing of route-choices and emergency-routes, and the need for development of communications infrastructure.

• Record URL:
  • http://www.uvm.edu/trc/university-transportation-center/utc-current-project-list/travel-importance-and-strategic-investment-in-vermonts-transportation-assets/
• Supplemental Notes:
  • http://www.uvm.edu/~transctr/research/trc_reports/UVM-TRC-13-016.pdf

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Completed
• Funding: $33001.00
• Contract Numbers:

  DTRT06-G-0018

  027399

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Research and Innovative Technology Administration

  University Transportation Centers Program
  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Project Managers:

  Aultman-Hall, Lisa

  Troy, Austin

• Performing Organizations:

  UVM Transportation Center

  University of Vermont
  210 Colchester Avenue
  Burlington, VT  United States  05405
• Principal Investigators:

  Sullivan, James

• Start Date: 20120101
• Expected Completion Date: 0
• Actual Completion Date: 20131231
• Source Data: RiP Project 31992

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Decision making; Passenger transportation; Travel time; Travelers; Trip purpose
• Identifier Terms: Network Robustness Index
• Uncontrolled Terms: Discretionary trips
• Subject Areas: Passenger Transportation; Planning and Forecasting; Policy; Transportation (General);

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01566192
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: UVM Transportation Center
• Contract Numbers: DTRT06-G-0018, 027399
• Files: UTC, RIP
• Created Date: Jun 12 2015 1:01AM