Compensating Community Members for Participation in Transportation Decision-Making: Emerging Best Practices

Public involvement is essential for developing transportation policies, programs, and projects and affects all phases of transportation decision-making. Not only is public involvement required by state and federal law, but it is also critical for building public trust, public support, and achieving sustainable, equitable decisions. In addition to more equitable and representative engagement, potential benefits include projects that better reflect community needs and values and a process that builds consensus, thus avoiding project delays. Despite longstanding efforts to create inclusive participation processes, many transportation agencies struggle to engage the breadth of the communities they serve, particularly with communities that have been underrepresented.  To broaden public participation, a growing number of state departments of transportation (DOTs), metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), and local governments are exploring compensating individuals or community organizations for their participation. These transportation agencies have piloted various approaches to participant compensation, such as small payments for meeting attendance or survey completion, stipends for members of community advisory groups, provision of childcare and food at public meetings, and mini-grants or consultant contracts for community-based organizations that assist in participation efforts. Research is needed to assist transportation agencies to understand when, why, and how to compensate community members and organizations to achieve effective and meaningful engagement. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study is to develop a practitioner guide to developing, implementing, and evaluating a program to compensate community members and organizations for participating in the transportation decision-making process. 

• Record URL:
  • http://apps.trb.org/cmsfeed/TRBNetProjectDisplay.asp?ProjectID=5694
• Supplemental Notes:
  • Contract to a Performing Organization has not yet been awarded.

Language

• English

Project

• Funding: $400,000.00
• Contract Numbers:

  Project 20-137

• Sponsor Organizations:

  National Cooperative Highway Research Program

  Transportation Research Board
  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001

  American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO)

  444 North Capitol Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001

  Federal Highway Administration

  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Project Managers:

  Weeks, Jennifer

• Start Date: 20250114
• Expected Completion Date: 0
• Actual Completion Date: 0

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Best practices; Equity; Incentives; Public participation; State departments of transportation; Transportation planning
• Subject Areas: Finance; Planning and Forecasting; Society; Transportation (General);

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01919138
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Transportation Research Board
• Contract Numbers: Project 20-137
• Files: TRB, RIP
• Created Date: May 20 2024 7:59PM