Major technological and security changes in the aviation industry over the past 20 years have forced airport leaders and aviation stakeholders to think of new research ideas that will improve the planning and development of policies and new models that foster growth of air service, incorporate new airport and customer technology, revise airport business models, and better interact with neighboring communities. ACRP (Airport Cooperative Research Program) Web-Only Document 39: Policy and Planning Issues Ro...

How do we bring governance into the era of digitization so it can manage demand and supply digitally? At the same time, it is necessary to correct for the existing inequities in our system, working closer with public- and private-sector partners and developing the infrastructure needed to ensure that the transition to shared and autonomous vehicles (SAVs) minimizes the potential challenges and takes advantage of opportunities. This transition and its effects will not happen tomorrow, and there are severa...

Public transit agencies are increasingly partnering with mobility service providers. Among these providers are transportation network companies (TNCs), which include companies like Uber and Lyft and are the specific focus of this research effort. The transit industry has produced research to describe primary considerations transit agencies should have in mind for partnerships with TNCs, but existing research has yet to identify specific project frameworks for transit agencies that have decided to pursue ...

Examples of transformational technologies—many are discussed in technical and popular media—include wireless telecommunications, shared vehicles, connected vehicles, fully autonomous vehicles, alternative-fuel vehicles, smart cities and communities, big data analytics, internet-of-things, as well as UAVs or drones, 3-D printing, and more. Public agencies face significant challenges continuing to perform their governmental functions in the face of the private sector’s prodigious output of these new techno...

Global business and tourism depend heavily on the efficient operation of airports and movement of passengers, baggage, and cargo across many areas. With increasing demand and connectivity requirements for airports comes the need for more sophisticated simulation and modeling tools to validate design assumptions. Furthermore, airport design and planning decisions have significant impacts on policy and major capital improvement decisions, which can be supported by simulation and modeling tools at many leve...

"Upgauging” is an airline industry technique enabling air carriers to increase capacity by adding seats to existing jets and replacing smaller planes with larger ones. While these practices are generally the result of airline network and system-wide strategies, their impacts are often experienced at the local level by the airport community. Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Synthesis 97: How Airports Plan for Changing Aircraft Capacity: The Effects of Upgauging explores a broad concept of airli...

TRB’s pre-publication draft of Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Research Report 208 explores the use and effectiveness of strategic communications in building public support for transit-priority projects. Transit-priority projects are efforts to improve transit service, particularly in terms of speed and reliability, by prioritizing the movement of transit vehicles over automobiles. The report analyzes the communication approaches used by cities and transit agencies in the delivery of transit-...

TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Synthesis 538: Practices for Online Public Involvement summarizes current practices regarding online public participation strategies being used by state departments of transportation (DOTs), as well as explores the effectiveness of using these strategies and tools. Online public participation methods offer agencies the potential for expanded participation and also present new challenges and demand new thinking about the appropriate mix of techni...

TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Research Report 199: Climate Resilience and Benefit–Cost Analysis: A Handbook for Airports provides information on how to apply benefit–cost analysis tools and techniques to improve decision making affecting resilience of airport infrastructure projects in response to potential long-term impacts of climate change and extreme weather events. The handbook is designed to improve the process by which infrastructure investment strategies are evaluated, with an...

TCRP Synthesis 140: Comprehensive Bus Network Redesigns provides an overview of the current state of practice regarding comprehensive bus network redesign. The study examines practices among agencies of different sizes, geographic locations, and modes. The report captures the many components that are needed to successfully plan and implement a redesign and carefully considers the goals and objectives that agencies set forth when they began that process, helping them determine whether a redesign even made...