Evaluating Alternative Operations Strategies to Improve Travel Time ...

SHRP 2 L11: Final Report
Balancing travel demand and transportation supply will require changes in the following areas:
• all agencies that provide transportation supply would work cooperatively to integrate the
multimodal transportation services they support to maximize total available (useful)
capacity
• accurate information would easily available describing available travel options, the
expected travel times for those options, and the prices to be paid for each of those options,
so that travelers and shippers can make informed choices when they plan trips, just prior to
the execution of those trips, and during the execution of those trips
• travelers would be required to pay more directly for the transportation services they
receive, and set prices to reflect both the cost of providing transportation services – to
providers as well as to other users - and the value received by the traveler
• agencies that deliver those services would be held more directly accountable for the quality
of those services
• the funds generated from user fees would be returned to the agencies that supply the multimodal,
integrated transportation services being used to give them significant incentive to
identify, select, and deploy effective services and technologies.
Operating a more reliable transportation system will require a more holistic view of funding,
managing, and operating that transportation system than now occurs in the United States. It will
require that consumers (individual travelers and shippers/carriers) be given travel options, as well
as information about those travel options, be charged separately and explicitly for each of those
options, and that the cost associated with each option reflect the costs of providing those
transportation services. Consumers will then be able to select intelligently among the different
transportation options, trading off cost versus level of service, including reliability. By observing
the behavior of consumers, transportation agencies will learn which travel options are valued and
(through effective pricing) will gain the funds required to supply those travel options.
In this system, some consumers, for some trips, will choose high cost, faster, more reliable travel
options (e.g., overnight air express shipping, or SOV commuting via HOT lanes). Other consumers
will choose slower options with less reliable travel times that cost them considerably less (e.g.,
conventional ground shipping, or local bus service operating in mixed traffic). The results will be
that:
• Travel consumers have choices
• Travel consumers know what those choices are
• Travel consumers have monetary incentives to select among those travel options based on
the agency and social costs to provide the services
• The revenue generated will go toward providing and improving that combination of
transportation services.
Improved transportation system reliability does not mean that all travel will take place at the speed
limit. It means that consumers will be able to obtain estimates of how long a trip will take, know
that the estimate is reasonably accurate, and make travel decisions accordingly.
A CONCEPT OF OPERATIONS Page 113