Evaluating Alternative Operations Strategies to Improve Travel Time ...

SHRP 2 L11: Final Report
To do this would require decision makers to consider major institutional and functional changes in
how our roadways (and the transportation system as a whole) are currently funded and operated.
That is, technical improvements, while highly beneficial in specific instances, would have only a
modest benefit to travel-time reliability. An important option is to balance travel demand and
transportation supply (capacity).
Balancing travel demand and transportation supply would require changes in the following areas:
• Cooperation among all agencies that provide transportation supply to integrate the
multimodal transportation services they support to maximize total available (useful)
capacity
• Ready availability of accurate information 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
• If pricing is used, charging travelers more directly for the transportation services they
receive. Volumes of cars and trucks that use a particular roadway influence 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
• Accountability of agencies for the quality of services they deliver
• Return of the funds generated from user fees to the agencies that supply the multi-modal,
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 would require a more holistic view of funding,
managing, and operating that transportation system than now occurs in the United States.
Consumers (individual travelers and shippers/carriers) would be given travel options, as well as
information about those travel options, would be charged separately and explicitly for each of
those options, and the cost associated with each option would reflect the costs of providing those
transportation services. Consumers would 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 would learn which travel options are valued
and could gain the funds required to supply those travel options through effective pricing.
In this system, some consumers, for some trips, would choose high-cost, faster, more reliable
travel options (e.g., overnight air express shipping, or SOV commuting via HOT lanes). Other
consumers would 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
expected results would 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 goes toward providing and improving that combination of
transportation services.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
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