Transportation Decision Making

Transportation Decision Making
Author: Kumares C. Sinha
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 576
Release: 2011-09-09
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 1118169662

This pioneering text provides a holistic approach to decisionmaking in transportation project development and programming, whichcan help transportation professionals to optimize their investmentchoices. The authors present a proven set of methodologies forevaluating transportation projects that ensures that all costs andimpacts are taken into consideration. The text's logical organization gets readers started with asolid foundation in basic principles and then progressively buildson that foundation. Topics covered include: Developing performance measures for evaluation, estimatingtravel demand, and costing transportation projects Performing an economic efficiency evaluation that accounts forsuch factors as travel time, safety, and vehicle operatingcosts Evaluating a project's impact on economic development and landuse as well as its impact on society and culture Assessing a project's environmental impact, including airquality, noise, ecology, water resources, and aesthetics Evaluating alternative projects on the basis of multipleperformance criteria Programming transportation investments so that resources can beoptimally allocated to meet facility-specific and system-widegoals Each chapter begins with basic definitions and concepts followedby a methodology for impact assessment. Relevant legislation isdiscussed and available software for performing evaluations ispresented. At the end of each chapter, readers are providedresources for detailed investigation of particular topics. Theseinclude Internet sites and publications of international anddomestic agencies and research institutions. The authors alsoprovide a companion Web site that offers updates, data foranalysis, and case histories of project evaluation and decisionmaking. Given that billions of dollars are spent each year ontransportation systems in the United States alone, and that thereis a need for thorough and rational evaluation and decision makingfor cost-effective system preservation and improvement, this textshould be on the desks of all transportation planners, engineers,and educators. With exercises in every chapter, this text is anideal coursebook for the subject of transportation systems analysisand evaluation.

Impact Assessment and Evaluation in Transportation Planning

Impact Assessment and Evaluation in Transportation Planning
Author: Peter Nijkamp
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 251
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9401582939

Impact Assessment and Evaluation in Transportation Planning contains a refreshing approach to transportation planning by integrating impact analysis and evaluation methodology. It is original in that impact assessment and evaluation are brought together in a coherent framework. It is novel in the history of transportation science and particularly suitable as a pedagogical text, since methodologies are illustrated with various case studies and examples. It is particularly suitable for practitioners and students who want to become acquainted with conflict analysis and plan/project evaluation in the area of transportation planning.

National Transportation Planning

National Transportation Planning
Author: Adib Kanafani
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 119
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9400975473

Soon after starting work on the development of a methodology for national trans portation planning in Venezuela, we realized the importance of an integrated management process for such an effort. We also realized the absence in the literature of specific guidelines on how to manage and conduct a transportation planning effort. The literature on the subject of national transportation planning is predominantly theoretical and technical in nature. To a large extent, the absence of literature on management and broad-based methodological approaches reflects the limited and ad hoc nature of the experience in national transportation planning. This book is an attempt to fill that gap. The main objective of the book is to show one way by which a methodology for national transportation planning can be integrated into a process management framework. It reports on the experience that the authors had in the Venezuelan case, as well as in earlier national planning efforts. The book is not intended as a theoretical discussion of planning. Instead, it adopts a particular theoretical stand and proceeds on that basis to develop a program for applying a specific methodology. The intention is to leave as much of the details and elaborations of that methodology to the user. This is motivated by two considerations. The first is a pragmatic attempt to limit the scope of the book.