Incorporating Sustainability into TxDOT's Transportation Decision Making - Summary of Work Performed, Methods Used and Results Achieved (5-5541-01-1)

For this research project, sustainable transportation can be viewed as the provision of safe, effective, and efficient access and mobility into the future while considering economic, social, and environmental needs. This project developed a performance measurement-based sustainability evaluation methodology for the Texas Department of Transportation's (TxDOT's) strategic plan. The research team defined a set of objectives and performance measures that addressed the five goals of TxDOT's strategic plan as well as sustainable transportation concerns. Researchers used a multi-criteria decision-making methodology to evaluate, benchmark, and aggregate the performance measures into a set of "sustainability index" values. The methodology, applicable at the highway corridor level, was integrated into a user-friendly, spreadsheet-based analysis tool that provided the sustainability index values (for current and future scenarios) as an output for a particular corridor. The analysis tool was used to carry out several case studies. The methodology and tool developed were found to be useful to assess progress towards TxDOT's strategic plan goals while also addressing sustainability issues. The results and findings could be used to compare relative sustainability of different corridors, or assess the corridors over a period of time.