Texas A&M Transportation Institute» economics

TTI Supports Texas Policy Makers

Tobey — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 22:49:48 +0000

Basing Informed Decisions on Reliable Research

Panama Canal Expansion

Officials are positioning Texas to capitalize on the Panama Canal expansion.

The expansion of the Panama Canal promises implications for global shipping patterns, including those influencing Texas ports. By any measure, those ports are critically important to the Texas economy, accounting for nearly 1.4 million jobs and more than $82 billion in personal income each year. The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) formed the Panama Canal Working Group in 2012 and sponsored a research study conducted by TTI to assess opportunities associated with the canal expansion, particularly the potential impacts on ports and landside infrastructure, including roadways, railroads and intermodal facilities. TTI examined previous studies on the canal expansion and heard from shippers, ports, carriers, industry groups and other stakeholders at a series of meetings. The overarching finding from the study is that the Panama Canal expansion — coupled with continued population grown in Texas, energy-sector developments and the emergence of new trading partners throughout the world — represents opportunities to expand Texas’ position as a global gateway for the nation. By providing a low-cost, reliable, safe, secure, multimodal and environmentally sustainable supply chain, the state can increase its global trade, create new jobs, and expand the state and national economies.

Impact of the Energy Sector on Roadways

Rapid growth in the energy industry creates both pros and cons for the state.

It’s hard to overstate the energy sector’s impact in Texas. The industry directly employs nearly 225,000 Texans in oil and gas exploration and production, accounting for almost 13 percent of all new jobs added in the state over the past year. The rapid growth of wind-power generation has further bolstered the energy sector’s contributions. But impacts can also be negative. Countless trucks carrying construction materials, heavy equipment, fracking water, petroleum products and other supplies strain roadways literally to the breaking point, necessitating extensive and expensive pavement repairs. Many truckloads are overweight, further exacerbating the problem. TTI researchers have worked with TxDOT to measure and project the impact of this wear and tear, which TxDOT estimates at roughly $2 billion per year for state and county road systems. TTI recommendations included donation agreements with energy companies, procedural changes related to early notification of development activity, and better coordination of road maintenance and repair.

Mobility Investment Priorities

Traffic congestion in Texas is choking our highways and economy. In our most congested cities, lost time and wasted fuel now cost us nearly $10 billion a year. However, this is not just a big-city issue. Stop-and-go traffic that slows down freight in our major cities will make small-town Texans pay more for groceries, clothes and countless other goods. Recognizing the growing urgency of this problem, the Texas Legislature set aside $300 million to get the state’s highest-priority roadway projects moving. TTI was assigned to help TxDOT and local agencies advance those projects with the most potential to improve mobility and strengthen local economies in the most congested regions of the state, as well as to help identify the most publicly acceptable options to pay for those projects. The Lone Star State’s population is growing, while transportation revenues are shrinking. TTI’s Mobility Investment Priorities project is assisting state leaders in closing that gap.

My 35 Expansion Project

Travelers, shippers and businesses are the focus of My 35 communication efforts.

In one of the most ambitious roadway improvement projects in the state’s history, TxDOT is expanding a 96-mile section of I-35 in Central Texas from four to six lanes. The effort is designed to alleviate traffic congestion that wastes both fuel and time for motorists, businesses and shippers. In addition, the expansion will help accommodate future increases in population, traffic volume and commercial activity as Texas continues to grow at a rapid pace. The collection of 17 separate but integrated construction projects will require $2.5 billion and five more years to complete. The massive effort also requires getting information — lots of information — to drivers and shippers planning trips and navigating lane closures and work zones characteristic of roadway expansions. To that end, TTI is providing TxDOT with a first-of-its-kind traveler information system that integrates three methods for capturing traffic data and forecasts congestion to provide that information to anyone who needs it.

Border Security and Mobility

Efficient border crossings are essential to the El Paso region’s economic prosperity.

For border-crossing users, time delays are inconvenient and costly. More accurate border wait times can help users plan additional travel times or adopt alternatives to reduce delays. Using radio frequency identification tags, researchers at TTI’s Center for International Intelligent Transportation Research in El Paso developed a website that combines delay performance measures with economic factors. Combining this information allows users to determine departure time and port-of-entry selection to help reduce delay costs. The website’s information also benefits policy makers by providing a way to track and analyze trends associated with delay costs at ports of entry.

Measuring the “Cost of Doing Nothing”

As Texas grows, demand for roadway space grows with it — even as available revenue and funding options become more limited. The cost of meeting future mobility needs is substantial, but the consequences of doing nothing to meet them are even greater. TTI calculated that expense in a number of ways, illustrating what life would be like in a state without transportation investment:

Over the next 15 years, congestion would cost the state an average of $20 billion each year.
Over the same time period, the delays experienced by commuters would double from 37 hours to 74 hours each year.
The additional 37 hours of delay would cost each household another $800 annually, increasing with each passing year.

Conversely, for every dollar spent on transportation, the state realizes at least $6 in economic benefits.

Toward a National Freight Data Architecture: TTI Researches the First Steps

Tobey — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 21:52:19 +0000

The efficient interdependency of moving freight by truck, rail and sea is more important than ever. Facilities like the Port of Tacoma in Tacoma, Wash., play a vital role in ensuring the nation’s economic prosperity.

Freight transportation is a powerful cog in our nation’s economic engine. Given the critical role that freight transportation — cargo moved by air, rail, truck, water and pipeline — plays in the nation’s prosperity, freight movement disruptions can have severe economic and national security ramifications. Although much information exists on all aspects of freight movement and their intricacies, a comprehensive catalog of freight-related data sources does not exist.

“Freight transportation is a huge enterprise, and we don’t really have a clear, comprehensive picture of freight movements in this country,” says Cesar Quiroga, manager of the Texas A&M Transportation Institute’s (TTI’s) San Antonio Office. “Integrating all of that comprehensive data is vital for transportation planners and decision makers. Looking into what’s needed in order to develop a national freight data architecture was the basis of our two-year project.”

NCFRP Project 12: Guidance for Developing a Freight Transportation Data Architecture identified numerous benefits that could result from such an architecture. For example, coordinated data sharing would aid overlapping government jurisdictions by offering information about how freight activities might affect them as they initiate new transportation improvement projects. An integrated freight data architecture would also provide a better understanding of supply chains and business processes while potentially eliminating freight data redundancies and inefficiencies.

“It’s important to note that we weren’t attempting to develop the freight data architecture,” Quiroga says. “Our goal in this project was to develop the framework, requirements and specifications for the architecture.”

Quiroga and his team conducted surveys of planners, analysts, shippers and motor carriers to better understand their needs and how they use current data. Borrowing elements from other data architecture initiatives, the team defined a national freight data architecture as “the manner in which data elements are organized and integrated for freight- transportation-related applications or business processes. The data architecture includes the necessary set of tools that describe the related functions or roles, components where those roles reside or apply, and data flows and components at different domain and aggregation levels.”

Part of the research effort was to identify challenges that could hinder the implementation of a freight data architecture at the national level. For example, some freight stakeholders, particularly in the private sector, may be reluctant to share data with their government counterparts. Likewise, some data might be available from data aggregators, but accessing this information could be very expensive. Along with identifying challenges, the team developed a catalog of strategies and recommendations for dealing with those challenges.

“Building a comprehensive data architecture from the outset would be extremely difficult,” Quiroga explains. “That’s why we recommended starting with just one element of freight transportation, like commodity flows, and then building up the architecture using strategic stepping stones.”

According to Transportation Research Board Senior Program Officer Bill Rogers, funding has been approved for a new project tentatively entitled Implementing the Freight Transportation Data Architecture: Data Element Dictionary, which will create and define a catalog of current freight data elements currently being collected. The dictionary will provide managers of data programs with an invaluable reference for identifying differences among variables and building bridges among data sets.

“The work that TTI did on this project was vital in articulating the value of establishing an architecture for linking data across transport modes, subjects and levels of geography to obtain essential information for transportation decision making,” Rogers says.

Providing Positive Protection for Work Zones

Tobey — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 17:17:22 +0000

When you get down to it, roadside safety is about minimizing negative impacts; in some cases, quite literally.

Safety in work zones is no different. The biggest threat to work-zone safety occurs when motorists and workers come into conflict — when a car strays into a work-zone area, for example, putting all involved at risk.

Of course, the safest solution is to always use positive protection to separate motorists and workers while work is ongoing. But that’s not always possible in today’s economic environment. Cash-strapped states have to optimize how resources are spent on their transportation networks.

Though the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) has had procedures in place for assessing the need for positive protection for years, those guidelines relied on specific assumptions about where intrusions might occur. The agency decided it needed more comprehensive guidelines, so a team led by Jerry Ullman, manager of the Texas A&M Transportation Institute’s Work Zone and Dynamic Message Sign Program, conducted a project to develop the needed guidelines.

“I feel that our real contribution in this project lies in generalizing the potential location of the worker or equipment throughout a given work-zone area,” says Ullman. “This makes our model more realistic and, therefore, more accurate when applied to real-world situations.”

Researchers looked at the number of vehicles traveling in a corridor to estimate the probability that a motorist-worker conflict would occur. Using those data, Ullman and his team compared the cost of installing and maintaining traffic barriers with the societal costs associated with injuries and deaths resulting from crashes. From there, they came up with specific break-even recommendations for when Texas should introduce positive protection to work zones.

Put simply, the study showed that the closer the work area is to the travel lanes, the more justified positive protection is. That’s because there’s a higher probability, with a closer proximity of motorist to worker, for conflict to occur. As the distance between the travel lanes and the work-zone area increases, the cost benefit of installing protective barriers decreases at lower volumes.

Researchers also found that steel and mobile barriers can be cost-effective alternatives for short-duration mobile operations with workers on foot in high-volume, high-speed corridors. Truck-mounted attenuators were also found to be very cost effective, offsetting their costs in less than a year of use in most cases.

“Through this project, the researchers were able to determine when and under what conditions barrier protection is justified,” says Research Engineer Wade Odell of TxDOT’s Office of Research and Technology Implementation. “This is significant in that the contractor can provide motorists with proper protection in a work zone and still provide the protection cost effectively.”

Celebrating 60 Years of Innovation: A history of saving lives, time and resources

Chris Sasser — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 20:32:19 +0000

Celebrating 60 Years of Innovation: A history of saving lives, time and resources

The original 1950 charter of the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI), given by the Texas A&M Board of Directors, charged the Institute with enlisting the broad resources of the college in all forms of transportation research, while giving students the opportunity to study and work in the transportation profession. This agreement solidified the Cooperative Research Program between the then-Texas Highway Department and TTI. Over the last six decades, TTI has provided accurate and timely research to address the state and nation’s most pressing transportation concerns. TTI research recommendations have consistently delivered results to its research sponsors — now numbering more than 200 annually around the globe. The world has been transformed since 1950. Today’s transportation challenges are magnified many times over in size, scope and importance to our economy and quality of life. The need for results-oriented transportation research has never been greater.

Human Factors and Roadside Safety

Left: Texas A&M University Associate Professor Emeritus Rodger Koppa, one of the pioneers of human factors research at TTI, specialized in the design of adaptive equipment for disabled drivers. Hundreds of disabled citizens have benefited from his research over the years.

Right: Dr. Teddy J. Hirsh’s research team invented the “Texas Crash Cushion” in the 1960s. Fatalities due to collisions with concrete abutments were completely eliminated in Houston, going from 27 in seven years to none in the two years following its installation on Houston freeways. Here, Hirsh and his team examine a successful crash test with then-Secretary of Transportation Alan S. Boyd and his wife.

Economics and Freight Movement

Top Left: (left to right) In this photo from 1968, Texas A&M President Earl Rudder, Under Secretary of Transportation Everitt Hutchinson, Dean Fred J. Benson and State Highway Engineer Dewitt C. Greer look at a model used to study various types of grade crossing situations.

Top Right and Bottom: Early economic and freight studies at TTI focused on estimating future needs of the trucking, rail, water and airline industries; improving safety at rail grade crossings; and developing the Interstate Highway System.

Mobility

Top Left: Charles Blumentritt (seated) discusses traffic programming using a then-state-of-the-art IBM 7094 computer. Standing left to right are Charles J. Keese, Charles Pinnell and Joe Wright.

Right: TTI researchers began their quest for better freeway operations in 1961 through work on Houston’s Gulf Freeway. This project was one of the first in the country to use time-lapse and aerial photography to develop mathematical models for use with new technologies and techniques such as ramp meters and computer-driven traffic surveillance and control centers.

TTI’s Former Directors

Left to Right: Fred Benson, Director, 1955-1962; Jack Keese, Director, 1962-1976; Charley Wootan, Director, 1976-1993; and Herb Richardson, Director, 1993-2006.

What Goes Around Comes Around: Transportation drives economic prosperity

Chris Sasser — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 20:18:46 +0000

TTI researchers are actively seeking solutions to fund the nation's transportation infrastructure. Photo courtesy TxDOT.

Money makes the world go ’round. In the classic 1873 Jules Verne novel, Around the World in Eighty Days, Phileas Fogg races the clock, traveling by boat, rail, hot-air balloon, stage coach and elephant in hopes of winning £20,000. Today’s rapidly changing technology is making virtual world travel an everyday occurrence. But as long as real people and goods have to get to real places, transportation will play a vital role in global economics.

“You have to look at economics in a broader perspective because things seemingly unconnected to transportation actually have a great impact on it,” says David Ellis, research scientist with the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI). “Looking at things from a system view, you can understand how many components impact each other.”

The systems perspective requires a breadth of expertise — from rail, ports, airports and trucking to infrastructure and financing. At the macro-economic level, whole business sectors depend on maintaining their transportation relationships to remain competitive. A current TTI project is helping a soybean trade association forecast future importing and exporting cost increases due to added U.S infrastructure costs and the financing involved. The goal is to determine how increased transportation costs will impact the ability to compete internationally.

Reducing travel times for commercial vehicles at U.S./Mexico border crossings could have a significant economic impact on both countries. TTI researchers are developing a border-crossing traffic simulation model to measure traffic movement during lane closures and other incidents, examining advanced technologies that provide real-time information on crossing times and delays and analyzing freight flows at different crossings. These activities also consider policy makers’ concerns with border security.

Assessing the benefits and costs associated with transportation projects is becoming more important with federal stimulus programs and other economic development efforts. Construction costs are easy to add up, and benefits like reduction in crashes or fatalities are relatively easy to measure. However, categorizing and quantifying other benefits associated with such factors as livability, sustainability or economic competitiveness are much more difficult, as is linking benefit-cost analyses (BCAs) to established performance measures.

Reducing travel times for commercial vehicles at U.S./Mexico border crossings could have a significant economic impact on both countries.

“Measuring livability and global competitiveness benefits are important,” notes Katie Turnbull, executive associate agency director for TTI and director of the Institute’s Transportation Economics Center. “The center provides opportunities for research and outreach on enhancing BCA to incorporate these and other topics.” The center recently assisted the U.S. Department of Transportation in hosting a best-practices workshop for conducting BCAs, enabling experts to share lessons learned.

Budget shortfalls often prevent transportation projects from going forward. When the Interstate Highway System first began, the gas tax — charged as cents per gallon sold, not by the price of a gallon of gas — was proposed as the best proxy user-based fee. But recent technological advancements save motorists money at the pump as vehicles become more fuel efficient and alternatively powered vehicles become more popular. As the amount of gas consumed slowly drops, the gas tax revenue decreases with it. Since most Texas highway construction and maintenance money comes from this source, a major funding problem looms on the horizon. Compounding the problem is the rising price of roadway construction.

TTI researchers see an economic perfect storm on the horizon. “The gas tax has been so invisible, most motorists don’t know there’s a problem,” says Ginger Goodin, senior research engineer. “We’re looking at what could happen in 20 years. Now is the time to start testing solutions.”

Goodin’s team is researching new funding options to consider, such as a fee based on mileage and congestion pricing strategies. TTI is also currently evaluating congestion pricing around the country and helping other states become proactive in using managed lanes.

From funding mechanisms to infrastructure design to border security, TTI researchers are seeking innovative answers to the age-old question: How do we pay for this?

Commentary on Economics

Jack Wells
Chief Economist
U.S. Department of Transportation

When you boil it down, economics is the study of getting progressively better output from a given input. That concept is central to transportation today — resources are limited, demand is growing, and capacity is increasingly inadequate. So the question becomes, how do we get more bang for our transportation buck?

Our transportation system faces several key problems. Congestion is one of these — the Texas Transportation Institute’s (TTI‘s) series of Urban Mobility Reports has documented the growing extent and intensity of this problem.

A second key problem is clarifying what objectives we want transportation to serve. For years, the primary goal of the transportation system has been simply “mobility” — as if the purpose of transportation is, simply, transportation. The Obama Administration is trying to articulate more clearly that we don’t want mobility for its own sake, but to advance goals like economic competitiveness and livability. A third key problem is how to pay for all the investment in transportation infrastructure that is needed. A fourth key problem is how to select the best transportation projects in which to invest our limited supply of investment funds. The Obama Administration is pushing for expanded use of economic analysis techniques — including benefit-cost analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis, and asset management techniques — to inform the project-selection process.

The U.S. Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT) recently created the Transportation Economics Center at TTI to mobilize the resources of the transportation economics community nationwide and bring them to bear on the key policy problems that U.S. DOT is trying to solve. For example, one key issue in measuring the benefits of alternative transportation projects is measuring the value of the time saved in transporting people and goods.

We have reasonably good measures of the value of passenger time, but we have little in the way of measures of the value to shippers of reducing the time (and increasing the reliability) involved in moving freight to its destination. We need better research on this and other key transportation policy questions. TTI‘s strong background in transportation policy research makes it well suited to bring together the work of transportation economics researchers nationwide.

Texas A&M Transportation Institute» economics

TTI Supports Texas Policy Makers

Basing Informed Decisions on Reliable Research

Panama Canal Expansion

Impact of the Energy Sector on Roadways

Mobility Investment Priorities

My 35 Expansion Project

Border Security and Mobility

Measuring the “Cost of Doing Nothing”

This Issue

From Texas to the Nation

On this page:

For more information:

Toward a National Freight Data Architecture: TTI Researches the First Steps

This Issue

From Texas to the Nation

On this page:

For more information:

Providing Positive Protection for Work Zones

This Issue

Partners in Transportation Research

On this page:

For more information:

Celebrating 60 Years of Innovation: A history of saving lives, time and resources

Celebrating 60 Years of Innovation: A history of saving lives, time and resources

Human Factors and Roadside Safety

Economics and Freight Movement

Mobility

TTI’s Former Directors

This Issue

Solving the Transportation Puzzle

On this page:

What Goes Around Comes Around: Transportation drives economic prosperity

Commentary on Economics

This Issue

Solving the Transportation Puzzle

On this page:

For more information: