• Growing volumes of harmful truck emissions foul the air and threaten our health.
• Increasing amounts of cargo on an already-congested network mean costly delays for shippers and higher costs for consumers.
• Declining levels of transportation funding make it increasingly difficult to repair the roadway wear and tear caused by heavy trucks.

Most experts agree: the problem has become so severe that nothing short of a game-changing development can make a meaningful difference. Fortunately, that development may be on the horizon.

Picture a system in which transporters powered by electric motors carry trailers from trucks and containers from ships on an elevated track above existing highway right-of-way, safely separated from passenger traffic. Picture a system that produces less air pollution, less traffic congestion, less wear and tear on the roads, and less noise. Clearly, it’s a more sustainable scenario, one that would add an essential new link in the transport chain of a trucking industry suffering from a severe nationwide shortage of drivers.

The Freight Shuttle System will make freight transportation safer, cleaner and more economical through innovations like raising the system itself up on guideways to take advantage of vertical space in existing rights-of-way.

Sound too good to be true? It’s not. It’s a system currently in development by Freight Shuttle International (FSI), applying technology developed at the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) by Assistant Agency Director Steve Roop. Financed entirely from private sources and requiring no public funding, the system would provide low-cost, time-certain delivery of freight, and at the same time answer the state’s need for safe and efficient transportation.

The guideways carrying the freight could be built on existing right-of-way that would be leased by the state to FSI. The lease would produce new revenue for the state at a time when available public funding for highways is diminishing.

“The Freight Shuttle System is going to address three urgent needs we now have in freight movement,” Roop says. “It’s going to make it safer, cleaner and more economical.”

The system promises safety benefits by removing thousands of trucks from the highways, thereby reducing the chance of fatal crashes involving those trucks (one in nine traffic fatalities results from a collision involving a large truck). The system will also eliminate the pollution created by the exhaust from those trucks, and be more economical by sharply reducing the cost of moving goods.

“And the benefits don’t stop there,” Roop continues. “The system will create thousands of jobs, it will reduce highway congestion, and it will make millions in new revenue for the state — all without costing taxpayers a single dime.”

To become more sustainable, the freight transportation industry needs a game-changing development. And if plans in Texas come to pass, it’s a whole new game.

Sustainability — a popular, emerging concept — has become a key consideration in the delivery and operation of transportation infrastructure, and at all levels of government. Sustainability deals with meeting human needs in the present and future, while preserving and restoring the environment, fostering community health and vitality, promoting economic development and prosperity, and ensuring equity among population groups and over generations.

“At this time of fiscal constraint, the New York State Department of Transportation [NYSDOT] must make some tough choices. To guide our decisions, we have incorporated the ‘triple bottom line’ of economic competitiveness, social equity and environmental stewardship into our programming and investment guidance. NCHRP’s A Guidebook for Sustainability Performance Measurement for Transportation Agencies provided NYSDOT with a much-needed methodology and comprehensive list to develop our sustainability performance measures.”
Debra Nelson,
NYSDOT assistant to the director of operations

“Sustainability is a way of looking at other costs that don’t always get considered in the decision-making process. Thinking about these costs should be broader than just the tangible dollars,” says Tara Ramani, assistant research scientist with the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI). “The question is less ‘how can we implement sustainable transportation?’ but really more ‘how can transportation support the principles of sustainability?’”

Ramani, along with the international team led by Joe Zietsman, head of TTI’s Environment and Air Quality Division, produced a sustainability guidebook that teaches transportation practitioners the principles of sustainability, how to develop goals and objectives based on sustainability, and how to apply performance measures for these goals.

A Guidebook for Sustainability Performance Measurement for Transportation Agencies provides a generally applicable framework that transportation agencies can adapt and use, either in their existing performance measurement programs or as a part of a new sustainability initiative. The guidebook provides a practical approach to understanding sustainability, and identifying and applying sustainability-related performance measures. It discusses linkages to an agency’s mission and strategic plan, and the integration of these sustainability measures into other programs and agency business practices. The guidebook also contains a compendium of sustainability performance measures, with a menu of goals, objectives and performance measures that agencies can use as the basis for their performance measurement applications.

Part of the concept of sustainability involves choices: walking, biking, commuting. Making multiple modes work in harmony with environmental needs and economic realities — without losing the human factor from the equation — is the real challenge.

“Working with performance measures can be a daunting task due to the large number of possible measures, extensive data required and complexity involved in applying the measures,” Zietsman said. “Moreover, a first step in developing performance measures for sustainability is to understand what sustainability means, and how it applies to transportation networks, systems, facilities, projects and activities at different stages, scales and time frames.”

The guidebook incorporates real-world examples from departments of transportation and private industry in both the United States and Europe. It’s designed to be flexible so that any division in any agency can apply, refine and modify it based on the specific context for planning, programming, project development, construction, maintenance or operations. The framework can be used in many different ways, such as to evaluate progress, assess current conditions, forecast the future, make decisions or communicate with stakeholders.

“The guidebook provides a wealth of information and resources for departments of transportation to use to understand the concept of sustainability and apply performance measures for their sustainable transportation goals,” Zietsman said.

Published by the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) in November 2011, the guidebook has been well received across the country. Zietsman plans on leading TRB webinars to help transportation officials learn how to use the guidebook.

“This guidebook should be of immediate use to those who are familiar with their own agency’s performance measurement program but need to provide useful information to agency leadership on how effectively their organization is meeting sustainability goals,” said Lori L. Sundstrom, a senior program officer with TRB. “The examples included illustrate how sustainability can be successfully added to an agency’s existing performance measurement system.”

by Dennis Christiansen Agency Director

A Guidebook for Sustainability Performance Measurement for Transportation Agencies, created by Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) researchers and published this week by the Transportation Research Board (TRB), offers state departments of transportation and other transportation agencies a series of practical, easy-to-use tools to continuously integrate sustainability into current agency performance measurement programs. The guidebook is now available from the TRB website, http://www.trb.org/Main/Blurbs/166313.aspx.

Performance measurement has evolved over the decades into an effective way to quantify goals and objectives and to communicate progress toward meeting these goals. But developing these measures is often complicated.

“Working with performance measures can be a daunting task due to the large number of possible measures, extensive data required and the complexity involved in making these calculations,” noted study co-author Joe Zietsman, head of the Environment and Air Quality Division at TTI.

“Transportation planners must measure the sustainability of their networks, systems, facilities, projects and activities at the appropriate stages, scales and time frames of each,” Zietsman said.  “The guidebook provides a practical approach to identifying and applying sustainability-related performance measures, including those that may already be integrated into agency business practices.”

“This guidebook should be of immediate use to those who are familiar with their own agency’s performance measurement program but need to provide useful information to agency leadership on how effectively their organization is meeting sustainability goals,” said Lori L. Sundstrom, a senior program officer with TRB.

The guidebook incorporates real-world examples from departments of transportation (DOTs) and private industry in both the United States and Europe.

“The examples included illustrate how sustainability can be successfully added to an agency’s existing performance measurement system,” Ms. Sundstrom noted.  It describes the underlying principles of sustainability as it relates to transportation and includes possible goals that can be used to address these principles.

Sustainability is discussed in the context of many primary DOT goals such as safety, reducing congestion, preserving system assets, enhancing economic opportunity and improving air quality.

“The guidebook provides a wealth of information and resources for DOTs to use to understand the concept of sustainability and apply performance measures for their sustainable transportation goals,” Zietsman said.