Confidential: What Is Your Vision of the Future of Transportation?

Confidential: What is your vision of the future of transportation?

Operations Academy Alumni,

I was hoping to gain your perspective on the following general/thought provoking question ... as I am preparing a presentation and would love to get some fresh ideas on this.

What is your vision of the future of transportation moving forward at both

the national and the state levels.

Thanks for sharing your vision!!!

Tom Blair, P.E.

Hi Tom, Your question is a great lead-in for me to promote my recently released book "The Road Ahead" which addresses the issue you raised in some detail. It's available on Amazon (you can search on my name or the title of the book) or go directly to the listing using I hadn't planned to use the ListServe to promote the book, but as long as you asked, I can't resist the temptation.

But to answer your question, unless some drastic measures are taken (one of which is described below), I'm afraid I'll have to give you a negative answer. First and foremost, funding is likely to remain a problem. I see the VMT pricing scheme as a non-starter both because of the privacy issues as well as the cost of installing the needed infrastructure both within the vehicles as well as the fixed infrastructure. Frankly I'm surprised the concept has survived as long as it has.

Given the absence of adequate funding for significant system expansion, I see the following likely scenario: 1) Congestion will continue to get worse. As the economy improves, which is bound to occur sooner or later, VMT will increase with insignificant increases in capacity. This situation is going to force the changes below.

2) Telecommuting and distributed work centers will increase at a faster rate. I'm currently reading a book about Google titled "The Plex" which among other things describes the company's vision of an interconnected world in which the importance of personal contact continues to decrease while file sharing, information sharing and on-line interaction explodes. This is obviously at odds with us older people who cannot envision a world in which face-to-face interaction does not exist, but the younger generation thrives on social networking which does not require such interaction. So if one thinks outside the box, this is a very likely future development for all businesses except the manufacturing and construction worlds (both of which are requiring smaller workforces as automation increases.

3) Pricing will continue to increase including more significantly more toll roads as well as congestion pricing (now named value pricing). These measures used to be considered topics to avoid in "polite company", but now are being seriously considered by many agencies.

4) On a positive note, safety will continue to improve for many reasons. Some of the auto manufacturers are seriously considering the goal of zero fatalities for their newer models, which can be achieved through improved safety features and impact resistance. Also, a positive result of increased congestion is slower vehicle speeds with a resultant reduction in serious crashes.

5) Of course, no forecast of the future would be complete without mentioning increased emphasis on operations. I believe that we will see more focus on adaptive systems for both traffic signals and ramp metering. I also believe that ramp metering will be increasingly used on congested freeways everywhere rather than in a few leading states. Performance measurement will continue to increase, as a result of greatly increased/improved traffic monitoring - both through vehicle probe systems such as Inrix' as well as Bluetooth techniques. Traffic monitoring will also lead to improved incident detection and better traffic control during incidents (rerouting, load balancing, traveler information, etc.).

6) This list would be incomplete without mentioning transit. Alternative modes (bus and rail) have always been viewed as the panacea for congestion. While I would expect that ridership on these modes will continue to increase, transit systems are also starved for funding, and the American public will continue its reluctance to adopt transit as a primary means of transportation.

Note that I did not mention the prospects for an automated highway system, which offers the potential to nearly double the capacity of existing roadways. In spite of the efforts of the manufacturers, Google and others to develop such a system, the needed levels of reliability are not likely to be achieved for at least the next 20 to 30 years. For this reason I don't think it is a near term player for the future.

Finally, regarding more drastic possibilities for the future; In my book, I discuss the possibility of replacing state DOTs with privately financed transportation utilities. This gets politics out of the way of transportation system financing and development. It also opens the door to a court tested transportation utility fee which would replace the existing gas tax as a financing mechanism. The utility fee would be assessed on all buildings (commercial, residential, non-profits, etc.) using trip generation tables. This is intriguing since people would be paying based on usage, and it would by-pass the need for the dreaded "tax increase". Many details could be discussed here, but it's an alternative to everything else that has been proposed.

Anyway, hope this answer isn't too long. But you can see that you asked a question that has been on my mind. Finally, take these answers with a grain of salt, since all my past predictions of the future have been wrong anyway.

Good to hear from you.

Phil

My two cents to add to Phil's (he and I run SDOT workshops on improving ops capabilities) I believe that the combination of better real time data, more agressive customer demands, plus better agency-customer communications will result in a new level of transparancy and accountability on the part of DOTs. Customers will know real time conditions and demand operational fixes (just as we do with power and water). This, in turn, will result in pressure for: 1. substantially more agressive proactive operational managment (and related infrastructure) by DOTs well beyond today's state of the practice (especially given the contraints on capacity fixes) 2. the need for 24X7 proactive regional managment with a strong push/outreach of information to specific customers regarding thier customary travel patterns 3. the integration -- if not consolidation -- of state and local govt network SO&M -- under a single entity -- a reginal operations authority 4. Gradual increase in shift to tolling/pricing -- first on upper level system (as a funding mechanism) -- then with added congestion pricing -- and, in the long term: the shift away from fuel taxes to mileage-based user fees . DOTs will increasingly be dominated by systems operational considerations (including key staff and resources) and the CEOs may well systems operations ppl (this has happened in other industries that started out with products and evolved towards services. In many regions the need to combine marketing skills, performance managment, rapid upgrades of technology and manage commercial relationship with external information suppliers/disseminators, the need to operate across jurisdictional lines -- in combination with DOT staffing contraints -- will lead to outsouring regional operations to private entities in many states (this appears to be a trend -- like it or not) Should be fun!! steve

Phil and Steve,

WOW. Thanks for sharing your thought provoking perspectives on the future of transportation.

Now I must buy Phil's book.

P.S. MoDOT is finally sending our second student to the upcoming Operations Academy!!!!

Tom Blair

That's great Tom. Hope he is as good a participant as you were.

Phil