<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><rss version="2.0" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><channel><title>TRB Publications Index</title><link>http://pubsindex.trb.org/</link><atom:link href="http://pubsindex.trb.org/common/TRIS Suite/feeds/rss.aspx?tc=NN%3ACrpf" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" /><description></description><language>en-us</language><copyright>Copyright © 2015. National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.</copyright><docs>http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss</docs><managingEditor>tris-trb@nas.edu (Bill McLeod)</managingEditor><webMaster>tris-trb@nas.edu (Bill McLeod)</webMaster><image><title>TRB Publications Index</title><url>http://pubsindex.trb.org/Images/PageHeader-wTitle.png</url><link>http://pubsindex.trb.org/</link></image><item><title>Possibilities of Legislative and Economic Support for Electromobility in Slovakia</title><link>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/2407958</link><description><![CDATA[The transport sector generates almost 25% of European greenhouse gas emissions and is the city’s leading cause of air pollution. Almost 90% of urban dwellers in the European Union are exposed to harmful levels of air pollutants. Around 95% of vehicles on European roads still use fossil fuels. The transport policy of the European Union aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2030 and by 60% by 2050 compared to 1990 values. One of the means of achieving these goals is the use of electric cars. This article aims to process the current state of passenger and small freight electric vehicles registered in the Slovak Republic and to compare them with other countries. This article proposes measures that would support electromobility in Slovakia. These proposals are based on an analysis of weaknesses in legislation, taxes, and fees. Currently, several forms of electromobility support are used. They aim to overcome obstacles preventing the successful implementation of electromobility in practice. These are direct subsidies for electric vehicles or relief from taxes and fees. Individual governments or self-governments also provide non-financial benefits to motivate residents to use electric cars largely.]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 20 Nov 2024 13:08:59 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/2407958</guid></item><item><title>Routes to Regional Transit Governance: Researching the Histories of and Cataloguing the Methods Used to Establish German Verkehrsverbünde</title><link>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/2237105</link><description><![CDATA[Regional transit governance has become a topic of growing interest in some transit policy circles in the United States. There is hope that the quality of transit service can be improved by creating governance structures that transcend municipal and county borders to oversee and coordinate transit provision over entire regions. Although several studies have recorded the benefits of such governance systems and several others have explored different models, few have investigated the methods by which these structures were created. This is crucial information, as establishing such governance structures is a delicate political process with no guarantee of success. Through interviews with planners in Germany, this study investigated six German regional transit governance bodies and searched for strategic components that were instrumental to the creation of at least one regional governance structure. Five were ultimately found, which can be mixed and matched for use in strategies in regions seeking to establish regional transit governance of their own. The five strategic components found were bilateral negotiations, state intervention, large infrastructure packages, political moments, and strong leadership. Further case study research is needed to reinforce and expand this set of strategic components.]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 31 Aug 2023 13:58:48 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/2237105</guid></item><item><title>Transit Usage in Social Shocks: A Case Study of Station-Level Metro Ridership in Anti-Extradition Protests in Hong Kong</title><link>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/1989266</link><description><![CDATA[As a form of social movement aiming to effect social change, protests could bring about unintended impacts on all walks of life. In other words, the cost of protests can be incurred by those who might not be protesters. The protests triggered by an extradition bill in Hong Kong since 2019 are no exception. This paper focuses on the impacts on the ridership of the metro system on protest days. It synthesizes and hypothesizes factors influencing the distribution of the ridership changes and conducts an empirical study in the context of Hong Kong to study the possible influences and spatial dependence. It is found that, across metro stations, political orientation (percentage of votes to pro-democracy camp in the 2019 Election of District Councils), law enforcement (permission from the police to protest), land use type (especially for commercial and open space), population age and income, as well as transit/road network characteristics and intermodal connectivity, significantly influence the ridership of metro stations during protest days. In addition, the mixed regressive spatial autoregressive model has higher explanatory power than the ordinary least square model, suggesting the need for a spatial lag and error specification. The results could also have significant implications for policy and planning for operating metro services and managing metro stations before, during, and after social shocks.]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 06 Jul 2022 09:07:39 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/1989266</guid></item><item><title>Commuter Rail Electrifications That Never Were and What They Teach Us</title><link>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/1984679</link><description><![CDATA[North American commuter railroads have experienced two waves of electrification: 1905–1931, and (including renewal and expansion) since the 1980s. Electrification offers many benefits to railroads and society, but also entails considerable capital costs. Eleven proposed electrifications, both in the early 20th century, when private-sector railroads funded and operated services, and in the modern era with public-sector responsibility for financing infrastructure and operations, were never implemented. This research revisits these unrealized proposals to understand the factors that can derail electrification and, conversely, help planners identify promising projects. These examples are explored in their contemporaneous context and in relation to comparable situations where electrification did occur. Key findings include that necessary, if not sufficient, conditions for electrification, in both the private- and public-sector eras, include operating challenges best addressed through electric traction as well as adequate funding. Today, in the public-sector era, electrification also requires political will, an institutional champion, and control of the lines to be electrified. Environmental concerns have become important factors but have not justified electrifications on their own.]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 25 Jun 2022 16:01:46 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/1984679</guid></item><item><title>Shifting Behaviors in Unprecedented Times: How Are Intentions to Use Shared Modes Changing During the COVID-19 Pandemic</title><link>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/1759708</link><description><![CDATA[The spread of COVID-19 globally has been a major disruptive force in people’s everyday lives and general mobility. A component of the transportation system that has been specifically impacted by these disruptions is that of shared modes of travel, such as taxis and ridehailing, given the concerns about virus transmission. Today, demand for these modes have decreased by as much as 80%. This study aims to understand the shift in consideration of these modes as a result of unprecedented experiences in order to both, understand the potential recovery for shared mobility modes as well as the behavioral impact of drastic changes in lifestyle on transportation systems. With multiple reports and discussions on how COVID-19 will fundamentally change and redesign urban mobility, this study sets precedence for future efforts in assessing realized behavioral changes in the future. The results indicate that political orientation and experiences during the pandemic are significant in explaining the individual change in intentions to use ridesourcing. Additionally, characteristics such as age and income result in consideration shifts that would normally contradict the typical ridership profiles found in the ridesourcing literature. Specifically, this analysis finds that hailed ride consideration decreases as a function of either age or income. These findings are carefully presented and contextualized in this study.]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 04 Feb 2021 10:57:40 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/1759708</guid></item><item><title>Centuries of Ballot-Box Transportation Planning in Los Angeles</title><link>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/1743874</link><description><![CDATA[Since 1980, many have marveled at Los Angeles’“innovation” of funding transportation through ballot measures that are raising billions for transportation improvements. In fact, historically much transportation infrastructure in Los Angeles was financed by local voter-approved revenues. It began in 1868 with a narrowly approved $225,000 bond measure to build the region’s first railroad, followed by an 1876 measure to grant the Southern Pacific railroad a $602,000 subsidy to entice the company to route its transcontinental line through the region. Angeleno voted on an additional 23 different transportation-related ballot measures between the passage of the Good Roads Act (1908) and the end of the New Deal (1937)—a key period of Los Angeles’ history that saw dramatic population increase and with it political contention over the direction of the region’s growth. Overall, these early transportation measures fared well with voters. Of the 25 transportation-related ballot measures in Los Angeles County from 1860 to 1960, only seven (28%) failed to pass, a far better record than nontransportation measures of which 21 of 31 (71%) went down to defeat. Regardless of whether, as some contend, Los Angeles missed a golden opportunity to create the backbone of an effective transit system that would have reduced the need for automobiles and spending many billions on freeways, it is clear that local voters have long faced competing visions for the future of Los Angeles and arguments over whether to fund transportation systems to serve these visions.]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 08 Oct 2020 17:51:21 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/1743874</guid></item><item><title>Public–Private Partnerships: What Are the Lessons Learned? Proceedings of an ACRP Insight Event</title><link>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/1688101</link><description><![CDATA[“Public–Private Partnerships: What Are the Lessons Learned?” held July 10–11, 2019, in Washington, D.C., brought together senior airport executives; representatives from federal, state, and local government; and representatives from the financial, consulting, and legal fields to discuss the opportunities and challenges of implementing public–private partnerships (P3s) at airports. The Transportation Research Board’s (TRB’s) Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) organized the event as part of its series of convening activities titled “ACRP Insight Events.”  This event focused on the extent to which public–private partnerships (P3s) have been used in the airport industry and lessons learned from these experiences. The event also identified opportunities for further application of P3 arrangements in the industry.  These proceedings are a compilation of the presentations and a factual summary of the ensuing discussions at the event.]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 20 Feb 2020 15:43:43 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/1688101</guid></item><item><title>Is There a Way? Is There a Will? Legal, Bureaucratic and Political Aspects of Automated Vehicle Regulation in Toronto, Canada</title><link>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/1573390</link><description><![CDATA[Current research suggests there is a huge uncertainty as to whether automated vehicle development will improve or exacerbate congestion, sprawl, and inequitable access to travel. Likely, the outcome will be determined by the policies governments adopt to guide development. As such, the goal of this paper is to examine the legal capacity, bureaucratic willingness and capacity, and political willingness and capacity of regulating automated vehicle regulatory development in Toronto, Canada. Firstly, the government needs legal capacity to regulate in a given area. The remaining four elements all relate to human resources. Interviews show Toronto’s bureaucrats believe they have a responsibility and ability to craft effective and ambitious regulations that advance the city’s goals. These willing civil servants need the time and the expertise to design good policy, and the Toronto government has an AV working group that provides a forum for such a discussion. To see regulations enacted effectively, however, the mayor and council must not only support rules eventually proposed by the working group; they may also need to approach the provincial government to convince them to craft their own complementary AV legislation. Should policymakers want to see bold and effective regulation enacted at the local level to address the harms that might arise from AV development and guide private-sector business operations to foster equitable and sustainable planning outcomes, they must look at whether their colleagues and the politicians under whom they serve have the willingness, and ability, to propose such rules.]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 01 Mar 2019 15:51:34 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/1573390</guid></item><item><title>Breaking Silos and Human Cocreation on Multiple Levels: The Key to Transforming the Current Sociotechnical Transport System Regime?</title><link>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/1516333</link><description><![CDATA[Enabling changes in transportation requires a capacity for sustainability-driven innovation, cocreation, and change management. The objective of this paper is to provide some brief context around the key questions that will be used to develop answers (and more questions) from participants in the Fifth EU-U.S. Transportation Research Symposium, Decarbonizing Transport for a Sustainable Future: Mitigating Impacts of the Changing Climate. The symposium discussions will orbit around political dilemmas, difficulties concerning emerging business models, knowledge gaps, and the need for transition or change management.]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 12 Jul 2018 09:53:35 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/1516333</guid></item><item><title>Public Transit Organization Adaptation and Response to Extreme Weather</title><link>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/1495480</link><description><![CDATA[Extreme weather events have a highly disruptive impact on public transit systems and challenge the capacity of transit agencies to effectively respond to them. In this paper, the authors draw upon a recent nationwide survey of major public transit agencies across the United States to understand the factors that influence their scope of adjustment for adapting to anticipated extreme weather risks. The authors find that a transit agency would undertake more adaptation measures to tackle weather risks when its public officials perceive greater risks, stronger adaptive capacity, or they have experienced more severe extreme weather events recently. The authors also show that local institutional environment, in particular, political ideology, could significantly affect the scope of transit adaptation activities. Transit agencies that operate in more liberal jurisdictions tend to engage in more adaptation measures, while the ideology effect at the state level depends on the level of perceived influence from state governments.]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 22 Mar 2018 11:57:29 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/1495480</guid></item><item><title>Explaining Transportation Funding Ballot Measure Success</title><link>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/1495588</link><description><![CDATA[Transportation infrastructure is expensive, costs are increasing, and across the United States, federal spending on transportation is decreasing as a proportion of overall national spending. Local governments are under increasing pressure to generate revenue to meet project needs. In response, they have turned to ballot measures as one method to raise funds. It remains unclear which characteristics of transportation funding measures and the communities they are held in increase the likelihood of passage. Using regression modelling techniques adapted from open space and conservation (OSC) ballot studies, this study analyzes what variables explain measure passage of local transportation funding measures on ballots in California, Oregon, and Washington from 1995-2015. Results indicate that sociodemographic features do not help explain passage of measures and that other factors like campaign exp]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 15 Feb 2018 16:36:10 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/1495588</guid></item><item><title>Finding Support for “Green” Transportation Taxes: Should We Look for Supportive Places or Supportive People?</title><link>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/1495124</link><description><![CDATA[The urban-rural divide is a common trope in social and political discourse in the United States. Policy makers and voters are influenced by this dichotomy and by the common assumption that populations in these geographies think differently about taxation and public spending. The authors examine this assumption using a representative dataset from a nationwide random phone survey containing opinions on transportation taxation from 2010 to 2016. This analysis compares respondents from cities, small towns, and rural locations along socio-economic and transportation-related personal characteristics. Initial exploratory analysis suggests that people from cities are indeed different than those from small towns and rural locations, while people from small towns and rural locations are less dissimilar. City dwellers are slightly more supportive of green transportation taxes than those from smaller towns and rural geographies. In advanced evaluations, however, mixed-effects logistic specifications that control for spatial and temporal variation and specific differences in socio-economics and transportation factors reveal that it may not matter as much where you live as who you are. The analysis shows that no matter where you live, you are likely to support transportation taxes if you are younger, female, Hispanic, and identify as a Democrat.]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 15 Feb 2018 16:36:10 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/1495124</guid></item><item><title>A Framework for Analyzing the Competitiveness of Unconventional Modes of Transportation in Developing Cities</title><link>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/1496238</link><description><![CDATA[Unconventional modes of transport (UCMs) play a substantial role in many developing cities in meeting the mobility demand in spite of having negative image in the eyes of the authorities. This manuscript outlines a conjoint framework where various factors affecting sustainability and competitiveness of UCMs are identified through observation study and organized using PESTLE qualitative framework. Afterwards, it presents an AHP-TOPSIS based qualitative approach where inputs from experts as well as major stakeholders (owners/operators, drivers, conductors and passengers) are combined based on the PESTLE framework to fathom the competitiveness of UCMs. Along this process, the manuscript also unveils the business model of UCMs along with their area of operation, advantages and weaknesses. For this, the study uses Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh as study area and selects three popular UCMs – locally kown as Rickshaw, Easy-Bike and Legula. The findings suggest that economical, political and social factors respectively have the highest influence among all factors of PESTLE. Rickshaw was found to be the most competitive followed by Easy-Bike and Leguna. The study is expected to shed light into the perception and expectation of major stakeholders of UCMs which in turn will provide valuable insight for designing conventional public transport services, and/or, help in slowly integrating the UCMs into the mainstream transportation service through addressing their shortcomings.]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 13 Feb 2018 09:53:24 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/1496238</guid></item><item><title>No Democratic Roads or Republican Roads: Partisanship and the Making of Transportation Policy Attitudes</title><link>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/1439645</link><description><![CDATA[The authors examine the widely repeated claim that “there are no Democratic roads or Republican roads,” a heavily worn Capitol Hill proverb suggesting that transportation policy is a uniquely bipartisan policy area. While such claims have often been confirmed in studies of Congressional behavior, it is less clear whether this adage also applies to public attitudes about highway and public transit funding, the two leading transportation policy alternatives. In this paper, the authors examine three competing hypotheses about the partisanship of transportation policy: that such attitudes are partisan and ideological, that they are a result of personal pocketbook interests, or that they are driven in some way by voters acting on their local political culture. Using data from the General Social Survey (1984-2014), the authors show that roads and bridges have, indeed, received bipartisan support from the public. However, partisan attitudes towards transit subsidies are correlated with social welfare attitudes, coinciding with larger partisan differences. In an original survey on transportation taxes, the authors find that partisans generally agree on the need to raise gas taxes for highway maintenance, but split on the question of transit funding. In all cases, usage of a transportation mode modestly increases policy support. In sum, the authors  find that there is still much truth to the adage that “there are no Democratic roads or Republican roads,” but this is less true of transit’s place in the transportation finance system. At the same time, even for transit, partisan differences smaller than those that appear in other social spending categories.]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 28 Feb 2017 13:54:52 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/1439645</guid></item><item><title>Would Americans Pay More in Taxes for Better Transportation? Answers from Seven Years of National Survey Data</title><link>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/1439067</link><description><![CDATA[Is conventional wisdom that the general public in the United States hates the gas tax true? This paper explores public opinion about raising new federal transportation revenues, using the results from an annual, national, random-digit-dial phone survey that was conducted for seven years, from 2010 to 2016. The annual surveys tested support for seven different versions of a higher federal gas tax and two versions of a hypothetical new mileage fee. This paper, which uses both univariate and multivariate analysis, looks at how support levels vary according to the specific features of a transportation tax, the socio-demographic, attitudinal, and travel behavior variables that generally correlate with support for raising transportation taxes, and how support for the taxes varied over time. Support for the transportation taxes is tightly linked to the specifics of the tax proposal. Pooling the survey data across all years, the least popular taxes were the flat-rate mileage fee (20%) and base-case gas tax increase (28%). The taxes that resonated most strongly with respondents were gas taxes with revenue dedicated to maintenance (64% support) and safety (55% support). The population subgroups most likely to consistently support transportation taxes are young people, Democrats, drivers of fuel-efficient vehicles, and respondents who want to see government improve safety, expand transit, and improve maintenance. However, the multivariate analysis also showed that there was little variation among subgroups in support for the least and most popular taxes. Looking over time, support for raising transportation revenue has increased modestly over the seven years.]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 24 Feb 2017 16:40:59 GMT</pubDate><guid>http://pubsindex.trb.org/view/1439067</guid></item></channel></rss>