01045970

Component

A majority of the states (36 of the 50 states) have created, by statute, some type of external body (such as boards or commissions) to oversee their departments of transportation (DOTs). We review the authorizing statutes that establish these boards and commissions to identify their statutorily-defined membership characteristics and roles. We then empirically estimate the possible contribution of these to a measure of DOT capital and infrastructure management capacity taken from the Government Performance Project. The study findings suggest the following: (1) the statutes appear to reflect a desire to improve resource allocation; (2) they confer significant, albeit limited, powers on the commissions; (3) there are no significant differences between multimodal and highway commissions; (4) the states with large commissions have higher scores on our measure of management capacity; and (5) states planning to establish or reform a commission should consider a large commission with a mixed membership of citizens and government officials.

01042056

07-1500

English

16p

2007

Transportation Research Board 86th Annual Meeting

CD-ROM

References (21) ; Tables (9)

Empirical methods; Infrastructure; Management; Management and organization; Oversight; Resource allocation; State departments of transportation; Transportation planning; Transportation system management

Oversight agencies; Planning commissions

Administration and Management; Highways; I10: Economics and Administration

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2007 Paper #07-1500

TRIS, TRB

Feb 8 2007 6:06PM