Part of AMS50's mission is to identify research needs which will help to guide research and practice in the field of transportation and economic development. A number of topics have been identified as topics for potential inclusion in the RNS database. For a list of the committee's active Research Needs Statements, visit TRB's official RNS database and search "AMS50".
Submitted Problem Statements
As part of the NCHRP 2025 solicitation due November 1, 2023 two problems statements were submitted. These statements are listed below.
Innovative Approaches to Estimating Relationships Between Highways, Land Values, and Socio-Economic Inequality (full statement link)
Changing distributions of poverty: Better serving dispersed disadvantaged populations with existing and novel mobility options (full statement link)
The committee is working on an ongoing basis to develop research topics into refined Research Need Problem Statements for inclusion in the TRB RNS Database. Please review the proposed topics and come to the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Land Use meeting at TRB ready to discuss. Some topics have been given a priority status, while others remain in consideration for future research. Please submit comments or ideas to Derek Krevat (derek.krevat@state.ma.us )
Analyze how local land use decisions impact the demand for and performance of transportation networks.
As many states are examining innovative approaches to better synchronize land use and transportation decisions (with a particular focus on improving the effectiveness of previous DOT investments in infrastructure by land use density, diversity, and design) research on best practices in this area would document how shorter trips and reduced reliance on automobile travel can be facilitated.
Document best practices for developing TOD policies, programs, strategies, and metrics as implemented by transit agencies and their partners, including MPOs, State DOTs, and local governments.
This will include a review of the goals of the programs, the types of strategies used to implement or encourage TOD, the partnerships involved, and the metrics used to evaluate performance or success—both ex-ante and ex-post.
Provide resources and document a set of methodologies that can be used across different geographies and at different scales to assist State Departments of Transportation identify locations that have become disconnected from major employment, recreational, and commercial centers as a direct result of past infrastructure investments.
The methodologies and resources developed as part of this project would incorporate both qualitative data on people’s lived experiences and quantitative data on a variety of transportation and land use indicators to understand underlying characteristics of these locations, including but not limited to commute times to major employment centers, roadway functional classification, access to regular and reliable public transit service, vehicle miles traveled, adjacent zoning classifications, lane width, and demographic data.
Additionally, this research will provide a set of best practices for infrastructure project scopes of work with respect to building connections across infrastructure that has divided communities.
Provide resources and document a set of methodologies that can be used across different geographies and at different scales to assist State Departments of Transportation include Justice, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (JDEI) into their transportation planning and analysis.
Assess and document how land use considerations should best be incorporated into location siting decisions for electric vehicle charging stations and maintenance facilities, across all modes.
This research aims to provide a resource to State DOTs to maximize the use of funding included in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Program and ensure that land use decisions are sufficiently factored into planning for this Program’s implementation.
Analyze the effects of carbon pricing via either cap/trade or carbon tax on fuel substitution effects; modal substitution effects, long-term co-location of industrial suppliers with original equipment suppliers on emission reductions.
Test implicit lower carbon burden claims of smart growth paradigm with simulation studies based on existing case studies of Transit Oriented Development (TOD) and other smart growth development throughout the nation.
Assess whether there are relevant applications of the smart growth paradigm to non-metro and rural areas for transportation and economic development.
Would carbon pricing drive import substitution of alternative fuels and technology for oil and reduce the merchandise trade deficit in the US and trade imbalances globally?
Would carbon pricing also reduce the trade and transportation volume of certain commodities groups and lead to more indigenous production?
Benefit-cost analysis and economic impact analysis have traditionally been applied to project evaluation and decision making in an era of growth. Now in a period of constrained resources these tools can be deployed to address a range of transportation decisions about minimizing the repercussions on economic growth, as well as optimizing development.
Develop strategies and tools to integrate economic analysis with asset management to optimize system integrity for disinvestment scenarios.
Determine how disinvestment affects intermodal tradeoffs.
Alternative evaluation methods of disinvestment impacts on critical infrastructure using BCA and EIA tools.
Evaluating system integrity arising from transportation disinvestment in infrastructure for non-metro areas vs. metro areas.
Distributional asymmetries of disinvestment economic development impacts.
Network effects and path dependencies in disinvestment scenarios.
Explore recently developed methods and systems for EIA related to prioritization of transportation projects. Analysis tools should be evaluated and improved to aid federal, state, and regional agencies with setting priorities in state and regional transportation plans and for distributing scarce transportation funding.
Explore USDOT -TIGER use of EIA processes for inclusion in the analysis of transportation projects. See Bipartisan Policy Center Report By Douglas Holtz-Eakin and Martin Wachs.
Evaluate data gathered for the ARRA/TIGER project funding process on economic impacts.
Evaluate the use of benefit cost analysis of ARRA/TIGER projects (perhaps a joint effort with Transportation Economics Committee).
Assessment of the “bottom up”/land use analysis with regional economic models for assessing development impacts.
Explore the linkage between TOD economic development estimates and value capture financing strategies.
Examine the economic impacts of public transportation investments from a historical perspective to determine actual impacts rather than prospective impacts.
Examine the European, Japanese and Chinese experiences with economic growth resulting from development of high-speed rail investments, perhaps looking at historical changes/results.
Develop quantitative analysis frameworks to measure business and non-business benefits.
Conduct benefit analysis of increased transport access - where and when does it make sense?
Emerging issues in benefit quantification.
Analyze the competitive effects on industrial clusters of performance of changes due to intermodal investments.
Analyze the transportation efficiency benefits of the original Toyota regionally centered production system of suppliers as compared to the global supplier chains based on just-in-time integrated production systems. http://twi-institute.com/pdfs/article_DecodingToyotaProductionSystem.pdf
Evaluate the inclusion of economic development benefits of agglomeration/productivity into benefit-cost analysis, building on the UK and European experiences.
Identification of cross‐border processes that would expedite clearance procedures, and lead to trade flow increases and higher economic impacts.
Identify intelligent and random (smarter and more efficient) screening procedures versus physical inspections and their impacts.
Identify opportunities for closer collaboration among different modal groups (e.g., highway, rail, marine, and aviation) and geographies to achieve greater efficiencies and development benefits.
Explore methods for hedging public sector revenue risks in public-private tolled infrastructure contracts so that long term benefits can be shared to optimize economic development from transportation investments.
Further implications of economic development impacts under public-private sector agreements on regional and local stakeholders.
Explore obstacles to public-private partnerships in developing countries including privatization experiences in countries with highly developed state economic controls.(via case studies of China, India, Indonesia, Russia and Malaysia)
Explore value capture taxing strategies between private sector developers and transport agency.
Work is needed to improve communication strategies for conveying information to public and policy makers about economic analysis methods and results.
How does the recent development and implementation of ITS technologies affect economic development and how do practitioners model these impacts?
Conduct economic development impact analysis of ITS and integrate with benefit/costs of ITS.
Past studies have indicated that roadway surface conditions have had an impact on economic performance, as has congestion. More detailed statistical analyses are needed to enhance understanding of these relationships and to inform future policy making on the importance of fully funding transportation systems.