1.1 Expanded Program and Policy Options
Objectives: To expand the set of recognized potential strategies and scenarios to make transportation systems more sustainable—particularly with respect to potentially irreversible environmental effects, and to develop improved methods for characterizing the expected combined effects of different strategies.
Discussion: As evidenced by the proceedings of the Policy Dialogue Advisory Committee to Assist in the Development of Measures to Significantly Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Personal Motor Vehicles (i.e., "Car Talk"), Federal and other decision makers need an expanded range of options to address the sustainability of transportation systems, and a more complete set of tools to understand the combined effects of those options. A systems approach that considers a wider range of sustainability issues and transportation modes, and includes a wider range of stakeholders, will require Federal leadership. This initiative will foster national discussions to establish a consensus on research needs, and build partnerships to conduct and apply this research. DOT will take a leadership role to integrate transportation with sustainability goals, identify effective institutional models for transportation planning and decision making, and develop new analytical tools and indicators.
Outputs:
Organization of a center within DOT to focus expertise on strategic research and development of policies and programs, and on coordination of these with related initiatives at other Federal agencies.
Development of effective working relationships among Federal, regional, state, local, and private partnerships to integrate and advance transportation and sustainability programs.
Evaluation of a range of national, regional, and inter-city scenarios that combine planning, transportation, land development and redevelopment, multi-modal systems, vehicle technology, fuel, travel behavior, locational choice, and other strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance ecosystems and biodiversity, while facilitating progress toward other sustainability goals.
A recognized set of sustainability-oriented performance indicators that are relevant to national, regional, and local transportation decision making for policy and investments.
Coordination of research and information exchange on transportation and sustainability with state, regional, and local partners as well as international organizations.
Outcomes: Decision making that supports transportation and sustainability through meaningful and effective analytical tools and strategies to provide a wide range of options for different transportation system elements. Transportation decision making processes and documents reflect the use of recognized analytical tools and performance indicators applicable to sustainability, and the consideration of recognized potential strategies for increasing sustainability.
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1.2 Land Development and Travel Behavior
Objectives: To update and refine our knowledge of the interrelationships between land development, locational choice, travel behavior, and other factors affecting travel, such as pricing and incentives. To integrate this information into planning models and tools, decision making processes, and programs to support sustainability.
Discussion: In most areas of the U.S., the transportation infrastructure is in place and land development patterns have long been established. Often transportation systems are developed in reaction to short term local demands to improve mobility, reduce congestion, and maintain current infrastructure rather than also addressing broader, long term sustainability goals. At the same time, current Federal research activities supporting the reduction of transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions emphasize vehicle technology and fuels, much more so
than the nature and level of travel demand.
Through this research effort, Federal agencies will conduct and coordinate research to promote efficient applications of transportation systems and land development as part of sustainable communities. These efforts will include research, evaluations and innovative demonstrations to understand the complex relationships that drive development decisions, locational choice, and travel demand. This research will support development of advanced models and analytic tools and explore decision making and institutional processes that are effective in leading to more sustainable land development and transportation decisions. Research will consider interrelated transportation systems of different modes at a range of scale from long distance and intercity to metropolitan and local perspectives.
Outputs:
Research on the interrelationship of travel behavior, trip type and mode choice, development patterns, and locational choice is incorporated into analytic tools, programs, and training.
Decision making processes, advanced analytical tools and models are evaluated and provided to Federal, state, regional, and local transportation and land development agencies to support more sustainable choices.
Outcomes: Greater community sustainability is fostered through improved integration of transportation and land development.
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1.3 Future Transportation Vehicle and Fuel Systems
Objectives: To review the long-term sustainability of advanced vehicle/fuel systems, and ensure timely interagency consideration of key implementation issues.
Discussion: The established system of transportation vehicles and fuels is heavily dependent on petroleum-based fuels. Because of long-term resource limitations and carbon emission impacts on global climate, current fossil fuel technologies for transportation are not sustainable.
Federal research sponsored by DOE, EPA, and other agencies currently supports a range of activities targeting the development of new fuels and vehicle technologies. Although some recent comparative studies are available, it is not clear which systems of vehicles and fuels will emerge as sustainable choices for the future. Nor is it clear which evolutionary pathways between markedly distinct systems would be the most desirable. The Team proposes a partnership among Federal agencies to review the long-term sustainability (e.g., over twenty- and fifty-year horizons) of different systems, and to ensure timely interagency consideration of key implementation issues, including infrastructure compatibility, distribution facilities, hazardous materials safety, evolutionary pathways, and transportation policy.
Outputs:
Evaluation of advanced vehicle/fuel systems, emphasizing system-wide safety, economics, and long-term sustainability.
Outcomes: Public investments are directed toward advanced transportation vehicle and fuel systems which best reduce GHG emissions while facilitating progress toward safety and other sustainability goals. This initiative would measure such systems according to relative energy consumption, fleetwide crash-related losses, air pollutant emissions (GHG, criteria pollutants, air toxics, ozone-depleting chemicals), as well as direct and indirect costs and economic and social equity effects. A full life-cycle and fuel-cycle approach would be emphasized. Different pathways for transitioning between alternative vehicle/fuel systems would be characterized according to such measures, supporting future public and private decision making.
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