Adjo Amekudzi-Kennedy

Identifying Factors to Improve Transportation Asset Management Program Sustainment: Applying Implementation Research and Change Management Principles

Reauthorization of the national surface transportation legislation in the United States in 2012 included a requirement for agencies to develop transportation asset management (TAM) plans for the first time. Research on policy implementation and organizational theory has shown that agencies can respond to this kind of legislative mandate with ineffective efforts to achieve legitimacy, reducing the likelihood for program sustainment in the long term. Without sustainment, the benefits of TAM, which are mostly long term, may not be fully realized. The objective of this work is to identify factors that can improve the extent to which TAM programs are maintained within the business operations of departments of transportation (DOTs) by examining TAM implementation historically and through the lenses of policy and program implementation research and organizational change management theories. Ten factors were identified that can promote sustainment and longevity of TAM programs in the business processes of DOTs; the factors include characteristics of TAM programs or the availability and quality of human and other resources. Agencies can consider addressing the factors identified to enhance their implementation approaches with the goal of attaining long-term viability of their TAM programs. These factors provide a basis for formally addressing the social and organizational capital elements alongside the physical and technical capital elements of TAM implementation.

Transportation System Health: Meeting Deficiency Needs and Growth Aspirations Systemically

Different concepts of health have been applied to transportation and other built infrastructure systems in the literature and in practice. The 2012 national surface transportation legislation, Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century, established a performance-based planning framework requiring the development of performance measures and targets with progress reporting by state, metropolitan, and local agencies toward achieving seven national goals. Although performance-based planning offers a formal platform on which to plan systematically to achieve goals, one of the key challenges is how best to manage transportation system performance in nonuniform metropolitan regions and local jurisdictions to achieve uniform statewide and national goals. Motivated by this issue, this study developed the concept of transportation system health (TSH) with a focus on fulfilling both basic needs and beyond-basic needs of the communities that transportation systems serve, with Maslow’s theory of human motivation as a foundation. Potential applications of the TSH framework are discussed, with examples highlighting their significance for multiscale and context-sensitive planning and decision making. This paper is potentially useful to practitioners looking for systematic approaches to support identifying strategic goals, determining priorities, selecting performance measures, and setting targets in nonuniform regions to achieve uniform statewide goals.

Network priorities for social sustainability research and education: Memorandum of the Integrated Network on Social Sustainability Research Group

Abstract The Integrated Network for Social Sustainability (INSS) is a research-coordination network supported by the National Science Foundation that is currently in its third year of activities. Individual and institutional members, representing a wide range of fields and interests, are devoted to addressing social sustainability as an important, understudied issue under the broader rubric of sustainability and sustainable development. The INSS has developed a number of affinity groups and a set of activities to facilitate its development. An annual conference draws members together to review and report on their efforts. At the first conference, a group interested in developing a research agenda formed. This Community Essay shares its members’ perspectives about priorities for future research and education on social sustainability, highlighting efforts for greater inclusion of marginalized populations in research.

Transportation System Resilience

The research and the practice associated with the development of resilient transportation systems have, to date, focused largely on the characterization and reduction of the vulnerability of transportation systems and the impacts of disruptive events on system users. Emerging evidence, however, suggests that a move from a technical focus to a sociotechnical focus has the potential to enhance the resilience of built systems and the societies that they serve. This paper first reviews the literature on the resilience of the transportation system to characterize the nature of approaches to the development of resilience in the transportation system. The paper offers examples of cases that provide evidence of the added benefits associated with a move from a largely technical approach to a sociotechnical approach. Subsequently, the paper reviews the literature on resilience in social, ecological, and economic systems to identify opportunities for expanding the scope of existing approaches to develop resilience in the transportation system and offer operational pathways forward. The review findings indicate that the following concepts may be applied to enhance the development of resilience in the transportation system: adaptive behavior and multiple equilibrium states from resilience in ecological systems; vulnerability, adaptive capacity, and participative capacity from resilience in social systems; a multiscale approach to resilience; and static and dynamic resilience in economic systems. Overall systematic efforts toward the development of institutional, organizational, social, and financial capital with influences on the resilience of the transportation system would also enhance the development of resilience in the transportation system.

Performance-Based Methodology for Evaluating Equity for Transportation System Users

Planning for equitable outcomes in transportation requires the development of evaluation methods that support the integration of equity in planning processes. This paper presents a methodology for equity evaluation that addresses limitations in current practices by analyzing transportation system outcomes regionally for the full range of demographic groups over time to incorporate the results into performance-based planning processes. This work applied current equity evaluations and a proposed methodology to a case study of the Atlanta, Georgia, metropolitan region. The results illustrate the current methodological limitations and provide an application of the proposed method that shows its ability to address the limitations. The proposed methodology is a comprehensive approach to analyze and characterize transportation system impacts that can be incorporated into performance-based transportation planning at the regional level to improve equity of transportation outcomes.

Evidence-Based Decision Making for Transportation Asset Management

Recent emphasis on performance-based approaches, reflected, for example, in the mandates of the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act, provides opportunities for more rigorous approaches to collecting and using “evidence” in transportation asset management (TAM). A strong evidence-based approach was founded on well-documented studies demonstrating failure or success following the implementation of an intervention. This study explored the use of evidence in TAM and performance-based decision making. The studys methodology included a review of evidence-based approaches from various fields, an “evidence exchange” between transportation practitioners, and case studies providing examples of evidence in TAM. The study identified attributes of evidence-based approaches that could lend themselves to enhancing AASHTOs existing framework for TAM program advancement and asset management decision making. These attributes were used to (a) develop a formal hierarchy of evidence to be used in evidence-based decision making for TAM and (b) develop a documentation framework for TAM that can be applied at the project and program levels to ensure evidence-based decisions. The results of this work demonstrate for TAM practitioners what constitutes quality evidence, how it is gathered, and how it can be interpreted and used.