Glen Weisbrod

Relationship of Transportation Access and Connectivity to Local Economic Outcomes: Statistical Analysis

Past research has shown that transportation system improvements can affect economic growth and productivity by changing access to markets and connectivity to intermodal terminals. However, most past research has adopted singular measures of market access and business productivity. This study demonstrates how various transportation projects can have larger or smaller impacts on business concentration and productivity by affecting different aspects of market access in areas with different business mixes. The study demonstrates these relationships through a two-step process. First, it defines seven types of access and connectivity measures, including access to labor markets, truck delivery markets, and intermodal terminals. The process then develops econometric models of the relationship between access and connectivity characteristics of local areas and relative levels of business productivity, job concentration, and export base. These relationships are estimated with simultaneous, nonlinear equations that allow access threshold effects to be recognized and for different relationships to apply for 54 industry sectors. The results confirm that different types of access are relevant to different industry sectors. As a consequence, the productivity and agglomeration of a given industry in a given area can be related to more than one dimension of accessibility. These results can have important implications for estimating the wider economic benefits of transportation investment and suggest the need to consider both industry detail and forms of accessibility in order to calculate accurately the relative impact of specific project proposals.

Rail Freight as a Means of Reducing Roadway Congestion: Feasibility Considerations for Transportation Planning

As congestion levels have grown on both urban and intercity highway routes, state and regional transportation planners are starting to look more broadly at alternatives that can hold down or reduce traffic growth. Planners have long considered modal diversion from road to rail for passenger travel, but less attention has been given to opportunities for modal shifting of freight as a means of addressing roadway traffic. Yet it is becoming increasingly clear that railroads can offer a potentially viable alternative to trucking in some situations. This alternative becomes of particular interest when expanded use of rail freight can reduce either existing traffic congestion levels or the need for expanding highway capacity in the future. This paper summarizes findings from NCHRP Project 8–42, which examined the feasibility and value of rail freight solutions as a means of reducing highway congestion, and these solutions’ implications for public planning. It defines the range of rail freight strategies that can be applied to mitigate the growth of traffic congestion and discusses the types of situations in which they can be most relevant. It describes the economic and institutional factors affecting the feasibility of diverting some truck freight to rail, and it lays out a structural framework for evaluating the relative benefits of these options.

DO NEW HIGHWAYS ATTRACT BUSINESSES? CASE STUDY FOR NORTH COUNTRY, NEW YORK

A frequently heard argument for new highways, especially those to be located in rural regions, is that they will directly lead to new business attraction and expansion opportunities (i.e., expanding from a two-lane road to a four-lane expressway will be what is needed to jump-start lagging economic regions). The literature on industrial site location commonly cites transportation infrastructure and access to markets as key determinants of business location. Meanwhile, many prospective studies are undertaken (major investments studies, environmental impact statements, etc.) that include analyses to try to estimate the economic impacts of new highway investments. The problem is that most transportation-based analysis tools, such as travel network and user benefit models, are not designed to answer the question of the potential for a highway investment to lead to business attraction (which is inherently speculative). Rather, they focus on quantifying current and future traffic patterns and how they will be affected by a highway improvement. The North Country Transportation Study examined these traditional benefits but also, perhaps more importantly, carefully studied the potential for business attraction to the region. This effort provides a substantial advance in the economic development analysis of transportation investments because of the thoroughness of sources and methodologies undertaken to understand and quantify this impact in the relatively rural and isolated region of northern New York. Local interviews and surveys, state business attraction and retention trend analysis, and a specially designed business attraction model were used to transform a typically speculative concept into a tangible one.

Comparing Approaches for Valuing Economic Development Benefits of Transportation Projects

Transportation agencies often face uncertainty regarding how to define and assess the economic magnitude of benefits associated with alternative projects and programs. Alternative types of economic impact analysis are examined, using data from a highway study in Kentucky to explore (1) differences in the definitions of economic benefits inherent in the various types of analysis, (2) reasons for their differing findings on the value of benefits, and (3) issues affecting their interpretation and use in decision making.

Evolving Connection of Transit, Agglomeration, and Growth of High-Technology Business Clusters

Although much literature on spatial agglomeration, public transit, and the economy has focused on broad analyses and generalized relationships, this study focuses on one specific element of the economy: the development of high-technology, knowledge-based industries that account for a disproportionate share of the national economic growth. The study examines how these industries are clustering in large metropolitan areas and specific suburban and urban locations within those metropolitan areas. This research shows how the growing levels of employment in these industries are challenging the capacity constraints of local road networks and how leading businesses in these industrial clusters are turning to private and public transit to enable their continued growth. The evidence indicates that (a) the advantages of concentration in metropolitan areas and highly localized clustering for these specific business sectors continue to exist and (b) although public transportation is not the cause of clustering, most high-technology business clusters are evolving so that bus and rail solutions are supporting the clusters’ continuing growth and will support their future growth.

Applying Benefit–Cost Analysis for Airport Improvements: Challenges in a Multimodal World

Benefit–cost analysis (BCA) is widely used for airport investment analysis, for both ranking of alternatives and funding decisions. Although the technique is theoretically straightforward, its application can become complicated by a series of factors that are particularly problematic for aviation applications. For one, the requirement for ground access makes air travel intrinsically multimodal. In addition, the speed of air travel attracts classes of users and dependent parties with particular speed sensitivities and delay consequences. When BCA is applied to airport project proposals, it can raise issues of how to handle competing modes and intermodal interactions, and the definition of the real users and beneficiaries of airport improvements. To examine these issues, the authors compared benefit–cost guidance for airports with counterpart guidance for other travel modes and conducted a review of the current state of practice of benefit–cost studies for airport improvements. The findings point to challenges for improving methods of airport BCA.

Generalized Approach for Assessing Direct User Impacts of Multimodal Transport Projects

The effects of a transportation project can be estimated either by benefit–cost accounting or by economic development impact analysis; both are regularly used by government agencies to plan and justify investments. Although these approaches differ in methodology, both rely on the estimation of direct user impacts—those arising from changes in the quantity and quality of travel. However, a survey of published analyses and guides reveals, first, that there is considerable confusion between an economic benefit (as used in benefit–cost accounting) and an economic impact (as used in impact analysis) and, second, that user impacts are frequently estimated too narrowly by ignoring intermodal effects and impacts to freight shippers. To address these issues, a framework is presented for estimating direct user impacts that is generalized to accommodate multiple travel modes in a way that avoids double counting, gives a full treatment of freight shippers and carriers, and differentiates between benefits and impacts for use in either type of analysis.

Progress and Challenges in the Application of Economic Analysis for Transport Policy and Decision Making

This concluding paper discusses key aspects of the five research papers presented at this Roundtable in terms of their policy applications. It notes problems concerning how policy makers make use of economic analysis findings, and then summarizes the breadth of macro-, meso- and micro-economic methods in terms of their predictive use for infrastructure assessment and planning. It then examines tradeoffs and limitations among all the methods that affect their policy application, and it identifies directions needed to enhance the applicability of future economic models for policy makers.

Distinguishing wide and local area business impacts of transportation investments

Although transportation system investments are made for a variety of reasons (including improvements to capacity, traffic flow, safety, and economic development), they almost always involve social, environmental, or business impact tradeoffs, whereby some class of travelers, businesses, or area residents believe that they are made better-off and some that they are made worse-off by new facilities or new traffic activity patterns. The challenge for transportation planning is to recognize benefits and anticipate adverse local impacts so that the tradeoffs do not undermine the capability to make larger system improvements. Business impacts are the focus here. An analysis process for identifying and distinguishing the potential wide area and small area business impacts of highway improvements is described. A similar format can also be applied to other modes of travel.

Passenger Value of Time, Benefit-Cost Analysis, and Airport Capital Investment Decisions Volume 1: Guidebook for Valuing User Time Savings in Airport Capital Investment Decision Analysis

This guidebook was prepared as part of Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) 03-19: Passenger Value of Time, Benefit-Cost Analysis and Airport Capital Investment Decisions. The purpose of this research is to provide an up-to-date understanding of how recent airport developments, such as changes in security measures since 9/11, the proliferation of airside passenger amenities, and the adoption of new technology (e.g., Internet, mobile phone, wireless devices, and portable computers), have changed the way travelers value efficient air travel. This guidebook provides a method for airport owners and operators to determine how their customers value the travel time impacts of efficiency improvements. The economic values presented in this guidebook are derived from a review of past research studies and a survey of air travelers conducted during the spring of 2013. The survey respondents comprised 1,260 travelers who made flights between 172 distinct origin airports and 148 distinct destination airports throughout the country. The results of the survey provide estimates of how travelers value their time for different segments of an air trip. The value of time estimates presented in this guide represent a significant improvement over existing estimates. This guide provides updated travel time values that are specific to ten different segments of airport trips, differentiate between business and leisure travelers, and allow income levels to be taken into consideration. It describes a process for using travel time valuations in estimating the relative benefit or cost effectiveness of proposed airport capital investments. The process allows for decision makers to screen whether particular airport projects warrant the use of the more detailed values of time presented in this guide and to identify the types of travel time savings that are likely to occur for particular types of projects. The guidebook also provides three examples of applying the guidance that are based on different types of airport improvements, and provides recommendations for further research to improve and update the values of travel time savings and to enhance airport planning and investment analysis.