WORKSHOP ON TRANSIT AND HIGHWAY OPERATIONS AND MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES. TRANSIT AND HIGHWAY OPERATIONS AND MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES. STATE OF THE PRACTICE

Emphasis in transportation planning has shifted to shorter-term, lower-cost improvements. The need is to adapt the procedures and analytical tools developed for planning long-range, capital-intensive projects to this new environment. Four subjects are discussed: Identification of planning applications within each of the five context areas where analysis of operations and management are important, a survey of methods currently used to examine these issues, some thoughts on gaps between the states of the art and the practice, and suggestions on priorities for the planning community in addressing these emerging planning issues. Nearly all Transportation System Management and transit management actions fall in the microscale range and 3 major groups of activities are discussed: Transit operations, traffic engineering, and ridesharing and paratransit. Three discrepancies between state-of-the-art and state-of-practice suggest priorities for the transportation planning community: (1) Closer association must be established with transportation professionals (traffic engineers, city planners and transit operations staff) whose responsibility involve travel demand issues; (2) More attention must be given to upgrading the capabilities of transportation professionals at local jurisdictions and transit agencies; (3) Correlation, synthesis and distribution of information on various management and operating strategies as they are implemented.