2013 Session: 357

• How New Technologies Can Contribute to Measuring Sustainable Mobility
  Abstract: While much effort has been concentrated on making transportation more sustainable, the measurement of these efforts (through models, evaluation, or scenarios) is not trivial. In fact, not only is the selection of indicators challenging, but efforts made to design useful indicators are often hampered by the presence of data that are erroneous or incomplete. Nevertheless, the significant penetration of new technologies such as smartphones and smart infrastructure could hold the key to developing more relevant and comprehensive indicators. In this paper, we review commonly used indicators and discuss their limitations with respect to the data upon which they are built. We then describe several new technologies that hold promise for the collection of more pertinent and accurate data sets upon with indicators may be built. Finally, we discuss their potential for the future and illustrate a hypothetical scenario by reviewing a one-day GPS traces of one of the authors. While the first and obvious application of new technologies will be to improve much needed accuracy, combining different sources together seem to hold much potential from model calibration to real time operations.
  Authors: Derrible, Sybil; Cottrill, Caitlin D.
  Authors: Derrible, Sybil; Cottrill, Caitlin D.
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Energy; Environment; Finance; Policy
  Session: 357
  Paper Number: 13-1953
• Sustainable Transportation Policy Development Using System Dynamics and World Cities Data
  Abstract: In the study reported herein, a system dynamic model was developed, using pertinent data for a large of number world cities, in order to analyze and appraise urban transportation sustainability. The objective was to determine efficacious policies for sustainable transportation. The study database was developed based on few global urban transportation databases covering numerous cities for 4 decades in period of 1960 to 2001: MCD, MCDST and ISADC. Based on the study database, 9 sustainable transportation indicators were developed, 3 indicators for presenting each key group of environmental, economic and social urban sustainability. A composite index was also suggested for combining the developed indicators. To develop the pertinent urban dynamic model, urban transportation causal loops were conceptualized and the dynamic relations between urban transportation variables were created. Trip generation, trip distance, modal share and vehicle occupancy were the key modules of the model. Economic, social and environmental indicators were the key outputs of the model. The dynamic model inputs were urban characteristics relevant to transportation. The dynamic model testing and evaluation were found satisfactory using time-series data. For the city of Isfahan, as a case study, by monitoring the sustainable transportation indicators using different development scenarios, efficacious transportation policies were determined and evaluated. The model deployment reflected that policy makers are expected to develop policies pertinent to public and non-motorized transportation infrastructure integration.
  Authors: Haghshenas, Hossein; Vaziri, Manouchehr
  Authors: Haghshenas, Hossein; Vaziri, Manouchehr
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Energy; Environment; Finance; Policy
  Session: 357
  Paper Number: 13-2026
• Livability Literature Review: Synthesis of Current Practice
  Abstract: In 2009, the U.S. Department of Transportation, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency collaborated to form the Partnership for Sustainable Communities. The Partnership developed six livability principles to improve access to affordable housing, provide more transportation options, and lower transportation costs, while protecting the environment in communities nationwide. Using the Partnership’s livability principles as guidance, NARC conducted an extensive review of local and regional comprehensive and master plans, reports and policy documents. The literature revealed difficulty in creating livability consensus concepts, livability and sustainability used as interchangeable terms, and ten trending topics used by practitioners to achieve livability goals. While the ten trending topics are not exhaustive, it serves as a starting point to further understand livability tactics and mechanisms that can be replicated on local, state and regional levels. This paper examines each trending topic as it relates to the livability principles to enhance the understanding, knowledge and implementation of livability.
  Authors: Young, Erika; Hermanson, Valerie
  Authors: Young, Erika; Hermanson, Valerie
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Energy; Environment; Finance; Policy
  Session: 357
  Paper Number: 13-2940
• Sustainable Communities: Challenges in Implementing Standardized Performance Measures
  Abstract: Performance measurement systems for public decision-making processes remain a work in progress for transportation planning, land use planning, and urban and regional planning generally. There is a particular need for performance measures that can guide the development of more sustainable transportation systems. This paper describes an effort to apply standardized performance measures in four different metropolitan and rural regions across the United States. Each pilot community was provided with a “Draft Guidebook for Sustainable Community Performance Measurement”, which lays out data sources and preliminary steps for calculating 17 proposed performance measures. The pilot efforts revealed several consistent challenges to establishing performance measures that can be calculated in a standardized way across multiple geographic regions. First, inconsistencies in data sources across regions, as well as different levels of technical capacity to calculate measures, mean that the accuracy of measures calculated varies from region to region. Second, some of the measures are more appropriate for application in urban areas than in suburban and rural areas. Third, if measures are expected to inform local planning processes, regions understandably want to customize them to reflect their own priorities. Customization results in measures that cannot be compared across regions. Based on these findings, we suggest that comparing sustainable community outcomes and trends in regions across the U.S. requires implementing standardized performance measures in a more centralized manner.
  Authors: Gallivan, Frank; Ramsey, Kevin; Ang-Olson, Jeffrey
  Authors: Gallivan, Frank; Ramsey, Kevin; Ang-Olson, Jeffrey
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Energy; Environment; Finance; Policy
  Session: 357
  Paper Number: 13-3397
• Livability Literature Review: Synthesis of Current Practice
  Authors: Hermanson, Valerie
  Authors: Hermanson, Valerie
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Presentation; Poster
  Subject: Energy; Environment; Finance; Policy
  Session: 357
  Paper Number: 13-2940
• Sustainable Communities: Challenges in Implementing Standardized Performance Measures
  Authors: Gallivan, Frank
  Authors: Gallivan, Frank
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Presentation; Poster
  Subject: Energy; Environment; Finance; Policy
  Session: 357
  Paper Number: 13-3397
• Sustainable Transportation Infrastructure Investments and Mode Share Changes: A 20-Year Case Study of Boulder, Colorado.
  Authors: Nordback, Krista
  Authors: Nordback, Krista
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Presentation; Poster
  Subject: Energy; Environment; Finance; Policy
  Session: 357
  Paper Number: 13-4192
• Sustainable Transportation Infrastructure Investments and Mode Share Changes: A 20-Year Case Study of Boulder, Colorado.
  Abstract:

  This case study examines transportation infrastructure investments along with data revealing mode share in order to highlight correlations between investments in sustainable transportation infrastructure (‘supply’) and patterns of non-automobile mode share (‘demand’). The analysis assesses data from Boulder, Colorado, a city that has made substantial efforts to improve its multi-modal transportation infrastructure and services by investing in pedestrian, bicycle, and transit infrastructure and services. We aim to describe connections between supply and demand by measuring two phenomena: the extent of transportation infrastructure investments supporting pedestrian, bicycle, and transit modes made between 1990 and 2009, and the share of these modes during the same 20-year period. Results illustrate an overall increase in transit and bicycle mode share and a decrease in single occupancy vehicle share, with consistent pedestrian share. We conclude that Boulder’s investments in improving mode choices through new infrastructure and services supporting non-automobile modes are associated with increasing share of non-automobile modes. This is despite national trends which indicate opposite patterns. Regardless of the reasons for the positive trends experienced in Boulder, the presence of robust pedestrian, bicycling, and transit infrastructure has clearly coincided with evolving travel preferences. Boulder therefore serves as an example for other cities desiring to focus on developing policies and infrastructure that expand the availability of non-automobile modes.

  Authors: Henao, Alejandro; Piatkowski, Daniel; Luckey, Kara Showalter; Nordback, Krista; Stonebraker, Eric William; Marshall, Wesley; Krizek, Kevin J.
  Authors: Henao, Alejandro; Piatkowski, Daniel; Luckey, Kara Showalter; Nordback, Krista; Stonebraker, Eric William; Marshall, Wesley; Krizek, Kevin J.
  Year: 2013
  Document Type: Paper
  Subject: Energy; Environment; Finance; Policy
  Session: 357
  Paper Number: 13-4192