TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Synthesis 326: Strategic Planning and Decision Making in State Departments of Transportation examines state and provincial transportation departments' experience with strategic planning and synthesizes current approaches to linking strategic planning with other decision-making processes, including operational and tactical planning, resource allocation, performance management, and performance measurement.

This pioneering text provides a holistic approach to decisionmaking in transportation project development and programming, whichcan help transportation professionals to optimize their investmentchoices. The authors present a proven set of methodologies forevaluating transportation projects that ensures that all costs andimpacts are taken into consideration. The text's logical organization gets readers started with asolid foundation in basic principles and then progressively buildson that foundation. Topics covered include: Developing performance measures for evaluation, estimatingtravel demand, and costing transportation projects Performing an economic efficiency evaluation that accounts forsuch factors as travel time, safety, and vehicle operatingcosts Evaluating a project's impact on economic development and landuse as well as its impact on society and culture Assessing a project's environmental impact, including airquality, noise, ecology, water resources, and aesthetics Evaluating alternative projects on the basis of multipleperformance criteria Programming transportation investments so that resources can beoptimally allocated to meet facility-specific and system-widegoals Each chapter begins with basic definitions and concepts followedby a methodology for impact assessment. Relevant legislation isdiscussed and available software for performing evaluations ispresented. At the end of each chapter, readers are providedresources for detailed investigation of particular topics. Theseinclude Internet sites and publications of international anddomestic agencies and research institutions. The authors alsoprovide a companion Web site that offers updates, data foranalysis, and case histories of project evaluation and decisionmaking. Given that billions of dollars are spent each year ontransportation systems in the United States alone, and that thereis a need for thorough and rational evaluation and decision makingfor cost-effective system preservation and improvement, this textshould be on the desks of all transportation planners, engineers,and educators. With exercises in every chapter, this text is anideal coursebook for the subject of transportation systems analysisand evaluation.

Aims to encourage transportation agencies to address strategic questions as they confront the task of managing the surface transportation system. Drawn form both national and international knowledge and experience, it provides guidance to State Department of Transportation (DOT) decision makers, as well as county and municipal transportation agencies, to assist them in realizing the most from financial resources now and into the future, preserving highway assets, and providing the service expected by customers. Divided into two parts, Part one focuses on leadership and goal and objective setintg, while Part two is more technically oriented. Appendices include work sheets and case studies.

Responds to recommendations contained in the V.P. Gore's National Performance Review's (NPR) Sept. 7, 1993, report. The NPR report contained 384 major recommendations covering 27 federal agencies & 14 government systems. This report contains initial comments on each of the NPR report's recommendations on the basis of the government's work, & is the first part of a planned long-term body of work on the NPR.

This report provides a guidebook on how to develop air traffic forecasts in the face of a broad range of uncertainties. It is targeted at airport operators, planners, designers, and other stakeholders involved in planning, managing, and financing of airports, and it provides a systems analysis methodology that augments standard master planning and strategic planning approaches. This methodology includes a set of tools for improving the understanding and application of risk and uncertainty in air traffic forecasts as well as for increasing overall effectiveness of airport planning and decision making. In developing the guidebook, the research team studied existing methods used in traditional master planning as well as methods that directly address risk and uncertainty, and based on that fundamental research, they created a straightforward and transparent systems analysis methodology for expanding and improving traditional planning practices, applicable through a wide range of airport sizes. The methods presented were tested through a series of case study applications that also helped to identify additional opportunities for future research and long-term enhancements.