While Florida transit agencies are required to develop a 10-year transit development plan intended to support the development of an effective multi-modal transportation system, no such requirement exists for commuter assistance programs (CAP), including transportation management organizations (TMO).  The CAP program, including the TMOs, operate with one-year planning horizons making long-term plans and initiating projects with longer returns on investment impractical.  Over 20 percent of Tampa Bay residents use some form of transportation other than solo driving.  These groups may be underrepresented by local and regional transportation plans that focus primarily on capital investments that favor solo driving.   This Commuter Assistance Program Regional Development Plan (CAPRDP) for the Tampa Bay region provides recommendations for integrating transportation demand management (TDM) and commuter assistance into long range transportation planning.  It provides recommendations based on an assessment of existing conditions, a stakeholder outreach process, and a review of national promising practices in TDM.  This report describes actions and tools that can be used at the state, regional, and local levels, working with the regional commuter assistance program and the TMOs, to improve mobility for all transportation system users, and maximize the use of the existing capacity of the system.  More info…

Social marketing seeks to develop and integrate marketing concepts with other approaches to influence behaviors that benefit individuals and communities for the greater social good (International Social Marketing Association, 2013). Social marketing is a useful transportation demand management (TDM) planning approach to promote travel-behavior change, and combines at least seven distinguishing features which set it apart from other popular, behavior change planning approaches, such as education and mass media campaigns. These seven features include a focus on socially beneficial behavior change; a strong consumer orientation; the use of audience segmentation techniques and the selection of target audiences; the use of marketing’s conceptual framework (marketing mix and exchange theory); the recognition of competition; and continual marketing research.

The purpose of this study was to explore a consumer market segmentation technique (SEGMENT) successfully used in Europe for its applicability to social marketing campaigns in the United States. The SEGMENT project in Europe was a three-year project that examined how consumer market segmentation techniques can influence travel-behavior choices in favor of more energy sustainable modes of travel. The project analyzed over 10,000 responses to comprehensive attitudinal surveys containing over 100 questions to generate eight main attitudinal segments useful for the design of mobility social marketing campaigns; additional analysis produced 18 “golden questions” representing the smallest number of survey questions required to reproduce the eight market segments (Intelligent Energy Europe, 2015). The SEGMENT project in Europe concluded that most of their eight segments can be detected in all locations (27 EU member states); however, the proportion to which each segment is represented in each partner city differs. Additionally, the SEGMENT project analysis identified key dimensions of diversity across attitudinal groups which enabled a core set of attitudinal questions to be identified; from these different dimensions, the golden questions were produced. The eight segments and golden questions identified by the European SEGMENT project cannot be directly transferrable to the United States’ population without further analysis. The research questions for this study included:

• Are attitudinal market segments the same in Europe and the United States?
• What proportion of each segment is represented in each of three states in the United States?
• Are the golden questions used in Europe able to accurately predict segment orientation in the United States?

Unfamiliarity with the plans, processes and procedures of the local government land development process, transportation demand management (TDM) professionals can be frustrated in their efforts to improve mobility and reduce traffic congestion.  This report provides detailed information to transportation professionals regarding how to incorporate TDM strategies into the land development process.  The report documents efforts to secure TDM strategies as part of development approvals, summarizes the long-range planning groundwork that frames the land development process, provides several case study examples from Florida and nationwide and also identifies several institutional barriers to the use of TDM as part of the land development process.  A major finding is that transportation professionals interested in using TDM in land development must get involved long before development proposals are submitted.  This requires participation in review and updates of the MPO long range transportation plan and transportation improvement program as well as local government comprehensive plans.  Further, it involves appraising how well the local government land development regulations implement the intent of the comprehensive plan and reviewing traffic analysis methodology and underlying assumptions.  These ground laying activities will begin the integration of TDM principles and strategies into the land use and transportation planning processes resulting in physical infrastructure, regulatory tools and operations management to support TDM as part of the solution as land development proceeds.  More info…

The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) regional planning programs address current and forecasted deficiencies of State highways through the conduct of corridor studies. This Guidance for the conduct of corridor planning studies is the product of a comprehensive evaluation of how to incorporate the consideration of Transportation Demand Management (TDM) strategies into several business areas of the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT). Corridor studies are an integral part of the transportation planning process, which support the State Highway System goals and objectives at the state and regional levels, as well as the vision for the corridor by the communities that the corridor serves. The Moving Washington approach recognizes the importance of using all the tools in the toolbox to cost effectively achieve the state transportation policy goals. This includes the mobility goal of maintaining the predictable movement of goods and people throughout the state of Washington. This Guidance describes a recommended approach to TDM strategies as part of least-cost planning for improving mobility. The Guidance asserts that all three methods: (1) managing travel demand, (2) optimizing traffic flow, and (3) accommodating travel demand by increasing capacity, should be used concurrently. This approach will advance the integration of TDM into the selected solutions aimed at reducing traffic congestion, providing mobility choices, enhancing transportation affordability, and meeting the State of Washington’s goals for reducing air pollution and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and improving community livability. This Guidance recommends use of a systematic process for identifying mobility needs, assessing existing TDM programs and resources, and evaluating potential TDM solutions against chosen performance metrics.  More info…

This self-paced, online course teaches journalists, law enforcement officers, and transportation professionals how we might tap into what we know about language in order to shift the narrative and prevent bicyclist and pedestrian deaths. More specifically,

• Journalists will learn new ways to inform the public to enhance pedestrian and bicyclist safety.
• Law enforcement officers will learn new ways to protect pedestrians and bicyclists.
• Transportation professionals will learn to educate others who influence safety engineering to prevent victim-blaming and support sound infrastructure.
• Course Objectives:
• After completing this course, participants will have the skills to:
• evaluate language use and recognize biases in grammar and vocabulary
• conduct a situational analysis to identify blame-based language
• identify episodic vs thematic frames in written reports
• design sentences that are as factual and objective as possible
• identify resources for transportation professionals, law enforcement officers, public information officers, and media professionals to spread the word, shift the narrative, and create safer public spaces.

This course was developed by the Center for Urban Transportation Research with funding from the National Safety Council. 

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A podcast episode featuring Sara Hendricks, Senior Research Associate at CUTR.  More info…

A podcast episode featuring Julie Bond, CUTR Senior Research Associate at CUTR and Tom Harrington, Global Commute Solutions Leader in Intuit’s Workplace Organization.  More info…