The Transportation Research Board (TRB) facilitates the sharing of information on transportation practice and policy by researchers and practitioners.  TRB’s Annual Meeting, held every year in Washington DC, is a premier national conference for transportation professionals to exchange ideas, promote technical excellence, and provide expert advice on transportation policy and programs.  At this year’s 101^st TRB Annual Meeting, HRTPO staff was invited to showcase its project prioritization process as well as ridesharing analysis.

The HRTPO Project Prioritization process was presented by Ms. Dale Stith, Principal Transportation Planner overseeing the development of the Long-Range Transportation Plan (LRTP) and Project Prioritization, at the Make it a Priority!  Spotlight on Project Prioritization Best Practices session where fellow transportation professionals gathered to discuss how transportation agencies are incorporating performance measures and targets to support decision-making.  This session highlighted innovative practices from metropolitan planning organizations around the country that are using performance measures as part of prioritization processes to help select projects for their LRTPs and Transportation Improvement Programs (TIPs).

Along with providing an overview of the region’s performance-based prioritization process, Ms. Stith also highlighted how the HRTPO, with its partnership with HRTAC, is able to prioritize and fund large projects like the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel (HRBT) Expansion Project while still providing for a balanced regional transportation system.  In addition to the Hampton Roads region, perspectives were provided from the Sacramento Area Council of Governments and Forward Pinellas (St. Petersburg, FL).  Each MPO highlighted different ways in which performance management is being put into practice to help positively influence project decisions and planned investments.

Mr. Bishoy Kelleny, a Transportation Engineer in the Transportation Improvement and Programming Group and a Ph.D. Candidate at Old Dominion University (ODU), was also selected to give two poster presentations showcasing his ODU dissertation research on Ridehailing and App-based transportation systems, e.g., Uber and Lyft.  Mr. Kelleny’s first session focused on statistical approaches to identify demand hotspots and heavily trafficked routes by users of these modes, and also on understanding patterns of trip length and characteristics.  The second session focused on analyzing the willingness to share Ridehailing trips, like UberPool and LyftLine.  This understanding of the willingness to share Ridehailing trips was drawn from spatial and temporal analysis of trip data from the City of Chicago, taking into consideration other factors like trip length, mile-cost, and time of day.  Equity considerations of Ridehailing was investigated in the analysis as well by exploring the association between openness to share trips and social advantage and disadvantage.  Results indicate more inclination to share in more disadvantaged neighborhoods.  Both sessions provided key insights for multimodal and intermodal policy-planning and decision-making, and are considered amongst the earliest endeavors to understand the emerging market of app-based mobility solutions.

Please click on the links below to learn more about:

HRTPO Project Prioritization:  https://www.hrtpo.org/page/project-prioritization/

Hampton Roads 2045 Long-Range Transportation Plan:  https://www.hrtpo.org/page/2045-long_range-transportation-plan/

Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel Expansion Project:  https://hrbtexpansion.org/

Ridehailing Research Findings:

KELLENY, Bishoy; ISHAK, Sherif. Exploring and visualizing spatial effects and patterns in ride-sourcing trip demand and characteristics. Journal of Sustainable Development of Transport and Logistics, [S.l.], v. 6, n. 2, p. 6-24, Nov. 2021. ISSN 2520-2979. Available at:  https://jsdtl.sciview.net/index.php/jsdtl/article/view/158. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.14254/jsdtl.2021.6-2.1.