Paper Guidelines for CRP 445/545

Five Short Issue Papers

The goal here is for you to be able to do a concise and brief literature review on a specific policy topic. Each short paper should focus on a very specific issue or project related to one of the five main issue areas of the course. Papers should be no more than three pages long, double-spaced.

A good description of the general structure of a literature review was prepared at the University of Wisconsin and is on the World Wide Web at:

http://www.wisc.edu/writing/Handbook/ReviewofLiterature.html

One of the most useful tools for reviewing literature in transportation is the Transportation Research Information Service (TRIS), which is supported by the Transportation Research Board (TRB) of the National Academy of Science and the US Department of Transportation. TRIS and a similar international research literature database are accessible on the web at:

http://ntlsearch.bts.gov/tris/index.do

The five short papers (with their general topics) will be due as follows:

• Transportation safety, Week 5, Thursday September 20th
• Environmental quality and energy, Week 7, Tuesday October 2nd (the Mid-Term will be on Thursday the 4th)
• Economic impact, Week 10, Thursday October 25th
• Quality of life, Week 12, Thursday November 8th
• Equity and environmental justice, Week 14, Thursday November 29th

No late submissions of these papers will be accepted. On the due date, I will ask all the graduate students to be prepared to briefly present their issues and findings for discussion in class. We may only discuss one or two issues, depending on how interesting they are to the class.

Final Papers and Projects

The final class project should entail a thorough analysis of a transportation policy issue or project of interest to the student. The instructor will expect students to submit their proposed topic before the mid-term exam. Projects should consist of a brief literature review and an analysis of the issue, topic, or project. The instructor may work with students on their topic and is available for consultation about topics and research. The project will include a paper of no more than 15 pages and a presentation to the class. Both the presentation and paper will be graded on content and quality of presentation. The paper should be prepared as if you are a consultant or senior policy analyst working for a transportation agency that needs to make an important decision. You should include a set of recommendations. Teams of two are acceptable on the final class projects, except that two graduate students cannot work together on a project. Teams including one graduate student and one undergraduate student are encouraged. Teams and graduate students will be expected to produce higher quality results than undergraduate students working alone.

Final student presentations will occur in class on November 27 and 29 and December 4 and 6. There are roughly 25 students in the class, so the maximum time available for any presentation will be 12-15 minutes. With teams of two possible, some time may be freed up; teams of two should limit their presentation to 18-20 minutes. Dates and times will be assigned on a first-come, first-served basis later in the semester.