Research Project:

Achieving Efficiency in Meeting Safety, Operations, Maintenance, and Air Quality Goals

Principal Investigator | Project Objective | Project Abstract | Task Descriptions | Project Period | Potential Benefits of the Project | Budget | TRB Keywords

Principal Investigator

Shauna Hallmark
Iowa State University
(515) 294-5249
shallmar@iastate.edu

Project Objectives

• Identify overlap between operations, safety, maintenance, and air quality
• Provide decision support tools that assess the impact of capital improvement goals in one area on the goals of other areas. 

Project Abstract

Significant transportation agency resources are allocated to meet maintenance, operations, safety, and air quality goals.  Although there is a significant amount of overlap between these areas, decisions to meet agency goals in one area often do not consider goals in the others and as a result miss out on opportunities to leverage funds and make better informed decisions overall. 

There are a number of areas of overlap between capital improvements to improve operations, maintenance, safety, and air quality goals which provide a rich opportunity to leverage funds and use resources more cost-effectively while meeting agency goals in two or more of the areas.  The objective of this research is to develop analytical tools that can be used to more efficiently evaluate common capital projects that are used to meet agency goals in one area (operations, safety, air quality, and maintenance) but also have a significant impact on the others.

Task Descriptions

1. Identify capital or major improvement expense areas that have a significant impact on two or more of the areas of maintenance, safety, operations, and air quality.

2. Select case study areas to compare each of the improvements selected in Task 1.

3. Compare each using analysis methods commonly used by transportation agencies. 

4. Develop decision-support tools so that agencies can identify areas of overlap between different agency goals.

5. Provide technology transfer in the form of a formal report, write-up on case studies, and summary of decision-support tools.

Project Period  

April 2007 – March 2008

Potential Benefits of the Project

Tools that transportation agencies can use to make safety, operation, maintenance, and air quality decisions more efficiently.

Budget

$164,444:  $70,000 MTC / $78,580 Match (Iowa DOT $39,136, Minnesota DOT $39,444) / $15,864 ineligible match

TRB Keywords

Capital Improvement, Traffic Operations, Maintenance, Safety, Air Quality