Transportation Futures

Future Uses of Highway Rights of Way

The Future Uses of Rights of Way study highlights emerging possibilities for the use of highway rights of way to provide more diverse options for transportation and to meet other societal-related needs. Uses that will be highlighted are deck parks, automated technology, solar and wind power, kinetic-energy recapture, transmission line placement, truck idling facilities and intermodal uses.

This report also includes the ideas and feedback from three visioning sessions held across the country in 2011, as well as scenario development. The full report will be made available online by the Fall of 2012. A summary report of the study is available below:

Future Uses of Highway Rights of Way, HPTS Summary Report

The Next Generation of Travel: Research, Analysis and Scenario Development

The future of personal travel will be influenced by a combination of various events, including life cycle changes, demographic and socioeconomic factors, generational social norms, and the adaption of people to new technologies and travel options. The Transportation Futures team is conducting a formal study to examine the travel behavior of youth under the age of 30, which will be used to develop policy recommendations based on improved forecasts of demand, vehicle usage and the impacts of new transportation technologies on personal travel.

The work completed under this project provides for both a quantitative and qualitative evaluation of current and emerging travel shifts among the different generations. The quantitative portion of this project is the cohort analysis, using primarily National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) data to examine differences across age cohorts and generations over time and to identify any new or emerging predictors of travel that fall outside the traditional norms of travel as a person ages from youth to retirement. In conjunction with the cohort analysis, several focus groups will be held across the Nation in the spring of 2012 to qualitatively explore the results of the cohort analysis and to gather detailed information on generational perceptions and priorities regarding transportation-related issues, including travel, the environment, communication and technology.

The results of the analyses combined will be used to develop profiles of the next generation of travelers, and will be considered in the forecasting of future travel trends and travel scenario development.  The information presented is ultimately intended to be used as a guide in the development of current and future transportation policies regarding person travel.

Next Generation of Travel, HPTS Scan Report Summary

Technology and Travel Behavior (accompanying) Scan Report

Contact: Erica Interrante, Transportation Specialist