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TechPlan: “New Frontiers in Transportation Policy, Technology and Planning” Roundtable
Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota, June 19th, 2008

Opening Remarks by Laurie McGuiness (CTS)

Laurie McGuiness: Laurie opens the meeting by welcoming everyone and having the participants and audience members introduce themselves. She then touches on the importance of the research conducted through the TechPlan and how it relates to the broader mission and work of the ITS Institute, the State and Local Policy Program and the Center for Transportation Studies.

Presentation session was then moderated by Jan Lucke (CTS)

Presentation #1

Dr. Tom Horan: Associate Professor and Executive Director of the Claremont Information and Technology Institute

“ITS and Transportation Safety: EMS System Data Integration to Improve Crash Emergency Response and Treatment”

Hoping to discover new frontiers in which ITS can deliver safety benefits, Dr. Horan’s research explores the potential for linking ITS to EMS technologies. His objective is to make linkages between ITS, 911 and trauma systems in order to create safer roads, quicker response times and better response practices.

Currently some states are considering state wide trauma systems which can service rural areas by giving efficient routing information and hospital locations. Consideration of the data linking traffic accident’s emergency response times and the trauma outcomes needed to be further analyzed, and hence his research focused on the thirty minutes or more responses.

According to Dr. Horan, the research identified the metrics used to evaluate the individual steps in the emergency response system, and found they needed to be merged into a larger metric for evaluation of the overall end to end process.

Dr. Horan’s research included working with many stakeholders, many of which had positive reactions to the idea of large integrated systems. “Crash help” is now the name of the potential service with a real time list of the incoming traumas and vital emergency responder information sharing technologies.  

The potential for such a system is real, however comparative steps need to be taken, as well as a clinical studies about the practical steps in the deployment of such a system.

Presentation #2

Dr. Elizabeth Wilson: Assistant Professor, Energy and Environmental Policy and Law, Humphrey Institute

“Effect of Education Policy and Urban Form on Elementary-age School Travel”

Dr. Wilson’s research considers the question of how school choice impacts transit options. Travel and environmental implications of school choice have not been looked at very closely before this work. Her research looks at the potential for technology to assist in educational transportation policies.

Her first survey in St. Paul demonstrated:

• Respondent population did not reflect diversity of district.
• Miles traveled are greater for magnet schools as opposed to neighborhood schools.
• The variables can create an equation that can be used in informing policy makers about how their school locations will impact travel choice.

They hope to continue to work with the districts so that they can consider how to implement and take advantage of technologies that will allow the environmental and transportation impacts of school choice to be minimized.

Q: How does weather impact transportation choices?
A: There is a donut effect in the data from weather impacting whether a student would choose to walk.

Presentation #3

Frank Douma: Assistant Director, State and Local Policy Program, Humphrey Institute

“The Implications of Current and Emerging Privacy Law for ITS”

Mr. Douma starts by sharing a hypothetical, describing a future where your vehicle will note every law broken while it is being driven, resulting in automatic tickets. The capacity and potential for developing ITS technologies to conduct these activities are real and raises questions about what is considered to be proper use of ITS technologies. Specifically, one should ask what changes should the legal system undertake in order to make sure ITS does not run into privacy obstacles?

The collection of personal information carries potential privacy implications. Federal law sets the floor for privacy, state laws build upon it. Federal court rulings say public behavior is not private (like driving). States expand the federal zone of privacy to technologies used everyday in our lives. State statutes limit secondary use at times. Torts also provide a route for protecting privacy. Opt in vs. Opt out determines the level of liability. Private vs. Public collection impact the legal realities faced by ITS technologies. Automatic enforcement issues raise questions of vicarious criminal liability, require legal attention. Congress should reform overarching laws on privacy and give ITS information safe harbor. Until then developers can utilize the tool box we have developed.

Legal question comes down to policy questions:

• Is it in the industries interest to urge the federal government to enact overarching reforms?
• Would it be better to allow the current evolving trend to continue?

Presentation #4

John Bryson: Associate Dean for Research, Humphrey Institute

“Technology and Collaboration in Effective Transportation Policy Development and Implementation”

Dr. Bryson’s research examines the collaboration throughout the UPA application process in Minnesota. Findings have demonstrated that the success of the UPA collaboration process have depended on factors such as initial conditions, people, organizations, processes, structures and the media.

While conducting the research, there was some push back and jockeying from the more powerful players observed initially. Policy entrepreneurs helped push along new ideas. It became apparent that it was important for neutral conveners to establish a place and time for people and organizations to gather and discuss policy ideas and solutions.

Process factors:

• The use of forums
• Regular meetings at the legislature.
• Alignment of policy ideas.

There were also structural factors at play, including horizontal and vertical relationships. Concentration of power and decision making authority were effective (i.e. MNDOT, legislature, etc.) Technology played a huge role in the ability for this to move forward in a timely way. Media coverage was very sparse, which had its benefits. Building coalitions, framing issues persuasively, timely grant writing and the ability of markets to make rational choices all helped Minnesota’s UPA.

Conclusions: Collaborations usually should assume failure, and then consider the potential ways for those failures to be overcome.

Presentation #5

Carrissa Schively Slotterback: Assistant Professor, Humphrey Institute

“Technology in Planning and Participatory Processes: Identifying New Synergies through Real World Application”

Dr. Slotterback’s research aims to examine technology in transportation and other planning processes. Professional practitioners’ input on how participation should work was gathered. There was also secondary consideration given to how technology might contribute to that process.

Technologies were most often used in combination, as technologies can be used for preparation, execution and analysis of participatory planning process and outcomes. How might technologies be used? Projecting future impacts, visualizing scenarios, tallying votes, etc.

As part of the research, focus groups were used to gather professional opinions on how participation is encouraged and the role technology might play. Focus group questions:

• How can technology accomplish typical meeting needs?
• How does the ability of your audience limit your ability to use technology?
• How can it be used to capture and compile comments from the public?
• How can the technological differences be adjusted for?

Assumption that technology might be the best fix is not always right. Training and facilitation might be necessary when working with public groups. Next step is the follow up study of scenarios that could happen in the real world. Continued feedback is needed. Consideration of both opportunities and constraints needs to continue.

General Q & A from Audience

Q: Dr. Bryson, why did you feel fortunate about the lack of media coverage on the UPA?
A: It was fortunate for the process as a lot of the work can simply take place without the particular aspects of pieces being blown out of proportion. The focus on the bridge and transportation funding may have helped push the UPA process along as well.
The downside is that the new improvements are going to require more public attention. The lack of media attention allowed things to be pulled together, though that might be a problem when it comes to implementation.

Q: Dr. Bryson, are you expecting more media upon implementation?
A: A media plan would be helpful, however the traditional media is being cut back on so getting that access might be difficult.

A: (Bryson) Back on the media issue, the issue of how you frame congestion pricing is important. Is it about new taxes or building capacity? There is competition within the transportation community in how to frame the issue. Using markets to build capacity is the angle that would be helpful, and if that nuance can’t get out, lack of media attention is better.

Q: Dr. Wilson, have you ever thought about your studying acting as a dynamic support system for parents in discovering safer routes?
A: I did not mean to imply that my data conflicted with school route planning as is. We are simply looking at our current data and asking how we improve upon transit options so more kids have safe routes to get to and from school.

Q: Frank Douma, privacy zone does not extend to your automobile or the road, yet the red lights are getting thrown out. What is the general legal reasoning behind the photo cops?
A: The question was about the technology identifying the car and not the driver. It was a question over who should be liable for driving infractions committed in vehicles.

Q: Frank Douma, with respect to privacy, the technology has gotten to the point that red light cameras can identify drivers in the vehicle, so new technologies might be bringing new legal issues?
A: Yes, but one must ask if this technology is in wide use? That could be a limitation as well.

Q: Dr. Bryson, I have heard the UPA program is amazingly progressive, whereas Washington people have defined it as just getting money to Minnesota.
A: Incentives matter a lot. These improvements would have happened anyways, but not at the speed they are now because of this project. It was very clear that the people at DOT believed metro congestion was a big problem and felt they should invest in the UPA process with a limited number of funding winners. They also wanted multi-model solutions. They also hoped that the winners would produce models of success which would cascade to other parts of the country. Integrated solutions were also important.

Q: Dr. Slotterback, you have taught a number of courses at the University. Have you been able to incorporate technology into your teaching?
A: The participation class has not met since the research has been completed; however we have looked at how different communities have been able to use technology to communicate with each other. Students are also interested in how to use these tools in reaching out to constituencies.

Q: Dr. Slotterback, you talked about the technologies from the prospective of what people are comfortable with, etc. Did you then get a sense of how comfortable people are with the process?
A: Technologies can be used to draw in people who are not usually involved in the process, in turn providing input from others who are not technical experts or meeting conveners.

Q: Dr. Wilson, transportation costs are higher in the rural school districts. Is there any correlation between the software you are using and the ones trucking companies utilize?
A: Some rural areas spread out their schools by age, resulting in long term travel inconveniences. School policy transportation choices have huge impacts. Another piece is city objectives of reducing green house gases, which works its way into the policy discussion.

Q: Dr. Horan, how does privacy interact with your work?
A: The major day-to-day impact of transportation choices can be the loss of life or major injury. HIPA kicks in because this becomes a healthcare issue. The data is collected for analytical purposes; we are just trying to get the data online earlier so it can be used in real time. The system design has one layer where the care givers can have whatever information they need in trying to administer help.
A: (Douma): It comes down to whether you want to deal with a federal/national legal landscape or do you want to go down the piecemeal state by state way. HIPA is great example of a federal privacy protection that sets reasonable standards. Do you want to pay the lawyer to figure this out, or should congress take care of it?
A: (Horan): If you are not under the umbrella, then you can’t share the data. The only way to get a picture is to link the data to public health analysis.

Q: Dr. Horan, you mentioned that the rural areas have longer wait times, how would ITS systems improve the response time in these situations?
A: Chain of survival resulted in the defibrillator being moved out to the field. Need to move it up the chain of survival.

BREAK

Response to Projects by Peer Review Panelists:

Max Donath:

• Horan’s Paper review
• Daughter was transferred from one to another, and hence all her tests had to be done all over. The privacy issues and technology and getting this information on-line is important.
• We need to consider how technology can create better access.
• New technologies evolving, the military is an example of how soldiers are surviving more because of improved medical care, making it immediate. This will have some implications in the US, including in rural areas.
• Wilson’s Paper Review:
• Technology will play a role sooner in school choice because of the energy situation.
• Douma’s Paper Review
• We don’t know how privacy is going to really impact our choices.
• We haven’t seen anything yet in way of intrusive technologies.
• The private market will try to get our information for marketing purposes.
• Privacy will probably exist less in the future, how do we use that situation in a positive way?
• Slotterback’s Paper Review:
• How do we get the next generation to engage in meeting from home?
• This is going to draw more people into participation.
• Electronic participation will reduce the amount of drive time required of people.
• Bryson’s Paper Review
• What is the role of bloggers in the decision making process?
• NYC used a primitive communication system, hence their failure to keep up.

Joseph Sussman

• Horan’s Paper Review:
• Finds the research in this area to be pretty daunting (both transportation and healthcare issues and data at play).
• Cutting across multiple agencies can be difficult, but also helpful.
• Interesting to see the paradigm from crash worthiness to crash prevention.
• With this research we see an extension of the entire spectrum to include after-crash care.
• There are still questions about whether crash avoidance or crash readiness is more productive in the impacts they make.
• The idea of measuring end to end performance in the healthcare transportation system is interesting.
• How do you measure the time in this system?
• How do we determine when the care has begun?
• Suggest the ability to measure distribution of those times and not merely averaged values.
• It might be interesting to see what happens when the transportation and the healthcare system interact under stress. Coming from it in an emergency/crisis response angle. Stress test of sorts would be useful.
• When we talk about ITS, we have many different dimensions to measure safety, environmental impacts, etc. Which variables should be given more weight? We should probably approach it in a win/win situation.

Noreen McDonald

• Wilson Paper Review
• The experience of working with the school district who might not be willing to use the ITS solutions out there begs the question of how should technology be used in this situation?
• Paper raises the idea of using policy to inform.
• Need for expanding conversation (carbon calculators, parent time calculator).
• Difficult to influence parent decisions on these issues.
• Donath: It would be interesting to see participatory study being used to inform how parents can get better involved and gain a better understanding when it comes to choice in school transportation policies.
• Slotterback: Technology might be an easy way, as parents are not really thinking about the transportation implications with their choices.

Susan Handy

• General Paper Review
• Likes how the research starts with the problem and not with the technology. Too often it is the other way around.
• Institutional complexity seems overwhelming, strategies need to be developed.
• Questions about how much information should be shared.
• Bryson’s paper demonstrates how numerous institutions’ involvement can be successful.
• Turf questions about who is going to get to use these technologies and where.
• A lot of these studies used qualitative research to help us understand what is going on.
• Newer studies are about producing tools to help others (demonstrates maturity in the research).
• The next step is continuous evaluation of the tools impact.
• The tensions and the trade-offs (i.e. between school choice and transportation issues, Privacy needs vs. transportation needs).

Lew Hopkins

• Slotterback Paper Review
• The paper has scoped the terrain of participation
• The focus group participants are actually experts on participation, but not on technology adoption. The most valuable information you can get from those folks is finding out what the impediments are. Asking them what technology can do for them is probably asking the wrong people the wrong question.
• If you have a specific issue or need, you develop a use case where you can derive an idea of how technology can better meet that need.
• The idea that you want to use visuals and narratives in your online presentation might mean that you go out and record observations at an open house event in which the process is recorded.
• Create simulations of pre-alpha technologies so use issues can be hammered out.
• Narrow down the research to very specific tasks and very specific technologies.
• Value added questions might not be where we want to start in this case. There is no definitive evaluation of the software currently used or other technologies at hand.
• Most of the implementation is hypothesis, test and improve. Most technology innovation will be more efficient if we do it through an informative process. 
• Not always about more effectiveness, efficiency is a goal in itself.
• Enabling adoption is important. The extension model is the idea the technology innovators interact with each through the University by putting things in the field and then reporting directly back.
• Evaluative model
• Cost constraints are good. No reason to subsidize technology. It might be worth recognizing the differences in economies of scale do to institutional realities.
• Start-up costs problems come down to how we spread them out.
• Legal constraints, the rate at which the law is changing is keeping up as fast as the technology.

Carissa Slotterback

• Bryson Paper Review
• Is this actually collaboration?
• Does this process meet certain criteria for collaboration?
• What collaboration elements were present in the process?
• How do the answer to these questions impact outcomes?
• More interesting part of the discussion is how technology was used to spur on participation.
• What also is interesting is how people came to the table
• What stands out to you about the interplay between institutions?
• The role of politics seems prevalent.
• What were the impacts of the disparity of power sharing between specific stakeholders?
• What role does public education and outreach play in the advancement of the process?
• The significant impacts technologies have had, should be made known to the public, in turn this will influence people’s choice to continue to innovate in the future.

Audience Commentary

Max Donath

• How do we get people from the DOT to work with other stakeholders?
• The USDOT was smart in insisting that transit and congestion pricing had to both be included in the plan.
• The fact that a large amount of the money was available motivated people to get along.

Bryson Response

• The UPA process was a shared power process, though not shared equally.
• The system was previously acting as a determinate as a whole.
• The system had to be pulled together at the top to make up for the different money streams coming in.
• They also had to advocate for why the bundled approach was more efficient.

Audience Member from MNDOT

• Working to get people to decompose all the fatalities so that strategies can be aligned to address the right issues.
• Increased seatbelt use would reduce deaths by 8% whereas revamping technology response would reduce them by 9% (these considerations are taking place in reference to Dr. Sussman’s comments).

Tom Horan

• A number of trends are going on, including increased reliance on metrics of evaluation. It is easier to have real time evaluation metrics these days, which is likely to have a major impact on the evolution of technologies role in transportation policies.
• This could also impact how actors interact.

Closing Remarks from Lee Munich

Thanks for the research and everyone’s participation. We are working towards building capacity so we can inform transportation policy makers in how to adopt the technologies in an effective way. This is part of a longer term capacity building. Though discreet, these projects have impact on the larger policy debates around technology and transportation.

There are questions of where the money is going to come from for transportation in the future. One idea that is gaining more prominence is tying funding with performance. This worked with UPA, once incentive put out there, answers began to emerge on difficult questions. MNDOT had lots of concerns; however local level officials pushed it along.
This should be a predecessor for how things are done in the future.

Another major issue is how we reduce fatalities. This can only be done through institutional integration. The vision needs to be put out there in order for that to occur.

The final big issue is climate change. Transportation is the primary contributor to global warming. The work on the school bus issue is one way at targeting consumption.

Though discreet, these projects address some of the larger issues in transportation today.