Public Transportation:
Improvements Are Needed to More Fully Assess Predicted Impacts of New Starts Projects
GAO-08-844: Published: Jul 25, 2008. Publicly Released: Jul 25, 2008.
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Through the New Starts program, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) evaluates and recommends new fixed guideway transit projects for funding using the evaluation criteria identified in law. In August 2007, FTA issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), in part, to incorporate certain provisions within the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient, Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU) into the evaluation process. SAFETEA-LU requires GAO to annually review FTA's New Starts process. This report discusses (1) the information captured by New Starts project justification criteria, (2) challenges FTA faces as it works to improve the New Starts program, and (3) options for evaluating New Starts projects. To address these objectives, GAO reviewed statutes, FTA guidance and regulations governing the New Starts program, and interviewed experts, project sponsors, and Department of Transportation (DOT) officials.
FTA primarily uses cost-effectiveness and land use criteria to evaluate New Starts projects, but concerns have been raised about the extent to which the measures for these criteria capture total project benefits. FTA's current transportation system user benefits measure, which assesses a project's cost effectiveness, focuses on how proposed projects will improve mobility by reducing the real and perceived cost of travel. FTA told GAO that such mobility improvements are a critical goal of all transit projects. While the literature and most experts that GAO consulted with generally agree with this assertion, they also raised concerns that certain benefits are not captured. As a result, FTA may be underestimating transit projects' total benefits, but it is unclear the extent to which this impacts FTA's evaluation and rating process. FTA officials acknowledged many of these limitations but noted that resolving these issues would be difficult without a substantial investment of resources by all levels of government to improve and update local travel models. FTA faces several systemic challenges to improving the New Starts program, including addressing multiple program goals, limitations in local travel models, the need to maintain the rigor while minimizing the complexity of the evaluation process, and developing clear and consistent guidance for incorporating qualitative information. The evaluation criteria identified in the law reflect multiple goals for the program, which has led to varying expectations between FTA and project sponsors about what types of projects should be funded. Also, models that generate local travel demand forecasts are limited and may not provide all of the information needed to properly evaluate transit projects. FTA has taken steps to mitigate the modeling limitations, such as incorporating proxy measures to account for certain project impacts and developing a request for proposals to improve local travel models so that they can better predict changes in highway user benefits. However, according to FTA officials, the request for proposals is only a first step in improving local travel models, and additional resources are needed. Experts and project sponsors GAO interviewed discussed different options for evaluating proposed transit projects but identified significant limitations of each option. One option is to revise the current New Starts evaluation process as proposed by FTA in the August 2007 NPRM. While some experts GAO spoke to appreciated the rigor of the current evaluation process, others noted that the NPRM may still underestimate total project benefits. For example, FTA's measure of mobility improvements does not account for benefits accruing to highway users, and its measures of environmental benefits may not properly distinguish among projects. Experts also discussed other options for evaluating proposed transit projects, including benefit-cost analysis. Unlike FTA's current evaluation process, benefit-cost analysis would attempt to monetize all benefits and costs, which experts told GAO would be a more comprehensive approach to evaluating projects. FTA is currently prohibited by statute from considering the dollar value of mobility improvements in evaluating projects.
Recommendations for Executive Action
Status: Closed - Implemented
Comments: In 2008, we reported that local travel models should be improved to develop and employ better measures of project impacts . We indicate that the benefit of improved local travel models would extend beyond transit, as the data from these models are used to inform regional transportation planning for other modes of transportation, as well. We recommended that the Secretary of Transportation (DOT) seek resources to improve local travel models . DOT's Fiscal Year 2012 Budget highlights indicates that, as part of a 6-year reauthorization proposal , states and localities will be encouraged to improve their planning models in order to have better data to make sound investment decisions with federal funding. The budget request indicates that the Administration's proposal will bolster state and metropolitan planning; award funds to high performing communities; and empower the most capable communities and planning organizations to determine which projects deserve funding. As a result, DOT is encouraging improvements to models along with its request for increased funding for transit.
Recommendation: To improve the New Starts evaluation process and the measures of project benefits, which could change the relative ranking of projects, the Secretary of Transportation should seek additional resources to improve local travel models in the next authorizing legislation.
Agency Affected: Department of Transportation
Status: Closed - Not Implemented
Comments: No change. The agency concurs, in part, but is awaiting Congress' decisions during the surface transportation reauthorization. MAP-21 does not require FTA to consider the dollar value of mobility improvements. FTA is not seeking to apply a dollar value to mobility improvements nor seeking a change in legislation at this time. FTA evaluates mobility improvements for New Starts projects as the total number of linked trips using the proposed project, with a weight of two given to trips that would be made on the project by transit dependent persons.
Recommendation: To improve the New Starts evaluation process and the measures of project benefits, which could change the relative ranking of projects, the Secretary of Transportation should seek a legislative change to allow FTA to consider the dollar value of mobility improvements in evaluating projects, developing regulations, or carrying out any other duties.
Agency Affected: Department of Transportation
Status: Closed - Not Implemented
Comments: No change. FTA expects to award the contract in early 2009 and complete the implementation of new approaches to measuring highway benefits by spring 2010. Because MAP-21 requires that the calculation of Cost-Effectiveness be based on "Cost-Per Trip," instead of the previous measure of "cost-per-hour of user benefits," there is no longer a need to identify short-or long-term approaches for measuring highway user benefits. However, FTA and FHWA are working together on a research project to identify short-term and long-term approaches to identify congestion relief benefits of transit projects to address other requirements of MAP-21.
Recommendation: To improve the New Starts evaluation process and the measures of project benefits, which could change the relative ranking of projects, the Secretary of Transportation should direct the Administrator of FTA to establish a timeline for issuing, awarding, and implementing the result of its request for proposals on short- and long-term approaches to measuring highway user benefits from transit improvements.
Agency Affected: Department of Transportation
Status: Closed - Implemented
Comments: In 2008, we reported that although the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) committed to work with environmental experts to improve how it measures environmental benefits of proposed New Start transit projects, FTA had not begun this effort. We recommended that FTA establish a timeline for its effort to develop more robust measures of transit projects' environmental benefits that are practically useful in distinguishing among proposed projects. Rather than establish a timeframe, FTA moved to improve how it measures environmental benefits. As documented in its January 2012 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, FTA proposed a new approach for better measuring environmental benefits of proposed New Start projects. The January 2012 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking considered public comments and proposed measuring environmental benefits of a proposed project's on several factors including changes in emissions, greenhouse gases, safety, energy use and public health. These factors would be monetized and compared to the annualized capital and operating cost of the proposed project to measure the benefits. As a result, FTA is improving its measurement and evaluation of environmental benefits of New Starts transit projects; and thus will improve the projects FTA recommends for federal funding.
Recommendation: To improve the New Starts evaluation process and the measures of project benefits, which could change the relative ranking of projects, the Secretary of Transportation should direct the Administrator of FTA to establish a timeline for initiating and completing its longer-term effort to develop more robust measures of transit projects' environmental benefits that are practically useful in distinguishing among proposed projects, including consultation with the transit community.
Agency Affected: Department of Transportation
Status: Closed - Implemented
Comments: In July 2008, we found that the Federal Transit Administration's (FTA) faces systemic challenges to improving the New Starts program, including addressing limitations in local travel models that generate local travel demand forecasts, which may not provide all of the information needed for FTA to properly evaluate transit projects. We found that local travel models used by most metropolitan planning organizations (MPO)--regional organizations responsible for transportation planning and programming in urban areas that build, maintain, and operate transportation infrastructure and services--are generally able to represent aggregate and corridor-level travel demand, but they are not dynamic. This limitation affects a model's ability to accurately represent travel behavior, thus limiting a model's ability to provide all of the information needed to properly evaluate transit projects. While FTA had taken steps to mitigate the modeling limitations, they continued to face challenges in doing so. As a result, FTA developed proxy measures to account for certain project benefits that could not be accurately modeled, such as a project's impact on highway congestion. At the time of our review, FTA developed a request for proposals to seek approaches for predicting changes in highway user benefits that could be used over 5 years. In addition, FTA approached the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to assist in this effort, but FHWA declined to participate because it deemed the issue only relevant to transit. However, Department of Transportation (DOT) officials stated that improvements to travel models would have impacts on numerous programs, including highway programs. Consequently, we recommended that FTA and FHWA collaborate in efforts to improve the consistency and reliability of local travel models, including the aforementioned request for proposals on approaches to measuring highway user benefits. The Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21) contained a number of incentives for MPO's to improve local transit models, such as performance-based planning for highway and transit projects and increased funding for research programs. In addition, in July 2015, to improve the consistency and reliability of local travel models, FTA and FHWA worked collaboratively to complete a research project to identify whether traffic assignment and feedback practices in MPO travel models are sufficiently accurate for quantifying highway benefits for major transit projects, among other things, which came out of the request for proposals. By collaborating with FHWA on this research project, it was determined that there were widespread deficiencies in the implementation of the models, but with available methodological improvements and more extensive computation, existing methods could produce plausible estimates of highway and transit project impacts. Moreover, the research project found that a comparison between modeled and measured congested travel times from commercial sources indicated that the models underestimate travel speeds and that using speed data would be beneficial to model calibration and validation. The modeling improvements discussed in this collaborative research project should provide FTA the tools to obtain the information FTA needs to properly evaluate transit projects and affect the way planning is done and, thus, have impacts on numerous local, state, and federal programs, including highway programs.
Recommendation: To improve the New Starts evaluation process and the measures of project benefits, which could change the relative ranking of projects, the Secretary of Transportation should direct the Administrators of FTA and FHWA to collaborate in efforts to improve the consistency and reliability of local travel models, including the aforementioned request for proposals on approaches to measuring highway user benefits.
Agency Affected: Department of Transportation
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