How Do We Know Employer-Based Transportation Demand Management Works? The Need for Experimental Design

Author(s):  
Thomas J. Higgins

Several studies of employer-based demand management programs have been conducted in the past few years. Many have drawn conclusions about effects of the programs by examining before and after program changes in the proportion of solo drivers among the employees involved in the program. Others compare before and after data to solo driving trends in the surrounding area or at selected employment sites. Still other studies do not use before and after data at all, but simply compare the proportion of solo driving among program participants after implementation with an average rate for the area or region. The weaknesses of these approaches to evaluating demand management programs are discussed, remedies for these weaknesses based on classical experimental design from the social science and statistical literature are suggested, and the results of an experimental design of employer trip reduction programs in the Denver region are highlighted. The example illustrates the required elements of an experimental design, as well as some difficulties in executing the design.

2012 ◽  
Vol 253-255 ◽  
pp. 1971-1975
Author(s):  
Wen Bin Zhang ◽  
Bo Wang ◽  
Harrod Genesis

In order to make the traffic flow more stability and smoothly at irregular intersection, the improvement schemes is researched on a typical irregular intersection, Hao valley intersection in Wuhan. Firstly, a field investigation is carried out for this intersection. Secondly, we carried on the optimization in many different ways, such as transportation demand management, traffic flow organization of regional, signal optimization, intersection Canalization and other optimizations. Finally, a microscopic traffic flow simulation software, VISSIM, is used to simulate the traffic situation before and after improvement. Results shows the improvement schemes effect is obviously, and the delay and conflicts substantially reduced. This research can provide a reference for similar intersection improvements.


Author(s):  
Martha J. Bianco

The Lloyd District is a high-density commercial and residential district located a short distance from downtown Portland, Oregon. To address parking and congestion problems, the city of Portland implemented a Lloyd District Partnership Plan in September 1997. This plan consists of a number of elements aimed at curbing single-occupancy vehicle use for the commute to and from the district. This plan included parking pricing in the form of meters (whereas on-street parking had been free), discounted transit passes, and other transportation demand management strategies. The effects of these strategies on travel and parking behavior were assessed, with an emphasis on the relationship between parking pricing and mode choice. A random sample of 1,000 employees in the Lloyd District was surveyed about their travel and parking behavior before and after the installation of the new meters. Research found that, during the 1 year that had elapsed between the implementation of the Lloyd District transportation management programs and the survey information collected, the drive-alone mode for the trip to work by employees in the Lloyd District had decreased by 7 percent. For the district as a whole, the drive-alone commute share is now about 56 percent. The program strategies that have emerged as the most significant in effecting this decrease are the installation of the meters and the discounted transit pass program.


Author(s):  
Patrick DeCorla-Souza

This paper presents an innovative transportation demand management concept involving congestion pricing synergistically combined with incentivized on-demand ridesharing. An exploratory evaluation of the concept was undertaken using sketch-planning tools developed by the Federal Highway Administration. The analysis suggests that the concept could be financially viable, achieve significant economic benefits, and potentially generate surplus revenues that could be sufficient to address transportation funding gaps.


1999 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 481-489
Author(s):  
Andrew Abbott

When one is asked to speak on the past, present, and future of social science history, one is less overwhelmed by the size of the task than confused by its indexicality. Whose definition of social science history? Which past? Or, put another way, whose past? Indeed, which and whose present? Moreover, should the task be taken as one of description, prescription, or analysis? Many of us might agree on, say, a descriptive analysis of the past of the Social Science History Association. But about the past of social science history as a general rather than purely associational phenomenon, we might differ considerably. The problem of description versus prescription only increases this obscurity.


Author(s):  
John A. Hughes

Within social science the experiment has an ambiguous place. With the possible exception of social psychology, there are few examples of strictly experimental studies. The classic study still often cited is the Hawthorne experiments, which began in 1927, and is used mainly to illustrate what became known as the ‘Hawthorne Effect’, that is, the unintended influence of the research itself on the results of the study. Yet, experimental design is often taken within social research as the embodiment of the scientific method which, if the social sciences are to reach the maturity of the natural sciences, social research should seek to emulate. Meeting this challenge meant trying to devise ways of applying the logic of the experiment to ‘non-experimental’ situations where it was not possible directly to manipulate the experimental conditions. Criticisms have come from two main sources: first, from researchers who claim that the techniques used to control factors within non-experimental situations are unrealizable with current statistical methods and, second, those who reject the very idea of hypothesis-testing as an ambition for social research.


Author(s):  
Eric N. Schreffler ◽  
Theresa Costa ◽  
Carl B. Moyer

Many transportation planners and those implementing transportation demand management (TDM) programs have been frustrated by the lack of quantitative information on what types of TDM strategies work best and where. This underscores the need for sound evaluation of TDM programs and demonstration projects. However, many evaluations to date have used a variety of methods and assumptions when quantifying the travel and air quality impacts of TDM projects. A study funded under the AB 2766 vehicle registration fee program in southern California resulted in the development of a standardized methodology and then applied the method to 15 TDM demonstration projects. The method differed from most of the self-evaluations in that it discounted vehicle trip reduction to account for those who switched from one high-occupancy vehicle mode to another and for those who accessed the new commute alternative by driving alone to a pickup point; factored out the emission of shuttle and transit vehicles used in providing new service; and used standardized emission factors to determine reductions in reactive organic gases, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, and fine particulate matter. Results of the application of the method to various TDM projects reveal a range of impacts and point to the inaccuracies of self-reported results, particularly in the area of total emission reductions. More standardization of TDM evaluation methods is called for so that a large data base of consistent and reliable information can be assembled across agencies with the goal of generalizing the effectiveness and transferability of various TDM strategies and programs.


Author(s):  
Crisbelli Domingos ◽  
Sebastião Lourenço dos Santos

In the past decade or so, a small but rapidly growing band of literary scholars, theorists, and critics has been working to integrate literary study with Darwinian social science. These scholars can be identified as the members of a distinct school in the sense that they share a certain broad set of basic ideas. They all take “the adapted mind” as an organizing principle, and their work is thus continuous with that of the “adaptationist program” in the social sciences. Adaptationist thinking is grounded in Darwinian conceptions of human nature (2004, p. 6).


1959 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herbert Goldhamer ◽  
Hans Speier

During the past five years the Social Science Division of The RAND Corporation has been developing a procedure for the study of foreign affairs that we call “political gaming.” This article gives a brief description of the technique and some of our observations about its utility.


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