Novel Transportation Modes-Evaluation Considerations

Novel modes include a combination of new technologies and new application of technologies that exist or are currently being developed. There are commonly accepted practices for evaluating novel technology maturity, but other considerations must also be weighed when considering the potential of a novel mode. Some of the elements that can be considered when evaluating novel modal concepts are outlined in the following section.

Technological Maturity

It is critical for developers and potential investors or customers to understand the maturity of technology. The appropriate next step depends on the maturity of a technology and may include further research, bench testing in a laboratory, a naturalistic trial in the field, or implementation. Technology readiness level (TRL) scales are widely used by U.S. Government agencies to evaluate the maturity of novel or developing technologies. For example, the Department of Defense (DOD) and National Aeronautics and Space Administration both use technology readiness assessments when considering novel applications. This tool has also been adapted for bioenergy technology development and for the EAR Program. The adapted TRL scale used by the EAR Program is shown in table 3.

Table 3.

Technology readiness assessments start with the observation of phenomena that could potentially provide an opportunity (TRL 1). This is followed by the invention of an approach to take advantage of the observed phenomena or opportunity (TRL 2) and experimental exploration and proof of concept (TRL 3–4). The next levels involve validation, scale up, and prototyping (TRL 5–7), followed by full-scale demonstration and testing (TRL 8). The final level is commercialization (TRL 9).

There can be one or several “exit criteria” for each level that demonstrate completion of that TRL. For example at TRL 2 (i.e., formulation of technology or application concept), DOD dictates that the proponent has begun invention of the technology or application, but these are still speculative. The exit criterion is to have published papers or other works that outline the application or technology under consideration, with some supporting analyses. Once this has been completed, the technology or application is considered TRL 2 and working toward TRL 3.

An evaluator who wants to understand the technical readiness of a novel mode or technology could request a rigorous self-assessment by the novel mode proponent by using a TRL scale, with documentation and data to support the self-assessment. An alternative option could be for an evaluator to attempt to perform a TRL evaluation with the information provided by a proponent, although such an evaluator-estimated TRL will likely be constrained by the available information.

Environmental, Social, and Economic Sustainability

In addition to the technical maturity of a novel mode, there are other considerations that may influence the assessment of viability. These can include environmental, social, economic sustainability, and viability issues as well as considerations related to the regulatory landscape. In this project, the term sustainability includes environmental, social, and economic aspects. A sustainable activity is considered to be one that can be maintained without resources over time.

Environmental Performance

Improved environmental performance is often a key selling point for novel modal concepts. There are many environmental challenges associated with existing modes that could be avoided with advance consideration. Therefore, novel mode evaluations should assess overall environmental performance and the relative performance of a novel mode compared with existing modes that would be replaced.

Environmental benefits may include improved fuel efficiency or use of alternative propulsion options that reduce dependence on fossil fuels. This approach would reduce GHG emissions and improve local air quality while avoiding other environmental issues associated with fossil resource. Other secondary environmental elements may also be integrated into the design (e.g., rainwater capture and green roofs or walls). Large-scale infrastructure development, however, particularly with a substantial land area footprint, may lead to the release of carbon from land-use change (i.e., a change in land surface area from carbon-sequestering vegetation to man-made surfaces). In addition, the production and installation of any infrastructure will also carry an initial release of life-cycle GHG emissions that must be counted against the potential benefits of a novel mode during the payback period. Moreover, infrastructure installation may affect biodiversity, storm-water runoff, hydrology and other ecosystem functions, wetlands, and endangered and threatened species. Developers and evaluators of novel modes should be aware of these and other environmental considerations, particularly those required to be considered under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (42 U.S.C. § 4321 et seq.). Regulatory and funding agencies must also consider the potential environmental impacts and benefits of a novel mode as part of the evaluation.

Social Sustainability

The term social sustainability reflects the societal acceptance and equity of an activity. For novel modes, the primary social need is to address safety. This not only applies to the technical performance of a novel mode (e.g., crash rates, redundancies, and monitoring of vehicle and infrastructure condition) but also to usage modes (e.g., late-night service and vehicle sharing). Safety is likely to be the highest priority for regulatory agencies and community planners. Evaluators who assess novel modes should expect failure-mode analyses for infrastructure, vehicles, and a variety of use cases. Social acceptability will also be affected by perceptions of the novel mode’s impact on issues like property values, visual landscapes, privacy, and equal access to transportation. The evaluator should expect the proponent to be able to describe potential impacts on environmental justice communities (e.g., placement of infrastructure, accessibility, or cost).

Economic Sustainability

The term economic sustainability is focused on economic feasibility and equity. Any evaluation of a novel mode will assess the business model and market. An evaluator should consider whether the novel mode proponent has identified the target user population, analyzed users’ willingness to pay, and addressed any cultural or psychological barriers to novel mode adoption and use. A viable business model will need to be identified that covers the operational costs of the system, provides a return on invested capital, and has reasonable administrative costs. This model may be based on user fees, device sales, subscriptions, public subsidies, or other revenue streams.

The scale and scalability of a novel mode will have critical implications for economic viability. Questions for an evaluator to consider include, at what scale will an installation break even? Can the mode easily be expanded or scaled up? Will there be intermediate benefits prior to full-scale implementation? The intended ownership model of the mode is also a critical consideration. It will be critical to establish how society will finance the development and deployment of a novel mode. For example, will it be a public–public, public–private, or private–private ownership model? Likewise, who will pay for changes in existing modes to accommodate interfacing with the novel modes? Who will pay for modal failures in service, performance, or safety? Who is responsible for long-term maintenance? Economic sustainability considerations may also include the ability to pay a living wage to workers across the pay scale.

Reliability and Resilience

Reliability and resilience are also components of long-term system viability. Reliability refers to consistency of operations and performance (e.g., travel time, on-time performance, and energy or fuel efficiency) as well as the level of ongoing maintenance and repair. Resilience measures focus on tolerance to a variety of conditions or the ability to rapidly recover from changes in conditions or disruption. In many cases, the design considerations for reliability and resilience may be the same. For example, duplication of critical components of a system (i.e., redundancy) may make an overall system both more reliable and more resilient with backups and fail-safes in place to maintain performance and avoid disruption. In other cases, the approach to reliability and resilience may differ. For example, to maximize system reliability and ongoing performance, one might focus on overbuilding of facilities or “hardening” against issues like extreme weather events; however, to maximize resilience and the ability to quickly recover from disruption, one might intentionally allow certain portions of the system to fail if that means that the overall system can quickly and inexpensively be brought back online after failure. Evaluators who assess novel modes should include estimates of ongoing reliability of performance, ongoing maintenance and repair requirements, and expected system tolerance to environmental and economic conditions. Novel modes that focus on coastal or low-lying areas may be particularly vulnerable to extreme weather events or climatic variations and should be evaluated for resiliency to inundation, storm surge, and high winds in particular. Those modes that rely on proprietary replacement parts or a consistent high level of maintenance may prove vulnerable to supplier issues or reduced operational budgets. Failure-mode analyses address reliability and resilience issues.

Regulatory Challenges

Technical readiness and sustainability performance of a novel mode can both be addressed; however, the novel mode may never reach commercialization without appropriate regulatory systems in place to enable novel mode development and implementation or to reduce barriers to entry into the marketplace. Regulatory frameworks vary by mode in that some modes are regulated at the Federal level and others may be regulated by State or local agencies. For entirely new modes, regulatory oversight may be unclear. Novel mode proponents need to be aware of regulatory requirements for their proposed mode, and this should also be a consideration for viability when evaluating a proposal. For example, use of and interchange with existing infrastructure (e.g., highway or railway right-of-ways) requires an understanding of the associated legal and regulatory restrictions. In addition, occupational health and safety regulations, environmental regulations and land-use restrictions, ownership considerations, and national and international standards all need to be considered as part of any novel mode implementation and should be addressed as early as possible in the novel mode design, development, and implementation.

Roles in Transportation Innovation

Public and private sector organizations have complementary, and sometimes overlapping, roles to play in transportation innovation. A brief overview of these organizations and their roles is outlined in the following sections.

Federal Level

At the Federal level, the USDOT and other agencies support transportation innovation through direct funding of research and demonstration projects. Additional support is available through technology transfer, access to test beds and research facilities, and other supporting activities, such as standards, outreach, policy guidance, and international harmonization. Federal investment in innovation is driven by each agency’s mission, and the topics that are selected will typically have broad-reaching applications.

State and Local Agencies

State and local agencies, including State DOTs, localities, and regional transit authorities, are the entities that own and operate most of the country’s highway and transit systems. As such, they are typically the primary “customers” for innovative products. These agencies are often constrained by budgets and procedural requirements, but some agencies are actively fostering innovation through demonstration projects, streamlined processes, and partnerships. In more limited cases, they may also provide direct research funding for projects with high local relevance.

Private Sector

The private sector works to identify and develop new transportation concepts and business models that will generate a return on investment. This may include advocacy for modes and projects and collaborative efforts to work on technical standards or other industrywide priorities.

Universities and Research Institutes

Universities and research institutes typically support earlier stage R&D projects and feasibility studies. Academia also plays an important role in the evaluation of projects and concepts. This role includes evaluation of environmental impacts, technical performance, cost-effectiveness, and overall societal impact.

Findings

The following pages summarize major findings regarding innovation context and challenges and opportunities for novel modal systems.

Innovation Context

The major findings regarding innovation context for novel modal systems are summarized in the following sections.

Transportation Innovation

Transportation innovation has historically been mostly incremental rather than revolutionary. A review of transportation history suggests that today’s highway, transit, and freight systems are the products of decades of incremental improvements in areas such as vehicle propulsion, control systems, materials, and telecommunications. Transportation investments have long time horizons and have almost always involved interaction between the public and private sector. The success of new concepts has been influenced at least as much by legal and institutional considerations as by technological ones.

Current Road and Transit Systems

Current road and transit systems offer high levels of mobility and convenience. Although new transportation concepts may provide significant advantages in travel speed, emissions, or other service characteristics, they will also likely need to provide comparable levels of personal convenience and flexibility to be considered as alternatives. For example, roadways are simple and offer a flexible deployment environment for a wide range of uses. New concepts like bus rapid transit and bike sharing can be incorporated into the transportation system without major modifications.

Partial Automation

Passenger and freight transportation are both introducing partial automation. The development of semi-automated systems offers efficiency improvements without the need for dedicated right-of-way. For example, freight distribution centers can process shipments more quickly with automated systems, and automotive “driver-assist” systems may improve highway throughput and safety. These developments are still ongoing but offer the possibility of addressing some of the limitations of current transportation modes.

Personal Travel Patterns

Personal travel patterns are in transition. Survey data show shifts from “maintenance” travel (e.g., commuting or errands) to other trip purposes. Travel patterns are also shifting to more situational, rather than habitual, mode choice, and attitudes toward transportation are changing among younger age groups. In addition, concurrent technological and societal changes have influenced the overall need to travel and have introduced a range of substitutes for travel, such as videoconferencing and social media.

Challenges

The major findings regarding challenges for novel modal systems are summarized as follows.

Connections to Existing Modes

New concepts need to consider connections to existing modes and the whole trip chain, including the first and last mile. The relatively low-density land-use patterns in the United States make it difficult for fixed guideway systems to transport all passengers to the doorstep of their ultimate destination, particularly outside of highly developed urban centers. Because travelers tend to place a strong premium on one-seat rides and view transfers as undesirable, any transitions should be as seamless as possible.

Passenger Comfort

Increased attention to passenger experience and comfort is warranted. Passenger comfort (e.g., vehicle interiors, seating, and windows) and the overall passenger experience exerts a strong influence on mode choice and will need to be addressed as new transportation concepts move forward. In particular, high travel speeds will require careful management.

Travel Demand

Forecasting travel demand and mode choice has become more difficult in general and even more so for novel modes. After decades of fairly steady growth, there have been significant fluctuations in vehicle-miles traveled in recent years. This has caused several public and private traffic forecasts to miss the mark. Personal travel patterns are also in transition, which makes it more difficult to forecast overall travel demand and mode shares. This challenge is even greater for novel modes as there is little to no historical data to draw upon, and consumer demand is difficult to estimate for entirely new concepts.

Risk Management

Potential investors in transportation systems place a strong emphasis on managing and mitigating risks. For the public sector in particular, there are often concerns about system complexity, reliability, and maintenance requirements because of fluctuating budgets and workforce issues. Agency budgets often go through lean periods when routine maintenance may be neglected, so it is important that the assets be robust to that kind of neglect. The rigidities of the public procurement process can also limit investment in novel technology. For the private sector, the issues are somewhat different, but there is still a strong focus on risk management. Key issues include developing a business model (i.e., a viable means of generating revenues from the system) and the potentially long time periods before initial investments are repaid. As a result of these risk considerations, investors in both the public and private sectors have a preference for time-tested technology and systems that are easier to build, operate, and maintain.

Opportunities

The research team’s major findings regarding opportunities for novel modal systems are summarized below.

Federal Research Programs

Novel modes and their underlying technologies may have other applications that would be of interest to Federal research programs outside of USDOT (e.g., DOD, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and DOE). Innovators should consider whether there are non-transportation applications of the underlying technologies that may attract research funding in fields such as defense, health, or energy. There are many examples of new products being commercialized outside their initial focus area.

State and Local Agencies

Some State and local agencies are actively pursuing transportation innovation. Jurisdictions such as the State of Texas and the City of San José, CA, have established innovation zones, made changes to their procurement processes, and implemented public–private partnerships and other initiatives to facilitate the development of new transportation concepts. Although these agencies, and others like them, are in the minority within the public sector, they represent an opportunity to partner with a public agency that is willing to address its barriers to innovation head on to develop improved transportation services.

Changes in Travel Patterns

Changes in travel patterns are breaking the automobile “monoculture.” Private automobiles continue to predominate in surface transportation, but survey data have begun to show lower driver licensure and vehicle ownership rates among younger age groups. This is accompanied by a greater willingness to use new concepts such as bike sharing, car sharing, and mobile applications. This suggests greater openness to new transportation modes that are developed.

University Partnerships

University partnerships can help with research, modeling, and demonstrations. University partnerships can include student research projects, independent validation, use of test facilities, development of prototypes, or other work. In addition to the practical benefits of these partnerships, the association of a university with the concept can help the concept gain traction and greater visibility.

Standards Setting

Standards setting can accelerate innovation in some cases. Workshop participants at the EAR Program’s Novel Surface Transportation Modes workshop in December 2014 discussed situations in which standards can foster or stifle innovation. Many participants said that standards could be helpful in the development of PRT and ATN systems by reducing the risk of dependence on a single supplier or maintenance organization for long-term system viability. The Federal Government, or public sector, does not need to set these standards but in some cases could be a convener and bring stakeholder groups together. In other cases, professional associations and other standards-setting bodies may take the lead.

Specific Applications

Novel mode concepts should focus on specific applications in which they may be more viable as a niche product for certain trip types or settings. For some novel mode concepts, the most relevant near-term applications may be in specific trip types or operating environments, such as campus settings, urban centers, or small freight shipments. Other systems may also be best suited to overseas emerging markets, where the existing transportation infrastructure is more limited.

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