SHRP 2 Request for Proposals

Transcription

1 SHRP 2 Request for Proposals Focus Area: Capacity Project Number: C11 Project Title: Development of Improved Economic Analysis Tools Based on Recommendations from Project C03 Date Posted: March 9, 2010 Background To address the challenges of moving people and goods efficiently and safely on the nation s highways, Congress has created the second Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP 2). SHRP 2 is a targeted, short-term research program carried out through competitively awarded contracts to qualified researchers in the academic, private, and public sectors. SHRP 2 addresses four strategic focus areas: the role of human behavior in highway safety (Safety); rapid highway renewal (Renewal); congestion reduction through improved travel time reliability (Reliability); and transportation planning that better integrates community, economic, and environmental considerations into new highway capacity (Capacity). Under current legislative provisions, SHRP 2 will receive approximately $150 million with total program duration of seven years. Additional information about SHRP 2 can be found on the program s web site at Capacity Focus Area The overall Capacity program goal is to develop approaches for systematically integrating environmental, economic, and community requirements into the analysis, planning, and design of new highway capacity. The scope of the SHRP 2 Capacity program extends from the early stages of the transportation planning process, when many potential alternatives are being considered, through project development. When decisions include a major highway component, further development of the highway option is within the scope of the program. When decisions are made that lead to non-highway options, further development of the non-highway component is outside the scope. Project Background Strengthening the economic vitality of a region (jobs and income) is one of the primary reasons for investing in highway capacity. Elements of improving economic vitality include better access to markets and labor force, reduced cost of delay, reduced congestion, improved safety, reduced pollution, and a better quality of life. However, the ways in which new and improved highway capacity influences economic vitality are complex and often indirect in nature.

2 History is clear that improving transportation alone will not improve the economic vitality of a region unless other positive factors are present. This implies that the impacts of capacity enhancement will vary with the region of the country, type of area (urbanrural), political attitudes, supportiveness of infrastructure and development/land use policies, major economic drivers, economic growth forces, the nature of capacity problems, and the solutions proposed. Investments in capacity are often necessary but they may not create conditions sufficient for economic growth and land development. Comment [l1]: Are major economic drivers different from economic growth forces? In addition to primary impacts, we must also consider secondary and cumulative economic impacts and environmental justice factors in order to address the net impact on regional economic vitality. What is the value of environmental resources lost or the cost of economically degrading areas bypassed by a new transportation facility? The ultimate question for governments and taxpayers is will a transportation investment achieve the desired economic effect? Will the region be better off economically? A convincing economic assessment methodology should include both anticipated gains and losses. Many analytical tools exist for estimating economic impacts, but there is a general sense of dissatisfaction among decision makers and the public with their complexity and lack of transparency. There is also an impression that the public does not appreciate or understand the critical role of highway capacity in sustaining the economy, enabling economic growth, and improving economic efficiency. Finally, planning processes do not generally reflect the economic effects of highway capacity on land use, and the economic effects are not well integrated into the highway capacity decision-making process. Project C11: Development of Improved Economic Analysis Tools Based on Recommendations from Project C03 will strive to resolve these issues by building on the work of ongoing SHRP 2 Project C03, which has developed a case-study based economic impacts estimation web tool called T-PICS. T-PICS is a web-based sketch planning tool that allows state departments of transportation (DOTs), metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), and other agencies involved in highway capacity planning to quickly estimate the likely range of impacts of proposed projects. Project C11 is intended to build on the foundation that has been laid with T-PICS and its 100 detailed case studies, about 60 of which exist at this time. The products of C11 will support the Collaborative Decision Making Framework developed in SHRP 2 Project C01. That Framework will provide the forum for balancing transportation, economic impact, community needs and desires, and environmental concerns. Objectives There are several objectives for Capacity Project C11. The main objective will be to develop a suite of straightforward, transparent, and useful open source statistical forecasting models/tools that function at a level between the C03 case study-based web tool (which is essentially descriptive in nature) and more complex, economic impact assessment models/tools such as IMPLAN and REMI. This new suite of models and tools should use parameters gleaned from the full complement of C03 case studies and other readily available data sources; it will likely be a spreadsheet-based model. Inputs for the

3 suite of forecasting tools should include characteristics of project and characteristics of setting. Outputs should mainly provide the range of reasonable expectations for a proposed project by major economic impact/economic development performance measures. The suite could represent a series of models, from very simple to moderately complex but will certainly provide outputs beyond the meta-analysis of the case study data being done as part of ongoing SHRP 2 Capacity Project C03. Principal users of the suite of tools/models are expected to be state DOT and MPO planners/technicians in support of decision makers; users will typically not be economists and will probably not have extensive economics training. Other objectives of C11 include: Providing economic development performance measurement/impacts guidance. What things should transportation agencies be looking at after the fact as they evaluate projects and measure success? Where should they be looking for economic impacts? What data are likely to be available? What other data would need to be collected and how? Providing protocols on how to conduct future, better economic development impact studies. Providing guidance on how best to account for economic impacts such as avoiding problems with double-counting (i.e. developing an improved, simplified accounting framework). Providing guidance for improved benefit/cost analysis for proposed highway capacity projects. Providing guidance on incorporating/considering distributional impacts in economic impact assessments, such as affordable housing, housing/jobs mismatch, and relocations of activity. Providing guidance on how to use GIS/geospatial data and other related tools to assess the economic development impacts of highway investments in conjunction with the statistical models and tools. Laying the groundwork for making explicit linkages/connections to other SHRP 2 Capacity and Reliability project concerns such as carbon footprint, environmental impact/external costs, and improved travel time reliability. Tasks Task descriptions are intended to provide a framework for conducting the research. SHRP 2 is seeking the insights of proposers on how best to achieve the research objective. Proposers are expected to describe research plans that can realistically be accomplished within the constraints of available funds and contract time. Proposals must present the proposers' current thinking in sufficient detail to demonstrate their

4 understanding of the issues and the soundness of their approach to meet the research objective(s). 1. Review Capacity Project C03 deliverables to date, especially the C03 Task 2 working paper, to ensure that the C03 work is used as a foundation for C11 tasks and deliverables. Provide a Task report in the form of a Technical Memorandum. 2. Identify potential linkages with other relevant SHRP 2 projects, especially in the Capacity, Reliability, and Renewal focus areas. Prepare a matrix of key linkages. Revise the amplified work plan for C11 so that it is supportive of other relevant SHRP 2 projects and products. 3. Develop an enhanced accounting framework for capacity project economic impact analysis that articulates issues such as forms of impact, distributional issues, timing of impacts, regional scale of impacts, changes in travel reliability, and external/environmental impacts so that practitioners can appreciate how economic analysis of such issues could be conducted for projects. Provide practitioner guidance on the limitations of such analysis. A broad range of analyses is possible, all the way from very simple back of the envelope to very thorough; different levels may be appropriate given the level of capacity planning being conducted and guidance should also be provided regarding appropriate level of detail. Develop a draft User Guide based on this task. The Task 3 draft User Guide should be aimed at capacity planning practitioners and should not assume that such users will have a great depth of economics/economic impact estimation training. 4. Develop a suite of analysis tools/statistical models to support the Task 3 Draft User Guide. These tools should be in the form of predictive tools/models that will be useful for state DOTs and MPOs. Project C03 conducted primarily descriptive analysis based on the case study data that were collected. The C03 case studies/descriptive statistics-based meta analysis (to be contained in the C03 Final Report) should be the starting point for C11 Task 4, but the contractor must be prepared to add value and data from other sources that are immediately and widely available. As these tools and statistical models are developed, it will be very important to maintain transparency. Any models, tools, data and results must be open source; no proprietary tools or suite of tools should exist at the end of the Task 4 process. Tools and models could be spreadsheet-based or other open source analysis tools. Detailed documentation should be provided for any tools and models that are developed. Tools and models should be useful for a range of capacity projects and settings, as indicated by the 100 case studies that will be included in the C03 T-PICS case study database. Tools and models should address access and connectivity impacts of capacity projects. They should address the performance measurement needs of highway agencies such as state DOTs and MPOs. The limitations of the analytic tools/equations should be made very clear in documentation, e.g., numbers of observations and standard deviations/errors should be provided for any predictive models produced.

5 5. Explore how the usefulness of the Task 4 statistical tools could be improved and leveraged through the use of widely available GIS/geospatial data and tools. Both the visualization and spatial analysis/modeling aspects of GIS should be considered in this analysis. Examples and illustrations using the C03 T-PICS case study database should be provided where possible. Explore the types of integration of GIS and economic impact analysis tools that might be possible within the next decade given likely developments in these subject areas. Explore open source versus proprietary implications of such integration. Provide a white paper for review. 6. Develop illustrative examples of how practitioners can use the results of Tasks 4 and 5. This work should also link back to the C03 database/web tool, T-PICS. Illustrations should include simple visualization and geospatial examples. Prepare a User Guide section based on Task Integration task. Consider how the C11 products will be best used in the context of highway capacity planning. At which Key Decision Points should practitioners consider economic impacts and how? Apply the results of Tasks 1-6 to explain the relationship between economic development impact measurement and economic benefit measurement (as defined for project benefit-cost analysis). Provide guidance as to how the results of economic development impact assessment can be used to broaden benefit-cost analysis without leading to double-counting. Explain how the inclusion of these wider economic benefits can be made consistent with benefit-cost analysis procedures now being adopted by agencies in the U.S. and abroad. Task 7 work will need to be captured both in the final research report and in the final User Guide; drafts of these sections should be prepared as interim work products. 8. Link the results of project C11 back to C03 case studies and web tool (T-PICS). It is important that all the results from C11 (including the suite of models/tools and its documentation) be available on-line through the T-PICS web site. Provide for appropriate linkages to and other web portals where users might look for economic impact data and tools. 9. Prepare a final research report for the C11 project and a consolidated, final User Guide. Deliverables: 1. Technical Memorandum for Task 1 2. Matrix of key linkages to other relevant SHRP 2 projects 3. Draft User Guide focusing on accounting framework (Task 3) 4. Suite of statistical models/tools, likely in spreadsheet format 5. White paper on GIS/geospatial data integration for analysis and visualization 6. Illustrative examples to be incorporated in final User Guide

6 7. Task 7 interim work products. 8. Updates to the T-PICS web-based system, including integration of the statistical models/tools suite and other Capacity Project C11 products. 9. Final project research report 10. Final User Guide Special Notes Note 1: Any clarifications regarding this RFP will be posted on the SHRP 2 Web site ( Announcements of such clarifications will be posted on the front page and, when possible, will be noted in the TRB e-newsletter. Proposers are advised to check the Web site frequently until April 9th, 2010, when no further comments will be posted. Note 2: Proposals will be evaluated by SHRP 2 staff and an Expert Task Group (ETG) consisting of individuals collectively very knowledgeable in the problem area. The project C11 ETG is the same group of experts that is overseeing the progress of Project C03. Selection of an agency is made by the SHRP 2 Oversight Committee, based on recommendations from SHRP 2 staff and the ETG. The following factors are considered: (1) the proposer s demonstrated understanding of the problem; (2) the merit of the proposed research approach and experimental design; (3) the experience, qualifications, and objectivity of the research team in the same or closely related problem area; (4) the proposer s plan for participation by disadvantaged business enterprises small firms owned and controlled by minorities or women; and (5) the adequacy of facilities. Note 3: Proposers teams should include professionals with experience in: Regional economic analysis of infrastructure investments, especially for transportation investments Development of statistical models and tools for economic impact analysis, including econometrics and geospatial tools and data Creating effective user documentation Creating interactive, web-based tools Implementation of case-based reasoning or similar knowledge extraction approaches in an interactive environment Note 4: In order to prepare the most responsive proposals possible, bidders will have access to the draft C03 T-PICS web tool, 60 or more existing C03 case studies via the web tool, knowledge of what the 40 new C03 case studies will be, and detailed documentation of what has been done so far through Project C03, including available draft research reports; bidders should refer to Proposers should also refer to the Transportation Research Board TED Committee web site for information about the state of the practice in economic impact assessment: Note 5: It will be critically important that proposers become familiar with other related SHRP 2 research projects (beyond Project C03) and be prepared to coordinate with other

7 SHRP 2 projects and contractor teams. The most critical linkages are likely to be with projects: C01/C07 (developing the Transportation for Communities.com web resource.). A draft web site is available and a report is being reviewed. For more information, bidders should refer to: C02 (performance measurement) This project is completed; a Final Report is available for this project along with a web site: C04 (roadway pricing and capacity). This project is nearing completion. C16 ( smart growth and capacity) some of the 60 new C03 case studies involve transit-oriented development (TOD). This project is no yet under way. C22 (decision makers guide). This project is not yet under way. L11 (looking at the valuation of travel time reliability). This project is nearing completion. L14 (looking at the value of providing travel time reliability information). This project is partially completed. Funds Available: The total project budget is $600,000. Contract Time: Total Project time: 18 months Responsible Staff: David J. Plazak, dplazak@nas.edu, Authorization to Begin Work: September 1, 2010, expected Proposals (20 single-bound copies) are due not later than 4:30 p.m. on April 20, 2010 This is a firm deadline, and extensions simply are not granted. In order to be considered, all 20 copies of the agency's proposal, accompanied by the executed, unmodified Liability Statement must be in our offices not later than the deadline shown, or they will be rejected. Delivery Address: PROPOSAL-SHRP 2 ATTN: Neil F. Hawks Director, Strategic Highway Research Program 2 Transportation Research Board 500 Fifth Street, NW Washington, DC Phone: Liability Statement The signature of an authorized representative of the proposing agency is required on the unaltered statement in order for SHRP 2 to accept the agency's proposal for consideration. Proposals submitted without this executed and unaltered statement by the proposal deadline will be rejected. An executed, unaltered statement indicates the agency's intent and ability to execute a contract that includes the provisions in the

8 statement. Here is a printable version of the Liability Statement (pdf). A free copy of the Adobe Acrobat PDF reader is available at