The New Professionalism: Theory and Practice

MNPS 700.5P1 – Fall ’00

Introduction to Transportation Policy, Operations & Logistics

SYLLABUS

Basic Course Information

Time:

Thursday, 4:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.

Place (3 locations):

GMU Arlington Campus, rm. 332 “Old Building” (formerly room 325)

SW Center, Abingdon, via interactive TV

VDOT Richmond, via interactive TV

Instructor:

Jonathan L. Gifford

Telephone

703-993-1395 (Fairfax)

703-993-2275 (Arlington)

Fax:

801-749-9198

E-mail:

jgifford@gmu.edu

Office hours:

Arlington “O,” rm. 249: Thursday, 3:00 p.m. – 4:15 p.m.

Fairfax, Robinson A211: Tuesday, 3:00 p.m. – 4:15 p.m.

Or by appointment (if making a special trip to campus, an appointment is strongly recommended, as obligations beyond the instructor’s control may require him to miss or be late for office hours).

Section:

5P1 (call number 07140)

 

Course Description

This course is about transportation systems. It examines their history and development, their contribution to and impact on society, the institutions and practices that govern their planning, design, construction, operation, maintenance, and—sometimes—retirement from service, the policy and managerial challenges that they pose, and the tools and techniques available for addressing them.

Transportation is a service that contributes substantially to the well being of advanced economies. Personal mobility, whether by bicycle, car, bus, or aircraft, occupies a significant part of almost every citizen’s day. And virtually all household goods—furniture, food, appliances and clothing—are the result of often complex chains of production and distribution in which transportation plays a critical part.

The resource requirements and byproducts of transportation also pose sobering environmental challenges for society. Landscape, noise, energy dependence, air and water quality, and global climate are all profoundly affected by society’s choices about transportation. The safety and security of the transportation system is also tremendously important to quality of life and economic efficiency.

Requirements

Paper No. 1 (15% of grade)

Complete a “Transportation Policy, Operations or Logistics Description and Evaluation,” approximately 500 words in length, plus appendices if desired (due in week 5), describing and evaluating a transportation activity with which you are familiar. Your description and evaluation should take a systems perspectives, that is, it should not be simply a “user’s eye” view of the activity but rather synoptic or societal. You should clearly state the evaluation criteria you are using. It should generally focus on the activities of one organization, for example, VDOT’s traffic sign management,

Paper No. 2 (25%)

Write a 2000-word paper about a problem or issue of your choice related to transportation policy, operations or logistics, due in week 9. Additional information will be available in a few weeks.

You should carefully identify and cite source material. You will probably need to rely on a wide range of sources, including subject area experts, industry and trade publications, and promotional and marketing materials by vendors. Some of these may be from the Internet.

Presentation (10%)

Develop and deliver a 15-minute class presentation based on your second paper. Presentations will be scheduled throughout the semester.

Paper No. 3 (40%)

Write a final paper of approximately 2500 words. Additional information will be available later in the term.

Class Participation (10%)

Participate in class discussions demonstrating command of assigned material and the ability to relate the concepts to other transportation issues.

Note: Students who are unable to attend classes during which graded work is to be submitted or presented will be asked to provide appropriate documentation of the reason for their absence.

Text Materials

There are two principal textbooks:

1.      Joseph Sussman, Introduction to Transportation Systems (Boston: Artech House, 2000); and

2.      John Robert Meyer, and others, Essays in Transportation Economics and Policy: A Handbook in Honor of John R. Meyer (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1999).

Additional readings will be available in photocopy or using the university’s electronic reserves system.

Instructor

The course instructor is Jonathan L. Gifford, who is the Director of the M.S. Professional Studies in Transportation Policy, Operations & Logistics in the School of Public Policy and an associate professor of public management and policy in the Department of Public & International Affairs at George Mason University. He is an authority on transportation and infrastructure policy, with particular expertise in the areas of ITS, highway policy, urban transportation planning, airport and air traffic control policy, and the development of technical standards. He is the author of more than thirty articles and the author or editor of four books.

Recent research areas include: technical standard setting through consortia; policy objectives and general requirements for deploying signal preemption and priority systems in the greater Washington, D.C. region; improving public acceptance of infrastructure projects; lessons from institutional restructuring in electric power, telecommunications, highways and air traffic control; and smart card technology for licensing commercial drivers.

He earned his B.S. in civil engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, and his M.S. and Ph.D. in civil engineering (transportation) from the University of California, Berkeley, with minor fields in economics and urban and regional planning. His dissertation analyzed the development and impacts of the Interstate highway system.


Schedule (Preliminary)

Week

Date

Subject

Reading*

Assignment

1

8/31

Introduction

 

 

Part I: Context, Concepts & Characterization

2

9/7

 

*Sussman, chaps. 1-3

Gifford 1999b

1-page bio statement (via e-mail)

3

9/14

 

*Sussman, chaps. 4-6

Gifford 1999a, chaps. 1, 11-12

Pisarski 1999

 

4

9/21

 

*Sussman, chaps. 7-9

American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials 1991

Sussman 1995

 

5

9/28

 

*Sussman, chaps. 10-11

*TEP, chap. 14

Paper #1

Passenger Transportation

6

10/5

Surface transport

*Sussman, chap. 21-23

Boarnet and Haughwort 2000

Pisarski 2000

Gifford 1999a, chaps. 4-6

 

7

10/12

(cont’d)

*Sussman, chap. 24-26 (chap. 27 optional)

Gifford 1999a, chaps. 8-10

Pendleton and Sussman 1999

 

8

10/19

(cont’d)

*Sussman, chap. 28

Richmond 1999

 

9

10/26

Air transport

*Sussman, chap. 29

Paper #2

10

11/2

TBA

 

 

Freight Transportation

11

11/9

Freight overview

Railroads

*Sussman, chap. 12-16 (chaps. 17-18 optional)

*TEP, chap. 15

 

12

11/16

Trucking, maritime

*Sussman, chaps. 19-20

Carmichael 1999

 

 

11/23

Thanksgiving Day (no class)

13

11/30

TBA

 

 

14

12/7

Review and wrap-up

 

 

 

12/14

Final examination

No class meeting

Paper #3

*Textbooks are identified with an *; additional readings are identified below.

 

Additional Readings

American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. 1991. The States and the interstates: Research on the planning, design and construction of the interstate and defense highway system. Washington, D.C.: The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.

Boarnet, Marlon G., and Andrew F. Haughwort. 2000. Do highways matter? Evidence and policy implications of highways’ influence on metropolitan development, Discussion paper, Center on Urban and Metrolitan Policy, <http://www.brookings.edu/es/urban/boarnet.pdf>. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution.

Carmichael, Gil. 1999. The case for ‘Interstate II.’ Speech, The Road Gang—Washington’s Highway Transportation Fraternity, May 20.

Gifford, Jonathan L. 1999a[201 pp.]. Flexible urban transportation planning.

———. 1999b. Increasing the Social Acceptability of Urban Transport Projects. Transportation Quarterly, 53, no. 4, Fall: 49-66.

Pendleton, T.A., and J.M. Sussman. 1999. Regional architectures: Strengthening the transportation planning process. Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 1679: 22-31.

Pisarski, Alan E. 1999. Transportation planning, policy, and data: Inextricable linkages. 1999 Distinguished TRB Lecture, <http://www.nas.edu/trb/publications/991580.pdf>.

———. 2000. Forcing Drivers Off the Road Won’t Solve Virginia’s Traffic Woes. <http://www.ccps.virginia.edu/publications/JanFebNL.pdf>. The Virginia Newsletter, 76, no. 1, January/February.

Richmond, Jonathan E.D. 1999. Transitory dreams: How new rail lines often hurt transit systems. Wilson Quarterly, Spring.

Sussman, Joseph. 1995. Educating the new transportation professional. ITS Quarterly, 3, no. 1, Summer.