Transportation Finance for the 21st Century

The conference was organized as a national forum to provide information on new approaches to financing all modes of transportation, to share success stories, and to stimulate discussion on the merits and drawbacks of new techniques, which are known collectively as innovative finance. Innovative finance in transportation is a diversified set of public- and private-sector actions that move beyond the traditional federal-aid and state-aid funding processes. Nearly 500 federal, state, and local government officials and private-sector representatives attended the conference. Conference participants grappled with the growing inadequacy of traditional funding sources and how to find new means to finance the continued maintenance and improvement of the nation's transportation infrastructure. The broad- based conference turnout makes it clear that these concerns are shared industrywide and that transportation providers across the nation are actively seeking new ways to raise revenues to finance the necessary improvements. By the close of the conference, participants were better informed about the new revenue sources and more creative means of financing transportation infrastructure that may be necessary to meet the challenges of the future, and they were more familiar with the complex issues associated with changing the current means of transportation finance. Tangible outcomes of the conference are a description of the benefits and possible risks associated with innovative financing techniques, identification of the types of legislative and administrative changes needed to facilitate the implementation of innovative finance, and the suggested development of a research and information transfer program that would disseminate best practices to state and local transportation agencies. The proceedings are organized as follows: Summary; Conference Findings; Major Themes - presentations and discussions from conference plenary sessions on the following major innovative finance themes: current state of the art, future developments, national legislative considerations, and how to bring about implementation; Key Topics - presentations, discussions, and resource papers on five topics that are key to innovative finance: ( a) the roles of the public and private sectors, (b) linking technology and finance, (c) bond financing, (d) public-private partnerships, and ( e) business planning for State Infrastructure Banks; Case Studies; and List of conference participants.