The Future Highway Transportation System and Society

The purpose of this study was to provide the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) with specific research recommendations designed to develop a better understanding of a broad range of societal, economic, and institutional factors that affect--and are affected by--the nation's highway transportation system. The report is organized in four chapters and six appendices. Chapter 1 provides an introduction. Chapter 2 presents the committee's findings and recommendations. Chapter 3 presents summaries of the six commissioned papers that attempted to identify current trends and future projections of many factors that help define the nation's societal and economic activities and affect demand for the highway system. Chapter 4 provides a discussion of the four primary or driving forces selected by the committee and describes the scenario analysis undertaken by the committee. The report concludes with a discussion of several common themes in the scenarios that provided guidance for the committee's findings and recommendations. The papers commissioned by the committee and included as appendixes are as follows: (A) Future Travel Demand: Impact of Current and Future Societal Trends, S. Rosenbloom; (B) Roles and Responsibilities of Government: Financial and Taxation Issues, L.W. Munnich, Jr.; (C) Communication and Information Technologies and Their Effect on Transportation Supply and Demand, C.A. Zimmerman; (D) Ecological, Environmental, and Energy-Related Issues, D.L. Greene; (E) Forecasting Vehicle and Fuel Technologies to 2020, D. Sperling; and (F) Impacts of the Highway Transportation System on Delivery of Health Services and Social Services, M. Baldassare.