A Theoretical Framework for Developing a National Transportation Strategy

Abstract

Developing the surface transportation systems the United States needs will require asking and answering a series of questions, beginning with the most basic:

• What is the main purpose of surface transportation?
• What resources are available and what is the best way to deploy those resources?
• How do we measure success?

Determining what future transportation systems should look like will require analyzing a range of economic, demographic, technological and socio-political variables.

As management guru Peter Druker famously said, “The primary goal of every enterprise should be to create customers”. Transportation leaders must undertake the critical task of determining what transportation customers want and are willing to pay for. In doing so, they must understand that there are many categories of customers—such as commuters, businesses, and logistics companies—each with different priorities. Measurements of success should also be customer-focused.

Finally, state departments of transportation—not their federal counterparts—are often best positioned to ask these questions and develop the right answers for their own states.