Review of Transportation Decision Making: Principles of Project Evaluation and Programming by Kumares C. Sinha and Samuel Labi: John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, N.J.; 2007; 544 pp. Price: $125.

In the United States, access to a safe, efficient, relative inexpensive transportation is taken for granted. Users see access to transportation as a right, and everyone is an “expert” because they use and depend on the transportation system. This dependence is both direct and indirect as people use the system to move about, and they also consume the goods and services that are delivered via this transportation system. However, resources to expand, improve, maintain and operate these transportation systems compete with demands for investments in health, education, social services and other types of infrastructure. At the same time, awareness of the negative impacts of transportation decisions, pressures from environmental groups, awareness of special needs, concern with sustainability, and recognition of the role of transportation in the global economy have grown. These challenges speak to the need for rigorous, rational analysis to support transportation decision making. Therefore, the publication of Transportation Decision Making is timely.

Decision making is an important topic. Transportation decisions are complex because they impact many different stakeholders and involve significant investments that have implications over long time horizons. They also draw on both the art and science of decision making in the sense that elaborate models can be used, but the successful application of those models requires understanding how many different models fit together and require many assumptions regarding the appropriate level of detail and the identification and collection of relevant data.

Decision making is also a challenging topic. Transportation decisions must recognize the political, social, geographical, planning, financial, and economic context in which the decision is being made. Therefore, the decisions draw on principles from economics, operations research, engineering, and environmental science. The decisions are based on data and information that capture the impacts of these decisions on the various stakeholders over an extended planning horizon. Transportation Decision Making provides an in-depth look at the models, data, and tools to support these decisions in the political and institutional context of the United States. Although the book covers transportation decisions in general, the focus is largely on highways.

The book is organized into 20 chapters and two appendices (covering cost indices and performance measures). Chapter 1 presents introductory concepts. Chapters 2, 3, and 4 cover the basic concepts of performance, demand, and transportation costs. Chapters 5 through 17 cover the different impacts of transportation decisions with individual chapters devoted to travel time, safety, vehicle operating costs, economic efficiency, economic development, air quality, noise, wetlands and other ecosystems, water resources, visual, energy use, land-use, and social and cultural impacts. Travel time, safety, vehicle operating costs, and economic efficiency (Chapters 5 to 8) are described by the authors as the tangible impacts of transportation. Chapter 18 explains how these different measures can be assembled into a coherent analysis using multicriteria evaluation. Chapter 19 introduces geographical and other information systems and discusses the management of information to support the decision-making process. Chapter 20 covers transportation programming—the selection and scheduling of projects to achieve system goals. Each chapter ends with a summary and includes exercises, references, and in some cases additional resources. Where applicable a section outlines relevant legislation.

To illustrate the breadth and depth of material presented, consider Chapter 10, “Air Quality Impacts.” The Chapter begins by providing a foundation by defining pollutants and describes trends and factors that influence emissions. The chapter then describes the process for estimating emissions and converting emissions to concentrations including a review of appropriate software. A section then reviews air pollution from other modes. The monetary costs of air pollution are estimated and air quality standards described. A brief section reviews strategies for mitigating air pollution from transportation sources, and a final section reviews air quality legislation and regulations. The chapter includes five exercises, 38 references and nine other resources. The exercises are nontrivial for undergraduates but are supported by the material in the chapter. Appendices provide detailed instructions for using MOBILE6 to estimate emissions and a table for the Gaussian distribution for use with dispersion models. This organizational template is used for each of the chapters and works well given the nature of the material. Each chapter provides a step-by-step guide to develop inputs into the transportation decision-making process but also provides references and resources if the reader wants to go beyond the material presented.

The book does justice to the richness of the broader topic of decision making, covering the specific areas you would expect and more. By capturing the multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and cross disciplinary elements of transportation decisions, the book is useful at many different levels and to many different participants in the decision-making process. Much of the book is a synthesis of other sources that the authors describe as a “single source of information to cover all key areas of transportation system evaluation.” Therefore, the book is also a rich source of data and information that serves as a resource for both students and practitioners. I particularly like the fact that there are many tables with examples of models and default values for input data.

As a student it would never have occurred to me to read the preface of a book. Now, I know that the preface helps me to understand the approach taken by the authors and their objectives. In this case, the preface lived up to my expectations. However, I would have liked the authors to provide some guidance as to how they see a course outlined. I have found the advice offered by the authors very valuable as it helps me to translate their objectives into what I try to accomplish in the classroom and how a course (or sometimes two) that the authors either teach or have in mind might fit into the typical graduate and undergraduate curriculum. While I find the book an excellent resource, I am not sure how I would use it as a text. A senior elective or basic graduate level course in transportation decision making would be valuable, but I am not sure that many universities offer such a course, nor would students understand the value of this course. It is time to rethink this idea, but I would have liked some help from the authors.

The authors are appropriately unapologetic about the highway focus and the U.S. context. By including short sections and exercises (e.g., on the impacts of a new runway or light rail transit line) related to other modes, where applicable, they acknowledge the importance of these other modes without confusing the material on this important topic. Similarly, the authors also include a short section on global agreements related to air quality that addresses the broader implications of air-quality legislation.

Overall, the book is an excellent resource. It has lots of references, examples, and default values that draw from the vast experience of the authors. The book is well written and organized in modules that provide a logical flow through the material but with appropriate connections between the different topic areas. I am looking forward to working with the material.