It Is Time to Recognize Communications as a Mode of Transportation

Historically, transportation has enabled the mobility not just of people and goods but also of information. Until the advent of the telegraph, communications and transportation were largely complementary, with travelers and vehicles carrying communications and information. Technology has enabled the transfer of information in new ways that have become substitutes for traditional transport. For example, telegraph and telephone messages replaced letters. Today’s digital communications are still both complementary to and a substitute for transportation. The thesis of this editorial is that communication has become a technology-disrupting form of transportation and so deserves the increased focus of transportation engineers, managers, and educators.

The link between strong communications and strong transportation systems for both economies and societies has long been recognized (Sachs et al. 2001). The link is especially important now as investment in broadband and transportation networks increases across the globe. At the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed a stark digital divide in both rural and urban areas between the residents with access to reliable broadband technology and those without it. Those without adequate or affordable broadband have less—and sometimes no—access to education, employment, commerce, and healthcare services.

Throughout the twentieth century, information and communications technology continued to improve transportation safety and efficiency through intelligent transportation systems (ITS) technologies, including highway advisory radio, 511 traveler information systems, highway message boards, and traffic management centers. In the last decade, these centralized systems have been eclipsed by decentralized ITS, including smart phone and cloud-based communications networks. These latter systems enable the real-time transfer of data and connection of travelers directly to transportation modes. Examples of these applications include mobility as a service, real-time transit and traffic information, bicycle and scooter sharing, and real-time navigation system aids. Connected vehicle technology, communicating through dedicated short-range communications and 4G and 5G cellular networks, enables a growing number of applications to improve safety, efficiency, and sustainability. This connected-vehicle technology is also evolving with vehicle automation through applications such as truck platooning. As advanced wireless communications infrastructure becomes more common, we expect to see exponentially more internet-of-things (IoT) applications throughout our transportation system.

Transportation engineers have long recognized that strategies of transportation demand management (TDM) are important tools to increase traveler choices and to encourage modal shifts (Meyer 1999). As information and communications technology becomes more sophisticated, these TDM strategies are further enabled. For example, carpooling efforts ramped up in the 1940s in response to conservation efforts for WWII and again in the 1970s during the oil crisis. But public participation did not become mainstream until ride-hailing companies using smart phones were introduced in this last decade. There have been jitney services and taxis for more than one hundred years, but modern communications have made ride hailing much more accessible. Telework has been a longtime strategy of TDM that is now available to vastly more people through cloud computing and online coworking platforms. The COVID-19 pandemic has motivated an expansion of e-commerce, telework, and video conferencing (Hendrickson and Rilett 2020).

Federal, state, and local governments traditionally have invested in transportation infrastructure to enable both commerce and personal mobility in order to connect communities to the world. In the US, these infrastructure investments, which began with ocean and river ports, expanded to include canals, railroads, highways, and airports. Today, broadband technology is the infrastructure investment necessary to connect businesses and citizens to each other and to the world.

Engineers need to design systems with this understanding of communications as a mode of transportation (Saeed et al. 2021). Transportation activities, such as advanced and effective traffic control, rapid incident response, and maintenance require extensive communications. The education system, including the US DOT University Transportation Centers (UTC) Program, can prepare current and future workforces in how to plan, design, build, maintain, secure, and utilize this powerful technology. The UTC program recently awarded a grant to establish a center that focuses on telemobility (Telemobility UTC Consortium 2021). Transportation professionals also need to understand how this disruptive new technology may impact workforces, vulnerable populations, and the environment. We have witnessed disruptions of similar transformations in transportation, including the interstate highway system over fifty years ago and the mass adoption of combustion-engine vehicles a century ago. In communications, major disruptions have been seen with the telegraph, telephones, satellites, cable, fiber optics, and now cellular. Transportation engineers and planners do not need to become experts in communications and computer science. Rather, they need to have the ability to work knowledgeably with the experts in these fields.

Transportation agencies, including state and municipal departments of transportation, metropolitan planning organizations, and transit agencies, need to recognize communications as a core infrastructure investment and develop strategies to engage with private partners who are building the infrastructure and developingthe applications. The communications infrastructure also needs to be engineered and integrated into existing transportation, building, and energy networks. A systems-engineering approach is necessary and is now enabled by digital networks that promote communication among these individual systems and the sharing of information to optimize them. We see daily examples of smart phones and smart speakers coordinating our personal transportation, home security, appliances, temperature control, and other IoT communications applications.

Federal, state, and local government leaders need to coordinate with the communications industry on this infrastructure, as was done with the railroad and aviation industries. It is essential that communications infrastructure be engineered to be effective, efficient, resilient, equitable, and sustainable. This includes exploring the policy framework necessary for industry to effectively deploy these systems.

Congress and the executive branch have an opportunity to recognize and integrate communications as a mode of transportation in the reauthorization of the law for planning and investment in surface transportation. The following are a few options for consideration:

In summary, the authors believe that recent advances in communication technologies are fundamentally transforming the planning, design, and operation of transportation systems maintenance. For this reason, government and industry leaders should be proactive in further integrating communications into transportation infrastructure and operations. While the focus of this editorial is US options, other countries face the same issues. US transportation systems engineering should be adapted to prepare for this transition with research directed to making it as smooth as possible.

As in the past, the Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part A: Systems stands ready to publish articles exploring the link between communications and transportation.