By the Book: Is Induced Travel Missing from Transportation Engineering Textbooks?
- Conference
- Location
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Portland, Oregon
- Publication Date
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June 23, 2024
- Start Date
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June 23, 2024
- End Date
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July 12, 2024
- Conference Session
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Civil Engineering Division (CIVIL) Technical Session - Professional Practice 2
- Tagged Division
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Civil Engineering Division (CIVIL)
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/48432
Paper Authors
Kelcie Mechelle Ralph Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Kelcie Ralph is an Associate Professor of Transportation Planning and Policy at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers. She earned her PhD at UCLA, an MPhil in Environmental Policy at Cambridge, a MSc from the London School of Economics, and a BA from the University of Alaska. In her research, Dr. Ralph works to identify and correct common misconceptions about travel behavior and safety to improve transportation planning outcomes.
Ellen Oettinger White State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry
Abstract
Induced travel is the new travel that materializes in the aftermath of an improvement to transportation infrastructure (i.e., widening a road or adding transit). Accounting for induced travel is essential for accurately describing the long-term costs and benefits of a project. In particular, it suggests that congestion relief from new infrastructure will often be short lived. Do transportation engineering textbooks introduce students to this important concept? To find out, we conducted a careful review of seven textbooks and find that coverage of induced travel is often incomplete. Some textbooks omitted the idea entirely and those that did include it offered only partial coverage. Textbooks either defined the term, indicated its expected magnitude, used the concept in a problem set, or described the implications for practice. However, no single textbook included all these essential elements. Beyond this, all textbooks placed a greater emphasis on accommodating demand rather than managing it. Textbooks offered an asymmetric portrayal of how drivers adjust to traffic conditions. They tended to emphasize that drivers avoid congested areas and de-emphasized that drivers are also attracted to uncongested routes. Based on our review, we offer five criteria for developing high-quality teaching materials on this topic. Teaching materials should: 1) clearly define induced travel and distinguish it from other terms, 2) indicate the magnitude of induced travel we can expect, 3) feature the concept in problem sets to be consistent with engineering’s signature pedagogy, 4) describe the implications of induced travel for engineering practice, and 5) introduce students to foundational debates about transportation policymaking.
Ralph, K. M., & White, E. O. (2024, June), By the Book: Is Induced Travel Missing from Transportation Engineering Textbooks? Paper presented at 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Portland, Oregon. https://peer.asee.org/48432
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