Safety is a major worldwide concern due to the increasing number of fatalities of vulnerable road users (VRUs). VRUs are pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorcyclists, and their safety is a priority when making infrastructure management decisions. Traditionally, transportation agencies have adopted transportation asset management (TAM) practices based on performance measures to assess the physical condition of transport infrastructure. This paper describes a framework to incorporate VRU’s safety into the TAM decision-making process. The main objective of the VRU-TAM framework is to mitigate pedestrian fatalities by improving the decision-making process at the strategic and operational management level. The VRU-TAM framework is composed of four phases: assessment, prioritization, scenario analysis, and results. It includes a prioritization methodology using a safety-weighted effectiveness ratio (SWER) to consider pedestrian safety factors and costs in the decision-making process. In a broader perspective, pedestrian safety is affected by driver, demographic, pedestrian, infrastructure, and policy related factors. The decision-making criteria reflected in SWER considers the asset importance, location, pedestrian safety risk, costs, and remaining life in the budget allocation process, and adopts the dynamic bubble up (DBU) technique for budget prioritization at the network level. An example is presented for crosswalks to demonstrate the applicability of the methodology to evaluate different budget-driven scenarios for funding allocation. As a conclusion, it is demonstrated that the outcomes of the budget-driven scenarios following the method that incorporates safety criteria, with tangible metrics, offer a deeper understanding of the effects of budgetary constraints on backlog costs and the remaining life of infrastructure assets.
This paper presents a framework to analyze vehicle miles travelled (VMT) fees as an alternative to fi nance maintenance, rehabilitation, and new construction transportation projects. The VMT feasibility framework addresses major factors related to public acceptance, revenues, technology, type of contract, government policies, enforcement, administration, and invoicing. We argue that our suggested VMT fee policy is an equitable usage-based system since in our analysis, VMT fees are differentiated by vehicle axles and emissions. In turn, VMT charges will also motivate fl eet owners to renew vehicles or switch to alternative transportation modes such as mass transit, walking, and biking. An example based on data from the state of Texas illustrates some of the potential revenues and benefi ts associated with a VMT fee policy.
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