Who We Are
 The Victoria Transport Policy Institute is an independent research
organization dedicated to developing innovative and practical solutions
to transportation problems. We provide a variety of resources
available free at this website to help improve transportation
planning and policy analysis. We are funded primarily through
consulting and project grants. Our research is among the most current
available and has been widely applied. It can help you:
- Identify better solutions to transportation problems,
including some approaches that are frequently overlooked or misunderstood.
- Identify the full benefits, costs and equity impacts
of alternative transportation policies and programs.
- Compare and evaluate alternatives.
- Create a bridge between theory and practice.
Click here for Planetizen Blogs:
Clean Vehicles Versus Vehicle Travel Reductions: Better Transportation Emission Reduction Planning. There are many possible ways to reduce transportation emissions, some of which provide large co-benefits. Unfortunately, current evaluation practices tend to overlook some of the best. Let's examine why.
Take the A Train: A Musical Inspiration for Planners. Take the A Train is a beautiful celebration of rail transit, urban sophistication, and the Harlem Renaissance all packed into the most danceable 2:54 minutes of musical teamwork ever recorded on a 78 disk. It’s my inspiration for great planning!
Planning for New Mobilities: Preparing for Innovative Transportation Technologies and Services. New mobilities—emerging transportation technologies and services—have tantalizing potential. They allow people to scoot, ride, and fly like never before. However, they can also impose surprising problems. How should communities prepare?
Other Blogs and Webinars
Not So Fast: Why Slower Is Often Better - Streetsblog. To create more affordable, healthy, equitable, accessible, and resource-efficient communities, planners must reform the way we value speed relative to other community goals.
Planning for the New Mobilities, Meeting of the Minds. As we consider incorporating transportation innovations into our communities, there are good reasons to be cautious. New technologies and services can provide benefits, but often impose large and unfair costs. It is important to use comprehensive analysis when planning for new mobilities.
AI (artificial intelligence) and You, episodes 61 and 62. Peter Scott interviews Todd Litman about his report Autonomous Vehicle Implementation Predictions: Implications for Transport Planning
Pneumatic Tube Trains and AVs to the Rescue? Smarter Planning for New Mobility, The City Fix blog. New modes and mobility services have tantalizing potential, but also impose significant costs and risks. We need comprehensive analysis to determine how – and how not – to incorporate these new technologies.
Newsletters
VTPI NEWS Summer 2021, Vo. 21/3
New Mobilities Book Update
VTPI NEWS Spring 2021, Vo. 21/2
|
|
Newest Resources
New Mobilities: Smart Planning for Emerging Transportation Technologies (Planner Press 2021)
This new book by Todd Litman critically evaluates twelve emerging transportation technologies and services that may affect our lives and communities. It systematically analyzes their benefits and costs, and how they affect affordability, safety, social equity goals, and contagion risk, and provides guidance for optimiizing their implementation.
Book Publicity
* Goodreads New Mobilities page. Information and reader reviews.
* Planning for New Mobilities: Meeting of the Minds. New technologies and services can provide benefits, but often impose large and unfair costs. It is important to use comprehensive analysis when planning for new mobilities.
* Talking Headways Podcast: How We’ve Subsidized Driving (and What We Can Do About It). Streetsblog's Jeff Wood interviews Todd Litman about his book, New Mobilities. We reframe transportation investments, talk about sharing information, and discuss why air taxis might not be the future.
* Pneumatic Tube Trains and AVs to the Rescue? Smarter Planning for New Mobility: The City Fix. New modes and mobility services have tantalizing potential, but also impose significant costs and risks. We need objective and comprehensive analysis to determine how – and how not – to incorporate these new technologies.
* Todd Litman: Five Predictions on New Mobility: Viewpoint Vancouver. This “chatbox” with Gordon Price explores some conclusions from the book, New Mobilities, including predictions about emerging transportation technologies and services (e-bikes and -scooters, autonomous cars, delivery drones, pneumatic tube transport), and the Litman-Glamour/Benefits-Inverse-Relationship.
* The New Mobilities: Smart Planning for Emerging Transportation Technologies: Eno Foundation Webinar. Todd Litman discusses how new modes and services are likely to affect travel activity, costs and affordability, infrastructure design and cost, and other elements.
Comprehensive Transport Emission Reduction Planning. Guidelines for Evaluating Transportation Emission Reduction Strategies.
This study critically evaluates the methods used to develop transportation emission reduction plans. It finds that the process is often biased in ways that exaggerate the benefits of clean vehicles such as electric cars, and undervalue vehicle travel reduction strategies. The results suggest that to be efficient and equitable, transportation emission reduction plans should rely at least as much on vehicle travel reductions as on clean vehicle strategies, with particular emphasis on “quick win” strategies.
Evaluating Transportation Equity. Guidance for Incorporating Distributional Impacts in Transport Planning
This article, submitted for publication in the ITE Journal, provides guidance for evaluating transportation equity. It defines various types of equity, equity impacts and objectives, and describes practical ways to incorporate equity evaluation into transportation planning.
The Business Case for Post-Covid Public Transit
This report investigates the roles that public transit plays in an efficient and equitable transportation system, and how the Covid pandemic affects these roles. This analysis indicates that well-planned transit improvements can continue to provide large benefits. This is a technical report for the Pairagraph debate, What Is the Future for Transit After COVID?, between transit critic Randal O'Toole and Todd Litman concerning the future of public transportation.
Not So Fast: Better Speed Valuation for Transportation Planning
Planning decisions often involve trade-offs between speed and other goals. It is important to consider all impacts when making speed-related decisions. This report examines why and how to do that. It describes various benefits and costs of faster travel, how speed valuation affects planning decisions, how those decisions affect outcomes, and provides guidance for better analysis. It finds that conventional planning tends to exaggerate the benefits and underestimate the costs of faster travel.
|
