A Comprehensive Review of States’ Existing Practices in Using Communication Technologies to Increase Public Involvement for Transportation Projects

Public participation in transportation project development process is key to developing projects that meet the community needs and desires and reduce the risks of litigation that could result in costly project delays. Traditional methods that require people to gather at a specific time and place often fail to reach some groups of people. Fortunately, the increasing availability of today’s communication technologies offers an opportunity for the public to participate remotely. Communication tools could be used to inform the public about the status of the projects, to facilitate the remote participation of the public at large at public meetings, and to provide interactive tools for participants to convey and receive information. The intent of this paper is to document the states’ past and current efforts related to public involvement with the use of communication technologies to identify effective ways to enhance community engagement in transportation projects. An online survey was administered to the public involvement officials in each state. The perspectives of several states on adopting the new communication tools were obtained through the survey and are discussed in this paper. The results could help the practitioners, administrators, and researchers to learn about the states’ experiences with technology-based communication tools in increasing public involvement and help to improve their current means of communication in public involvement activities.

• Authors:
  • Nafis, Sajidur Rahman
  • Alluri, Priyanka
  • Jung, Rax
  • Ennemoser, Rusty
  • Gan, Albert
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 98th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2019-1-13 to 2019-1-17
• Date: 2019

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; Maps; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 24p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Communication systems; Information dissemination; Project management; Public participation; Transportation planning
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Planning and Forecasting; Transportation (General);

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01752759
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 19-01674
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Sep 22 2020 4:35PM