This research addresses two important issues facing transportation economists and planners: the relationship between transportation investment and economic development and the methodology for evaluating transportation projects and programs. Transportation is viewed as an important factor which enters the production functions of firms and the consumption functions of individuals. The demand for and the supply of transportation cannot be determined within the transportation system. Changes in the transportation system may have far-reaching and, most importantly, feedback effects that not only generate secondary impacts, tertiary impacts, and so on; but also influence further decisions and, therefore, generate more changes further along in the system. The systems approach is crucial to the identification and quantification of impacts of transportation improvements and to the better understanding of transportation/economic development relationships. System dynamics is used in this research as a tool for modeling and simulating transportation/economic interactions. This research conceptualizes the role of transportation in a broad socioeconomic context and develops a framework for applying the systems approach to the evaluation of transportation investments. Five scenarios examined with the methodology are: highway improvement, corridor development, HOV lane provision, impacts of transportation in a closed economy, and regional impacts of transportation. Conclusions are drawn which signify general policy implications. / Ph. D.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/39225 |
| Date | 25 August 2008 |
| Creators | Huang, Guoxiong |
| Contributors | Civil Engineering, Drew, Donald R., Hobeika, Antoine G., Levy, John M., Trani, Antonio A., Walker, Richard D. |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation, Text |
| Format | x, 144 leaves, BTD, application/pdf, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
| Relation | OCLC# 23713788, LD5655.V856_1990.H835.pdf |
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