Construction road projects are changing at a rapid clip—especially considering the emergence of connected and automated vehicles. This trend is impacting how transportation planning is done and construction projects are delivered.
HNTB Corporation recently unveiled insights that helps transportation planners identify how to prepare for the future impacts of connected and automated vehicles.
The infrastructure company itself has been involved in number of high-profile intelligent transportation system projects including:
- Tampa Hillsborough Expressway Authority’s Tampa Connected Vehicle Pilot
- Florida Turnpike Enterprise’s SunTrax ITS research facility
- New Jersey Turnpike Authority’s Traffic Management Center.
Accelerating the Transportation Planning Cycle
The research shows that scenario-based planning allows for assessment of a combination of different factors including autonomous vehicle penetration rates, vehicle ownership, population growth, employment growth, and transit ridership.
The federal government is already encouraging planners and leaders to consider the impact of autonomous vehicles in transportation planning. The findings from HNTB show that a large-scale development project in Kansas City, Missouri’s Power & Light District, which took nearly 40 years from concept to operation, may already be behind the curve.
As such, the traditional planning cycle is no longer appropriate due to the changes that are happening with the new technology. HNTB suggests that new plans will have to analyze how to adjust the development and management of urban, suburban, and rural areas to autonomous vehicle social, economic, and environmental changes.
One way is to look at an approach like the one provided by the U.S. Department of Transportation, which offers a framework that planners can use to plan for connected and autonomous vehicles in their communities.
The bottom line is that infrastructure and transportation projects are changing very quickly, and construction companies and planners will need to be aware of what is coming and adjust to an ever, faster pace planning cycle.
