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Public Participation in Transportation Planning

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Quick, Kathryn S. 2014. Public Participation in Transportation Planning. In Encyclopedia of Transportation: Social Science and
Policy, edited by Mark Garrett, pp. 1132-37. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
1132 Public Participation in Transportation Planning
enjoying better transit services at cheaper rates.
Unfortunately, it is difficult to find examples where
governments and consumers agree that the priva-
tization process has been an unmitigated success.
Inevitably, because privatization introduces con-
flict between the desire of a private firm to maxi-
mize revenue and profits, and the desire of pas-
sengers to enjoy ever-improving services at lower
costs, there will never be full agreement on the
benefits of privatization.
Moreover, just as state-run utilities often fail to
achieve their ideal of a universal provision of qual-
ity public services, so, too, do privatized transit
systems suffer from failure on their terms, a situ-
ation called market failure. Market failure can be
very dramatic; for example, when a major transit
operator fails financially, ceasing operations and
thereby leaving vast tracts of an urban area with-
out commuter-train services, the government has
no easy way of introducing an alternate supplier.
Although there is widespread evidence that the
privatization of public transit systems has led to
more efficient service provision and reduced cost
pressures on governments, the commercial viability
of privatization often comes at the expense of the
end-user, who may have to endure crowded com-
muter services, rising fares, and the loss of conve-
niences such as transit that still runs late at night
when customer patronage levels are low.
Phillip O’Neill
University of Western Sydney
See Also: Deregulation; Economic Development;
Fiscal Politics; Transportation, Economics of; Transit
Finance; Transit Industry, Economics of; Transportation
Planning and Politics.
Further Readings
Heynen, N., J. McCarthy, W. S. Prudham, and P.
Robbins., eds. Neoliberal Environments: False
Promises and Unnatural Consequences. London and
New York: Routledge, 2007.
O’Neill, P. M. “The Financialisation of Infrastructure:
The Role of Categorisation and Property Relations.”
Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society
(June 12, 2013).
O’Neill, P. M. “Privatization.” In International
Encyclopedia of Human Geography, Vol. 8, R. Kitchin
and N. Thrift, eds. Oxford: Elsevier, 2009.
Starr, P. “The Meaning of Privatization.” Yale Law and
Policy Review, v.6 (1988).
Winston, Clifford. Last Exit: Privatization and
Deregulation of the U. S. Transportation System.
Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2010.
Wright, V. and L. Perrotti, eds. Privatization and Public
Policy. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2000.
Public Participation in
Transportation Planning
Public participation includes stakeholders in mak-
ing and implementing public policies and pro-
grams of government agencies, political leaders,
or nonprofit organizations. It has become a fun-
damental feature of governance in a wide range of
public issues.
Public participation plays an important role in a
variety of transportation-related activities, includ-
ing planning, formal policy making, program and
service design, and evaluation. Notably, the Inter-
modal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act
(ISTEA) of 1991 imposed new requirements for
public involvement in the planning process in the
United States. Public participation can be designed
in a variety of ways, guided by a few key questions
about its purpose, the stakeholders, and the evalu-
ation measures. Other common terms for public
participation include public engagement, citizen
participation, civic engagement, collaborative gov-
ernance, stakeholder involvement, and inclusion
and representation in democracy.
Public participation in transportation planning
takes a range of forms, including simply informing
stakeholders of decisions that are being made, solic-
iting and using their input on programs or policies
under consideration, or collaborating with them
to identifying and address problems. Transporta-
tion policy stakeholders are those with a stake in
the decision, which may include the general pub-
lic and/or groups with specific interests, because of
their geographic location, transportation needs, or
related concerns.
There is no formula for doing public participa-
tion well. Like transportation services or infrastruc-
ture, public participation needs to be designed for
 Public Participation in Transportation Planning 1133
its particular context. Regardless of the specific
strategy, policy makers and planners must consider
several critical factors in designing and manag-
ing successful public participation: clarifying what
parts of the decision are open for discussion and
change, ensuring public trust in the process, work-
ing with expert and other perspectives, and being
accessible to all stakeholders.
While public participation requires resources
such as skill, time, and money, it generates numer-
ous advantages. Citizen participants contribute
new information, different ways of seeing an issue,
and motivation to address problems. Public partici-
pation can also result in more equitable distribu-
tion of limited public resources. The public tends
to have more informed involvement and a higher
level of interest when given opportunities to iden-
tify priorities, shape decision-making parameters,
or influence policy outcomes.
Participatory decision making generates better
buy-in, and can limit delays, mistakes, and law-
suits during project and policy implementation.
Stakeholders are more likely to accept a decision
reached in a participatory manner, even when it is
not their individually preferred outcome, because
they believe it was produced in a fair manner. In
fact, inclusive participation can create relationships
of trust, knowledge of and interest in transporta-
tion issues, and improved communication among
parties that are resources for policy implementa-
tion and for addressing new or different problems.
Designing Public Participation
There is no one-size-fits-all, ideal approach to pub-
lic participation, but rather myriad techniques and
frameworks. Choosing among these approaches is
both challenging and consequential. The forms of
public participation influence the quality of policy
outcomes and affect the capacity to address cur-
rent and future issues. Guided by a few key ques-
tions about its purpose, the role of stakeholders, the
methods for organizing the effort, and the evalua-
tion measures, it can be done well.
Transportation planners should begin partici-
pation efforts by considering the purposes of the
public engagement effort, including what is at stake
and what the desired outcomes are. Deciding what
is at stake includes evaluating which parts of a deci-
sion are available for stakeholder participation. For
example, some aspects of transportation planning
are dictated by legal requirements, best left to engi-
neers or other experts in a particular technical field,
or unable to be decided by a single jurisdiction and
its constituents.
In terms of desired outcomes, a particular
effort may involve more than one purpose, such
as meeting regulatory requirements for participa-
tion, being sure that stakeholders are informed
about a proposed action, exploring the nature of
an emerging problem, improving the quality of a
proposed project or policy through stakeholder
feedback, generating ideas for a new initiative, or
building relationships for implementation or future
problem-solving.
Once they have identified desired outcomes and
the appropriate scope of the public’s participation,
policy makers decide which techniques to use,
and how to communicate with stakeholders about
what to expect and how to participate. An acces-
sible and popular tool to help with this is the Spec-
trum of Public Participation created by the Interna-
tional Association for Public Participation (IAP2).
The Spectrum identifies differing levels of public
engagement depending upon the goals, resources,
impact, and timeframe for the decision. It clarifies
that no one approach is better than another, but
that goals, communication with stakeholders, and
techniques must be aligned. Being very clear about
the purpose and scope of public participation helps
build trust and legitimacy for the participation pro-
cess and its outcomes.
Existing Approaches to Public Participation
There are many methods for involving the public
in transportation planning, from a public hearing
before the elected or appointed body making a deci-
sion to more inclusive approaches in which stake-
holders are involved in identifying problems and
co-producing solutions. In the past decade, trans-
portation agencies around the world have involved
the public in a number of ways:
Advisory boards. Advisory boards are comprised
of a group of stakeholders recruited to provide
guidance on a policy area or project. Members
may be selected by elected officials, commissions,
public administrators, and project managers. They
may be intended to represent the public at large,
to bring a particular perspective (for example, an
advisory committee on disabled transit riders),
1134 Public Participation in Transportation Planning
or to incorporate a range of stakeholder groups.
Advisory groups may meet regularly, as needed, or
for a limited term to address a particular question.
They do not generally have policymaking author-
ity, and their influence on policy agendas and out-
comes is mixed.
Project review teams. These teams help transporta-
tion professionals to evaluate possible transporta-
tion projects. They may rank projects from a pool
of proposals, or simply share comments and raise
questions for transportation professionals to incor-
porate into their reviews.
Collaborative performance measurement. Collab-
orative performance measurement brings together
service providers with stakeholders to evaluate
service or project performance. It can be used to
evaluate performance problems, but also to identify
and address situations where different parties have
divergent goals and expectations for a service.
Focus groups and workshops. Focus groups and
workshops help professional staff or political lead-
ers to gain additional perspectives on a problem
through consultation with interested stakeholders
or with members of the general public. Participants
may be given a set of questions or issues to discuss
or be invited to comment on a policy. The consul-
tations can be designed for a variety of purposes,
such as gaining information about issues of great-
est concern to constituents, involving a program’s
users in its performance evaluation, or improving a
project so that it is more politically feasible or more
responsive to client needs.
Deliberative polls. Deliberative polls are a trade-
marked method for identifying the questions that
the general public would have about a policy issue if
they became better informed and discussed them in
depth with people with differing viewpoints. These
polls can lead to better communication strategies
about transportation policies. Participants are ran-
domly selected, prepared with a briefing packet,
and invited to attend a deliberative forum in which
small, facilitated groups discuss the issue and decide
together which questions about the policy that they
would like to pose to experts and decision makers.
Organizers later relay their questions to the media,
policy makers, or experts.
Planning charrettes. Planning charrettes are col-
laborative design exercises that allow stakeholders
to directly experience, manipulate, and play with
design components through games, simulations,
maps, field trips, or other objects or experiences.
They typically incorporate a variety of media, such
as 3-D models, photography, and rendered land-
scape images. The models can be shaped to com-
municate which parts of a project are fixed (for
example, lane width) and which are flexible. Plan-
ning charrettes can help the public to understand
transportation options and communicate their
questions and suggestions to engineers and plan-
ners. Using mixed media may be associated with
greater public satisfaction with the outcomes.
Structured public involvement. Structured public
involvement (SPI) involves the public in every deci-
sion phase, from defining the nature of the trans-
portation problem and to creating the scope for
the policy to setting design goals and refining the
options together. Recommended as a best prac-
tice for involving the public in design decisions, it
occurs through focused explorations and strategiz-
ing about separate pieces of the policy. Piece by
piece, participants suggest ideas and make modifi-
cations concerning each piece until there is general
agreement, and then integrate it with other pieces
of the policy. When convening these processes,
transportation professionals must be responsive to
multiple perspectives, help nonexpert participants
understand the technical aspects of the policies, be
competent facilitators, and be willing to cede some
of their decision-making power.
Interactive optimization tools. Interactive optimi-
zation tools involve the public in manipulating a
fixed set of resources to choose among a menu of
policy options. In some designs, users can move
back and forth between setting performance cri-
teria (for example, persons moved per hour) or
resource parameters (for example, a total budget)
and the menu of projects, so that they can see the
interplay between them. Frequently they use an
online platform.
Participatory action research. Participatory action
research involves researchers working with inter-
ested parties to perform research driven by their
questions and concerns. Activities include gathering
 Public Participation in Transportation Planning 1135
and analyzing data, identifying problems to address,
or generating and evaluating policies. Developing
these community-led initiatives requires technical
assistance. Some researchers provide pro bono sup-
port, or sometimes transportation agencies provide
consulting support. Generally, institutional actors
must have buy-in in order for the resident-driven
contributions to be taken seriously.
Geographic analysis of public comments. This anal-
ysis uses geographic information systems (GIS) to
identify geographically based needs for additional
outreach about transportation decisions, and to
identify geographically specific patterns of feed-
back about projects.
Key Challenges
Several challenges commonly arise in designing and
managing successful public involvement in transpor-
tation policymaking: the legitimacy of and trust in
the engagement process, incorporating expert and
other perspectives in technically complex transpor-
tation decisions, and engaging diverse stakeholders.
Trust and Legitimacy Issues in Engagement
One complaint commonly raised by the public
about engagement processes is that their involve-
ment does not seem to influence decisions. This
causes resentment when stakeholders are invited
to participate, yet there is very little that can be
changed in the policies or projects that have already
been put together. Sometimes conflict occurs when
sponsors have not communicated what the partici-
pation is for, and participants arrive with different
expectations, for example, if a public agency is sim-
ply informing the public of a decision and the pub-
lic arrives wanting to change it.
If their different expectations are not ironed
out, public processes can easily become mired in
conflicts about their legitimacy, sometimes lead-
ing to accusations that they are perfunctory or
manipulative. The IAP2 Spectrum suggests good
ways to communicate with the public about the
engagement’s purpose, for example, “We will keep
you informed” versus “We will implement what
you decide.”
Timing is an important part of accomplish-
ing and communicating the goals for engagement.
Consulting with stakeholders early in policy devel-
opment allows policy makers to better shape the
scope, priorities, or performance measures of the
work. A two-way information exchange is most
needed in the planning and design phases, so that
stakeholders can weigh in on the most suitable
goals and design of a project. A one-way process
is more appropriate for the construction stage of a
project, when the focus should be on disseminating
good information to the public about road closures
or the construction sequence.
Transportation policy makers and planners
must also communicate what can and cannot be
decided through the engagement process. Many
transportation parameters are mandated by federal
or state legislation, which may limit the power of
local actors or the public to influence the outcome
of a project. Because transportation initiatives take
place in a multi-jurisdictional environment, it can
be difficult for community members to understand
which agencies are responsible for which actions,
or to engage with the many agencies involved.
Online methods, which are consistent with the rise
of e-government and Web 2.0 government across
many policy sectors, provide a promising platform
for addressing regional-scale problems. They can
connect geographically dispersed people who are
affected by large-scale transportation policies, but
who may be unable to attend meetings because of
the distance.
Engaging Expert and Other Perspectives
A prominent challenge in transportation planning
is how to engage both experts and everyday stake-
holders in technically complex decisions. Adminis-
trators may worry that giving the public influence
over decisions traditionally left to those with engi-
neering or other specialized expertise will produce
choices that do not adequately consider safety,
equity, efficiency, environmental protection, and
political feasibility. They may also be concerned
about limiting their managerial discretion to act
decisively as needs arise, or about the resistance
that well-organized groups may mount when they
have more complete information about projects.
Making issues and choices understandable to the
public so that they can be informed participants is
another challenge.
The public’s increasing involvement in trans-
portation decision making also offers advantages
that can improve technical decision making. Non-
experts bring lived experience and empathetic
1136 Public Participation in Transportation Planning
understanding that can produce new data and new
understandings of problems. Without this knowl-
edge, experts may undervalue considerations that
should enter into their decision-making process.
In addition, when a transportation agency limits
information about expert-decision parameters, it
can fuel a perception that the agency is withholding
information or changing the rules midstream, com-
promising the credibility of its decisions.
Well-designed public participation can help
address these challenges and provide an avenue for
valuable public contributions. Charrette and online
optimization tools, for example, do not require
people to be able to read engineering plans or tech-
nical documents in order to understand a policy
and provide meaningful input. Such techniques can
bring varying perspectives to bear on evaluating
policy options.
Enhancing Diversity and Equity
Across all sectors, including transportation policy
making, diversity and equity in access to public
engagement are particularly persistent concerns. In
general, individuals of higher socioeconomic sta-
tus are more likely to have the time, money, civic
engagement skills, or Internet access to participate,
and those with greater individual and collective
social capital are more engaged or exert more influ-
ence. As a result, the individuals or organizations
who participate in engagement efforts may not be
representative of the opinions and knowledge of the
public at large.
In transportation, low-income communities
may have a disproportionately high interest in
transit policy and planning discussions, such as
those related to public-transit services. To reach
them, alternatives to the traditional public hear-
ing—such as telephone surveys or gathering input
at transit stations and other locations convenient
to these constituents—may be necessary to gather
their input. Purposeful efforts to provide outreach
in multiple languages and provide translators are
important for reaching constituents who are not
comfortable communicating in English. Public and
nonprofit organizations frequently consider reli-
gious institutions to be an effective venue for reach-
ing nonwhite constituents about public issues, but
such a location should be adopted with care so that
diverse stakeholders feel welcomed through one
means or another.
Another challenge is enlisting a sufficient level of
diversity without classifying constituents into stake-
holder groups that do not capture their full range of
interests. The concept of the “public” is complicated
and multifaceted in transportation. There are, for
example, strong differences in the interests and pre-
ferred modes for public engagement of the “freight
community” and the “passenger community” in
infrastructure planning.
Similarly, bicyclists are not a homogenous group,
and misunderstandings and controversies may
arise if recreational riders, those who commute and
occupy a lane like other vehicles, and long-distance
riders are all lumped together as a single interest
group. Transportation professionals must also take
care not to orient too intensively toward engaging
organized special-interest groups, because that may
exclude the general public and raise the risk that
a vocal, and perhaps unrepresentative, minority
could have undue influence on policy making.
Evaluating Public Engagement
The final step in the process is evaluating the public-
engagement effort. Evaluation allows policy makers
to learn from the implementation, so that they can
enhance the current engagement effort and build
long-term institutional capacity. While evaluation
can occur when a process is already underway or
over, it is important to include it from the beginning
of the design process. What are the desired out-
comes, and how will they be measured? The typical
measure—the number of participants, and perhaps
some demographic information about them—is not
adequate for meeting and evaluating most of the
goals of public participation.
Methods for evaluating public engagement are
not well established, but some resources do offer a
starting point. The standards introduced by ISTEA
for public involvement provide a common refer-
ence point across the transportation sector in the
United States.
The ISTEA standards are that engagement be
early and proactive, that timely information be pro-
vided to the public, that there is proof of explicit
consideration of the public input, and that the input
of traditionally underserved communities have
been sought and included. Other measurements
could include the degree of learning achieved
through the process, by both participants and con-
veners; changes in capacity to implement policies,
 Public Transit Employees and Labor Issues 1137
as observed through changes in conflict or agree-
ment among stakeholders; and the overall quality of
the final policy decisions in terms of their economic
efficiency, safety, environmental impact, and politi-
cal viability.
Kathryn S. Quick
University of Minnesota
See Also: Construction Management, Public Relations
and; Transit Planning, International; Transit Planning,
U.S.; Transportation Plan Implementation, Monitoring,
and Evaluation.
Further Readings
Bryson, John, Kathryn Quick, Carissa Schively
Slotterback, and Barbara Crosby. “Designing Public
Participation Processes.” Public Administration
Review, v.73 (2013).
Federal Highway Administration and Federal
Transportation Agency. “Interim Policy on Public
Involvement” http://ntl.bts.gov/DOCS/FHWA.html
(Accessed February 2013)
Grossardt, Ted, Keiron Bailey, and Joel Brumm.
“Structured Public Involvement: Problems and
Prospects for Improvement.” Transportation
Research Record, v.1858 (2003).
Schacter, Hindy and Rongfang Liu. “Policy Development
and New Immigrant Communities: A Case Study of
Citizen Input in Defining Transit Problems.” Public
Administration Review, v.65/5 (2005).
Zhong, Tao, Rhonda Kae Young, Michael Lowry, and
G. S. Rutherford, “A Model for Public Involvement
in Transportation Improvement Programming
Using Participatory Geographic Information
Systems.” Computers, Environment & Urban Systems,
v.32/2 (2008).
Public Transit Employees
and Labor Issues
Public transit in the United States is a shared pas-
senger transport service that is available for use by
the general public. Forms of public transit include
buses, trolleys, trams, trains, rapid transit (such
as subways), and ferries. Public transit between
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cities and states includes airlines, intercity rail,
coach bus services, and high-speed rail networks.
No matter the type of vehicle or infrastructure
within which the vehicle must travel, public tran-
sit employees face similar working conditions and
stresses on the job.
Historically, some public transit employees have
also faced forms of discrimination. To improve
working conditions and compensation, and reduce
discrimination in the industry, unions have formed
to protect the interests of public transit employ-
ees. At the same time, pay and benefit inequities
exist between public transit employees who work
for the city, county, or state, and those employed
by private companies, who, without unions to bar-
gain on their behalf may be paid less and receive
fewer benefits.
Therefore, to cut costs, some governments are
looking toward private, nonunionized companies
to staff public transit services. While the long-term
effects of such practices remain unknown, transit
unions and other advocacy groups are committed
to the idea that properly compensated, trained, and
protected public transit employees provide better
customer service and safer travel.
Public Transit Employee Categorization
The American Public Transit Association (APTA)
identifies all public transit employees as operating
employees, or anyone engaged in the operation
of the transit system. APTA classifies operating
employees in four categories. General administra-
tion employees manage and administer activities
such as transit-system development, system devel-
opment, customer services, promotions, market
research, injury and damage claims, safety, per-
sonnel administration, finance and accounting,
and space management. Nonvehicle maintenance
employees engage in support to vehicle maintenance
employees, the third category, which is comprised
of those who inspect, maintain, and repair vehicles.
Last but not least, vehicle operations employees are
the drivers, pilots, train conductors, ferry captains,
fare collectors, and those engaged in system secu-
rity activities. They make up the vast majority of
operating employees in the United States.
Commuters in urban areas, as well as long dis-
tance travelers, depend heavily on vehicle opera-
tions employees and vehicle maintenance employ-
ees to get them to their destinations safely and on