The Governor of the State of New Jersey, Jon Corzine in his State of the State Address on January 8, 2008 proposed a major set of initiative to solve the general financial problems of the state. A key component of that proposal was a monetization proposal for a number of existing toll roads in the state as well as the addition of tolls to a five mile segment of an existing highway. The core of this proposal is the transfer of control of the toll roads to a public benefit corporation using a concession agreement.

As we begin the 21st Century, New York State faces a pressing need to modernize and expand its transportation infrastructure in order to sustain its global economic leadership. The ever-growing need for personal mobility, the need to move increasingly greater amounts of freight, and the pressures of 21st Century economic competition all call for new and different types of capacity on our roads, our public transit systems, our rails, at our ports and the intermodal connections that link these together.

Given the available information currently accessible to UTRC, we have estimated that there is the likelihood of an $8 billion shortfall in the revenue available to fund the 5 year NYSDOT Capital Plan presented for 2010-2014 equating to an approximate shortfall of $1.7 billion annually. NYRIC has requested UTRC analyze a variety of possible funding sources which could provide revenue support to NYSDOT’s capital plan. We have presented potential alternative funding sources as individual mechanisms.

Aggregates can be produced by crushing hydraulic cement concrete and are known as recycled concrete aggregates (RCA). This report provides results from a New Jersey Department of Transportation study to identify barriers to the use of RCA in new Portland cement concrete and to provide a recommendation as to whether this material should be permitted on Department of Transportation projects.

Negative externalities have competitive relevance in a market when they have selective impacts – as, for example, when a product in use imposes greater costs on consumers of rival products than on other people. Because managers have discretion over aspects of product design that affect external costs, the externality in such cases may be viewed as a strategic variable. This paper presents evidence of the existence of competitively-relevant negative externalities.

Potential government regulations and financial incentives for encouraging pollution reduction retrofits on diesel vehicles are discussed. An integer program is developed to model profit-maximizing fleet owner behavior in the context of potential government programs. The model is intended as a tool both for fleet owners and for government administrators. It allows for mandated retrofits, mandated percent reductions of specified emissions, fixed grants for performing retrofits, and grants per gram of pollution prevented.

This report develops a Load and Resistance Factor Rating (NYS-LRFR) methodology for New York bridges. The methodology is applicable for the rating of existing bridges, the posting of under-strength bridges, and checking Permit trucks. The proposed LRFR methodology is calibrated to provide uniform reliability index values for all applications. The reliability calibration of live load factors is based on live load models developed using Truck Weigh-In-Motion (WIM) data collected from several representative New York sites.

This report develops a Load and Resistance Factor Rating (NYS-LRFR) methodology for New York bridges. The methodology is applicable for the rating of existing bridges, the posting of under-strength bridges, and checking Permit trucks. The proposed LRFR methodology is calibrated to provide uniform reliability index values for all applications. The reliability calibration of live load factors is based on live load models developed using Truck Weigh-In-Motion (WIM) data collected from several representative New York sites.

New methods are proposed for mitigating risk in hazardous materials (hazmat) transportation, based on Conditional Value-at-Risk (CVaR) measure, on time-dependent vehicular networks. While the CVaR risk measure has been popularly used in financial portfolio optimization problems, its application in hazmat transportation has been very recently proposed. The CVaR models are shown to be flexible and general routing models for hazmat transportation, and be solved efficiently.

Social media networks are valuable tools for the public outreach needs of transportation providers: they are free, instantaneous, reach large numbers of people simultaneously, and allow for sideline discussions.