Speaker: Dr. T. R. Lakshmanan, Director, Bureau of Transportation Studies U.S. Department of Transportation

There is a broad agreement that the current transportation trends in the world are not sustainable into the future and many argue that fundamental changes are called for in technology, financing, production, and delivery of transportation services. Such a view implies that the path to sustainable transport will involve not only shifts in the patterns and intensity of transports use of natural and environmental resources, but also changer in the incentive systems and the institutional landscape which govern transportation activities. All this implies a period of time for the transition to sustainable transport to take place.

In this transition period, what are likely changes in the economic, demographic, political/institutional, and the global context of transportation in the U.S.? Such changes over time in the context of transportation will likely usher in a new set of technologies and a new class of public policies (e.g., a very likely unbundling of public motor transport pricing and natural resources and environmental resource pricing, etc.).

The presentation will discuss and set the stage for this expanded context of transportation and the likely policy framework for assessing sustainable transport policies and for managing the transition to sustainable transport.

Dr. T. R. Lakshmanan is Director of the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), the newest operating administration of the U.S. Department of Transportation. He brings to this position extensive academic and private research experience in the development and use of information systems and in policy analysis of transportation, economic development. energy, and environmental issues. Prior to accepting this Presidential appointment in 1994, Dr. Lakshmanan was founder and Executive Director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies, a research and teaching center at Boston University. Previously, as a Professor of Geography and Environmental Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Lakshmanan developed and applied various models to assess transportation policies. His models have been used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy. Dr. Lakshmanan also developed methodologies to analyze the contributions of infrastructure to economic productivity and growth. His methodologies have been extensively applied in metropolitan land use and transportation studies, both here and abroad. Dr. Lakshmanan has authored 10 books and more than 60 articles. His methodologies have been extensively applied in metropolitan land use and transportation studies, both here and abroad. He has been a visiting scholar at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences, the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria, Cambridge University in England, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has served as a consultant to the United Nations, the World Bank, and governments in Europe and Asia. Dr. Lakshmanan is the recipient of the James Anderson Medal awarded by the Association of American Geographers and is a life member of Clare Hail College, Cambridge University.