The Environmental Planning Program combines several disciplines and facilities to offer the most up-to-date research capabilities to our sponsors.
The Environment and Planning Program conducts research to advance environmental planning and management, transportation planning (i.e., regional planning, freight planning, and border master planning), and the linkages between regional planning and project planning in support of National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and to accelerate the project development process. The Program delivers innovative practical research solutions to transportation agencies at the national, state, and local levels, non-governmental organizations and the private sector.
TTI’s Environment and Planning component offers a broad range of expertise in the areas of:
- Environmental Planning and Management
Developing techniques to analyze the impacts of transportation projects on disadvantaged and minority communities (environmental justice); evaluating and developing context sensitive design/context sensitive solutions to ensure context sensitive development, development of sustainable roadside landscape practices, managing endangered plant species, developing measures to enhance transportation corridor aesthetics and visual quality; linking regional planning with project planning in support of the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), maintaining project consistency with transportation plans throughout the project life-cycle; developing frameworks to assess the environmental, social, and economic impacts of transportation policy and investment decisions. - Regional Planning
Developing and using frameworks, including cost benefit analysis, economic impact analysis, and multi-attribute criteria analysis to inform regional planning; quantifying the impacts imposed by the energy sector on Texas’s transportation system. - Freight Planning and Policy Analysis
Understanding freight movements and the factors that impact the competitiveness of multi-modal freight modes, maintaining freight data in a format appropriate for use by local and state agencies, evaluating freight policies and strategies, developing performance measures to prioritize and inform infrastructure investments, and developing effective communication strategies to reach out to freight stakeholders. - Border Master Planning
Developing and implementing a framework to engage Federal, State, and Local agency stakeholders in the U.S. and Mexico to prioritize Port-of-Entry and transportation facilities serving those Port-of-Entries on the Texas-Mexico border.