Technology-enabled Strategy Development Alternatives for Surface Transportation

This paper examines strategy development processes in surface transportation systems. In the U.S., transportation organizations typically develop strategy through a formal planning process; however, planning is not the only approach for developing strategy. Other approaches include, for example, negotiation, visioning, learning, and consensus-building. Regardless of the particular approach or combination of approaches, strategy development processes have several elements in common. We identify four such elements of particular importance in surface transportation – revenue sources, information sources, temporal scales, and spatial scales – and analyze the impact that advancements in transportation technology have had on each element. While new technologies (e.g. Intelligent Transportation Systems, or ITS) have been applied extensively to improve transportation operations, they have not been used to enable innovative strategy development processes. By understanding more fully the relationships between strategy and technology, organizations may consider adoption of innovative strategy development processes, such as improvements to the planning process or alternatives to planning altogether.