EVOLUTION OF TRANSIT INVESTMENT MEASURES IN MINNESOTA
The Office of Transit Administration (OTA) of the Minnesota Department of Transportation has been administering state funds for transit services since 1977. Since the programs started, a data base has been maintained so that OTA could monitor and evaluate system performance. Monitoring involves checking expenses, revenues, and operating statistics monthly so that systems remain in accordance with a formal management plan. Evaluation work is geared to an annual review of the system prior to grant renewal and identifying potential areas of improvement. The evaluation work, which uses a five-year time horizon study and a peer group review, has produced results appropriate to measuring system performance only against local goals. Two levels of performance measures are applied to all systems. An aggregate measure review looks for potential trouble areas, and a disaggregate measure review confirms the source of concern. A very detailed disaggregate review may follow to pinpoint troubles. In order to rationalize and justify the state expenditure of funds, OTA has developed transit investment measures. Benefit and cost measures are used to evaluate the performance of all systems. The measurement systems used by OTA are identified, and reasons why the transit investment measures evolved are discussed.
CONSTRAINED MATCHING PROCEDURE FOR ALLOCATING PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION ASSISTANCE IN MINNESOTA (ABRIDGMENT)
As public transportation subsidy costs increase, federal, state, and local decision makers become more concerned about the effectiveness, fairness, and efficiency of subsidy-allocation procedures. This paper describes a new allocation approach, developed for the Minnesota Department of Transportation, that matches each local subsidy dollar with two state dollars, up to a policy maximum percentage of the total operating costs. Based on a review of the experience in several states and recent proposals for the federal program, we discuss four general subsidy-allocation criteria - equity, efficiency incentives, administrative practicality, and managerial dynamics. Advantages and disadvantages of the constrained matching approach and four other methods are then presented. We also describe the application of the new approach. (Author)
Using Fuzzy-Delphi technique to determine the concession period in BOT projects
BOT projects are affected by several risks and uncertainties. One of the most important issues in this type of contract is to determine the length of concession period considering these uncertainties. The previous studies have developed several models to determine the concession period. However, the uncertainties are not taking into account in most of the previous works. Moreover, none of the previous researches has the capability to aggregate the opinions of different experts being involved in a project regarding the values of the uncertain input parameters. In this research, a Fuzzy-Delphi technique is implemented to determine the length of concession period considering uncertainties. Using the proposed Fuzzy-Delphi technique, the values of different uncertain factors affecting a BOT project is determined considering opinions of a group of experts. The NPV value is calculated considering the resulted aggregated values of uncertain input parameters. Finally, the concession period is determined using fuzzy approach. A case study is conducted to evaluate the performance of the proposed methodology. It is shown that the concession period is determined more effectively using the proposed approach.