Maintaining or enhancing mobility is often a primary objective of transportation agencies. How an agency or jurisdiction defines and measures mobility greatly determines selection of strategies and ultimately investment decisions.

 

In metropolitan areas, measuring mobility at the system level is often limited to the measure of traffic congestion and resulting delay on the freeway network. Although traffic congestion does inhibit mobility, it alone may not be a sufficient measure of system performance, particularly as transportation agencies strive to embrace a more multimodal approach to transportation planning. Other measures that have been considered and/or may currently be operational in metropolitan regions include; person throughput- the number of people that the transportation network serves (moves by all modes) as measured at key points, travel time reliability- the ability of a user to predict how long a trip will take, and accessibility-the ease of reaching valued destinations. 

 

The objective of this research is to assess methods for defining and measuring mobility in metropolitan regions.

The Contractor's Final Report is available HERE.