NCHRP Report 433, Guidelines for Developing and Maintaining Successful Partnerships for Multimodal Transportation Projects, contains the results of research into successful partnerships that will provide transportation organizations and planning professionals practical tools and guidance for establishing and sustaining partnerships in multimodal transportation planning and project development. Presented as guidelines, the report provides an overview of multimodal transportation partnerships, their definition, how they are formed, why they are needed, and the types of projects that benefit from such arrangements. It also focuses on how they are organized, formed, and sustained. Finally, methods are identified for tracking, monitoring, evaluating, and dealing with various issues in maintaining partnerships. An appendix presents short abstracts of each of the 12 case studies that were prepared during the research. The guidelines report should be especially valuable to state departments of transportation (DOTs), metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), and local transportation planners as well as other practitioners concerned with planning, programming, and implementing multimodal transportation projects. The report will also be useful as an educational resource into the concepts, tools, and procedures currently employed to establish and maintain partnerships in multimodal transportation planning and project development.

During the 1990s, federal transportation policy, as embodied in the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA) and the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21), placed a high priority on integrating and coordinating transportation decision making through improved partnerships that include and engage a broad base of stakeholders and a variety of interests. This new emphasis represents a shift away from project-specific modal solutions toward a much broader integration of multimodal solutions within the context of overall societal goals. As such, this emphasis is intended to result in transportation plans, programs, decisions, and commitments that are driven by the needs of the specific area as opposed to the modal restrictions of the funding source or program. Given this emphasis, transportation planning and development must be based on partnerships that reflect the multimodal and intermodal aspects of transportation. Such partnerships may involve public agencies, private organizations, or community organizations or groups. As public sector transportation agencies face the next century, their effectiveness will hinge on developing and maintaining partnerships that will enhance the multimodal transportation planning process and result in improved efficiency and market competitiveness, responsiveness to customer requirements, service quality and attractiveness, and transportation planning and financial decision making for more than one mode, especially within metropolitan areas.

NCHRP Report 433 provides guidance for use by planning practitioners and other decision makers based on the development and maintenance of partnerships in planning, implementing, and operating multimodal transportation facilities and services. This guidelines report discusses issues of importance to practitioners such as: (1) what partnerships are, why they are important, and how they can be used in the context of multimodal transportation planning and development; (2) what tools are available to transportation professionals in developing partnerships; (3) how partnerships can be maintained over time to support and sustain progress; and (4) summary information on case studies that were investigated during the research project.

In addition to these guidelines, the project resulted in two other related reports. Volume II Case Studies of Multimodal Partnerships presents the results of an extensive data collection that was used to develop the guidelines. This volume includes detailed case descriptions, study reports from field interviews, and insights into how partnerships are formed and what makes them successful. Volume III Research Report: Developing and Maintaining Partnerships for Multimodal Transportation Planning summarizes the background of the research, illustrates the data-collection efforts, summarizes interim reports that were prepared during the study, and describes the case studies and guidelines. These two volumes can be found on the NCHRP home page (https://www.trb.org/CRP/About/DivD.asp) on the Internet's World Wide Web as NCHRP Web Document 22.