Management Science Applications for TxDOT – Scoping Study

(PI: S. Travis Waller , CoPIs: Chandra Bhat, Bill O'Brien, Jen Duthie (UT), John Walewski, Bryan Wood, Don Hun Kang, Christine Yager (TTI), and C.M. Chang Albitres (UTEP))

The Transportation sector, which accounted for 9.5 percent of the United States’ Gross Domestic Product [1], comprises a significant fraction of the U.S. economy. Texas, the third largest state economy in the U.S., gained 16 percent of its gross national product from transportation-related economic activities in 2008. However, budgetary constraints have dictated an increasingly precise consideration of TxDOT activities. Due to the scale and complexity of the responsibilities and constraints placed on TxDOT, efficient allocation of resources has proven an increasingly demanding task. The potential benefits of improvements in efficiency are vast. For instance, a recent Texas transportation study estimated that solving the congestion problems in the state’s urban regions would generate more than $6.50 in economic benefits for every $1.00 spent The magnitude of the impact that the transportation sector has on Texas’ economy coupled with the absolute need to constrain overall expenditures creates the ideal environment for exploiting the benefits of Operations Research.

Operations Research (OR) makes use of applied mathematics to optimize the use of available resources. Since gaining identity as a field in the 1950s, OR has flourished as a research domain. Computational advances supported broader and more complex applications of OR in both the private and public sector. An increasing number of successful applications have been well documented, and they have resulted in increasing interest in research developments and their applications.

Although TxDOT has successfully funded a variety of OR projects in specific problem areas, the direction and scope of future research projects must be addressed comprehensively to achieve the maximum possible benefit for the state. The objective of this project is to identify opportunities through a broad scoping study within TxDOT for actionable OR applications and define a continuing process for operational review. Ideally, the identified areas should satisfy the following requirements:

1. Actionable: implementation must be within an acceptable time-frame and within the restrictions placed by available resources.

2. High Impact: implementations must provide TxDOT with significant benefits so as to warrant examination.

The final outcomes of this project will include a set of candidate problem statements as well as a general process which can aid TxDOT to identify future OR opportunities.