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DISCUSSION PANEL ON PLANNING, IMPLEMENTATION, AND OPERATIONS DR. RABINS: I would like to take the chair's prerogative to comment on one aspect of your report, Kevin. The Office of University Research and DOT are taking very seriously the responsibility of tech- nology sharing and dissemination. We are undertaking whatever steps are necessary to improve our operations. It is probably worth noting that the Office of University Research Program is going into its fourth year, and it is only now when research is culminating and results are coming out that we are beginning to highlight the problem of dissemina- tion of research results. But I would take mild exception with one item on your list. I do not think that dissemination is totally DOT's responsibility. I think that the universities have a responsibility, as well, in the sense that the best research that we have seen over the past three years is that research which is already related to reality and to those who will implement the results and then disseminate the results. All of the "success stories'â that we have been able to identify come from that type of project. PROFESSOR SCHOFER: I would like to respond to your comment. My interpretation of what the panel was saying was that the universities should not hold the primary responsibility for dissemination. Getting it out to the user agencies, the agencies within DOT, and the state and local agencies, ought to be a DOT responsibility because it really has the national contacts. As far as publication in the open literature, lI think that anybody from universities would agree that that is our responsibility. As far as contacts with local agencies that we may be working with, I certainly see that as our responsibility. DR. RABINS: No argument. PROFESSOR SCHOFER: And that is why I believe that the words in the report, "primarily DOT responsibility,'' were intentionally used. The other thing that I would like to respond to is your state- ment about which projects have been successful and which have not been as successful. This relates really to Mr. Heanue's comment concerning the need for emphasis on long-term research. It is possible that some projects for which the results have not been disseminated or perhaps 65
not yet been produced, may be among the most successful. But they will be successful in the long-term. It is probably very difficult to explain that to the Congress. PROFESSOR ROBERTS: I would like to emphasize that point in the following way. It seems to me that it is important to know the political nature of our society. It works by crisis. Things go along for years and years without anything happening and then suddenly the railroads go bankrupt and all the studies that have been done over that interim, the quiescent period, come to bear, and they come to bear in, let's say, 20 days or so and then it is all over and back to the quiescence again. So it is very important for us to do studies that accumulate knowledge during the quiet period. That knowledge can be very important during the period of crisis. To continue that thought, my next comment centers around the idea that the essence of planning is the ability to predict the con- sequences of the options under consideration rather than the preparation of a plan. This ability to predict consequences is needed to clarify issues raised by the public concerning the proper course of action. A plan, by contrast, presupposes that all the issues are resolved. Since this is rarely the case, the planning process should develop the facts as objectively as possible so that well-informed public decisions can be made. Many of the so-called transportation planning decisions are currently handled by the political process for just the reason that many of the issues are unresolved. They are "fought out" within the public decision-making bodies that exist: Congress, the state legis- latures, city councils, planning boards, etc. I feel that this is an appropriate place for non-routine decisions to be made. It is, in fact, very difficult to codify the planning process and to decentralize all the decision-making to planners so that they are free to make a plan. Therefore, it is essential that the planners act as objectively as possible to develop the facts and to point them out dispassionately (though we would certainly leave them room to make recommendations). This is particularly important because of the adversary role which most spokesmen for a particular point of view must play in the current decision-making process. These spokesmen present a very one-sided view of almost every issue. As a consequence, the public currently operates without an objective set of factual information on which to make its own decisions. This emphasizes a need for planners to have adequate predictive tools while at the same time recognizing the uncertain nature of the world in which we all live. We must plan to operate in a world in which there are many possible futures but only one will eventually come to pass. 66
DR. HERWALD: I have been at these meetings since their incep- tion and, judging from what I have heard this morning, this is probably the best. There were specific responses aimed at dealing with many of the real problems that research has to face, and related to the environ- ment in which results will be used. Threaded through a number of the summaries here was the implica- tion that we do not need much new technology. I would prefer to say that the technology must fit into a world in which the real problem is an investment crisis on two counts. One, we have an investment structure in the ground built over the last hundred years, at a time when transportation investment was not the tremendous factor it is today. Second, added to the big demand on capital for transportation is the general investment crisis, i.e., the lack of capital for all our other needs as well. Putting those two together, it is difficult to convince a constituency of the need for doing something. It was not said quite that explicitly, but this group considering planning may come up with innovative ideas, and I like the term "idea" somewhat better than technology. There is a third impact. It is that systems have an impact on where people live. You have people who say, "do something for me,'' but there are those who have to pay for it. Those paying are, in effect, saying, "I am not going to do a damn thing." DR. RABINS: I might comment on the questions that came up in the technology panel regarding sharing and dissemination. Although just one step of many steps, we have just issued an annual publication of the Office of University Research. It is a catalog of all research done at universities for DOT, categorized by subject, by school, and in other useful ways. Copies are available outside this room, and I think you might find this helpful. This work is done in cooperation with the Transportation Systems Center in Cambridge. We very much appreciate this support, and thank Mr. Giangrande for his help. MR. MERRITT: Just a quick observation on this issue of hardware versus software research. I participated in a general symposium on technology assessment with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris, the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment on Automated Guideway Transit, the UMTA-APTA Conference on Research Priorities, and now this one. An interesting observation is that the technologists seem to take the attitude that they are onstream with their developments, that technology exists, and that really the problems in implementation are in the soft areas, in planning, in economics, or in institutional problems. Conversely, the soft scientists seem to take the position that they understand the economic problems basically, but that the problems are with the technology, with the understanding of costs, and the acceptance of the hardware aspects. Just an observation, but it has surfaced again for the fourth time in my recent experience in the last two days. DR. RABINS: That problem will surface a few more times. 67
I asked all of the panel moderators if they would cooperate with us On an experiment on quick response and spontaneous reaction, now that we have heard from the secretaries of all four panels. The modera- tors have each agreed to take a few minutes to try to relate their panel's findings to the other three panels and to try to give an overview. I think that it would be interesting to do that during the next few minutes. 68
