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mation dissemination and educational activities. In fact, · Insufficient funding. Arrangements focused on policy and
for many, the ability to educate leaders and community planning functions often operate on shoestring budgets
members is one their primary functions. with limited staff support. They serve an advisory role but
· Promoting multi-jurisdictional solutions. Many multi- their influence can be transitory and highly dependent on
state and regional coalitions have been successful in iden- the willingness of their political administrators to make use
tifying key freight concerns that affect a region by provid- of their advice.
ing the foundation and process to work with policymakers,
the private sector, and local partners to address specific is-
2.3 Stakeholder Workshop
sues that cross jurisdictional boundaries and traditional fi-
nancial structures. These coalitions encourage a system- Understanding institutional arrangements includes not
level, multi-state, or regional approach to planning for and only exploring the details through research but engaging those
investing in the freight transportation system. developing and operating institutional arrangements in dis-
· Forming project-specific operating authorities to ad- cussing their experiences. Personal experiences were drawn on
dress bottlenecks. Although less common, creating a joint during a 2-day workshop where representatives of all modes,
powers authority, like the Alameda Corridor Transporta- all levels of government, and the private sector shared valuable
tion Authority, can be used to tackle the design and con- information concerning their involvement in institutional
struction of major infrastructure projects. arrangements and their thoughts on the future of institutional
· Leveraging public-private funding opportunities. Many arrangements in the freight transportation system. Workshop
private partners are willing to share project costs, enabling summary materials, including a list of attendees and presen-
public agencies to better use their funds. Chicago's CREATE tations given, are provided in Appendix B, which is included
and Puget Sound Regional Council's FAST have been suc- on the attached CD-ROM and is also available for download
cessful in leveraging partnership funds and talents to get from the TRB website (www.trb.org).
critical projects funded and delivered. The workshop was designed to engage a full range of public
· Promoting freight system needs. In addition to informa- and private freight stakeholders in a discussion about the need
tion dissemination and education, some arrangements are for institutional arrangements. Specifically, the workshop was
created specifically to promote the industry. Trade associ- designed to explore the following questions:
ations serving as advocates for their industry have been a
driving force in providing powerful representation, expert · What do we mean by freight institutional arrangements?
support, important policy-shaping forums, and valuable · What institutional arrangements are critical for the future?
information to promote the industry's interests. · How can these critical future institutional arrangements
be created?
The analysis also revealed common challenges or weaknesses. · What major national and international trends affect the
Key weaknesses identified include formation of freight institutions?
· What can this project develop that would lead to creation
· Lack of mandate. Relatively few arrangements have a defin- of these future institutional arrangements?
itive mandate for their existence and operation. Many are ad · What have we learned about creating institutional arrange-
hoc arrangements meant to address short-comings and gaps ments?
in established agency or industry functions. As such they lack · What are the future solutions/directions?
dedicated funding and staffing, and many arrangements
must devote considerable time and effort to justifying their Representatives from eight freight institutional arrange-
existence, role, and expenditures. Examples include MPO- ments were invited to present their experiences to the group
level freight committees, which have been difficult to sustain to help answer these questions. The presenters were a subset
because MPOs were perceived as having mandates to address of the cases identified through the literature review. They were
highways, transit, and congestion management, but not selected to illustrate a range of institutional types and levels
mandates and funding to address freight issues. of organization (national, multi-state, and local) that were
· Mismatch of scope. Freight institutional arrangements well established and would provide workshop attendees with
have failed because the scope and scale of their geographic well-documented examples of best practices. The following
and jurisdictional coverage did not match actual "freight programs were presented:
sheds" and economic blocs. For example, relatively few of
the early freight-oriented Intelligent Transportation Systems · Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority
(ITS)/Commercial Vehicle Operations (CVO) corridor pro- · Commercial Vehicle Information Systems and Networks
grams survived, in large part because they spanned juris- Program
dictions and economic regions that did not have compelling · Florida Seaport Transportation and Economic Development
mutual interests. Program
