Rural Transportation Issues: Research Roadmap (2022)

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1   Project Objectives The objective of the NCHRP Project 20-122 was to develop a rural transportation research roadmap that provided a long-term vision for research aimed at improving rural transpor- tation in the United States. This comprehensive, balanced rural research roadmap needed to include a diverse range of rural transportation stakeholders, community types, and topics. Although the primary emphasis was technical research, stakeholder outreach also revealed a strong interest in research to assess the effectiveness of existing rural transportation policies. Recognizing a high level of current interest in this topic, the project included a fast-track schedule aimed at identifying high-priority early action items suitable for implementation beginning in fiscal year 2020. Defining Rural America For many people, the phrase “rural America” brings to mind images of the country’s agricultural heartland, but the diversity of the nation’s rural areas goes far beyond agri- culture. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that rural areas make up 97% of the country’s land area and are home to 19% of the population (U.S. Census Bureau 2016). As of the 2010 Census, 60% of the country’s 3,142 counties were mostly or completely rural (Ratcliffe et al. 2016). The rural United States includes undeveloped areas and small towns, rural parks and resorts, mining and forestry sites, Native American communities, exurban areas located near (but not part of) metropolitan areas, and most of the outlying U.S. territories from Guam and Saipan to the U.S. Virgin Islands and inland Puerto Rico. Thus, the fundamental challenge to creating a rural transportation research roadmap is capturing the diversity of American rural communities while providing an opportunity to coalesce around research needs that address the transportation challenges they share. As discussed in Chapter 1, demographers and public officials have struggled to establish practical working definitions of “rural areas” and “rural transportation.” Since numerous government agencies administer separate urban and rural programs with differing eligibility criteria, rural is defined in multiple ways, sometimes indefinite and often conflicting. The most commonly used definition is from the U.S. Census Bureau, which uses detailed geospatial criteria to identify Urbanized Areas with populations of 50,000 or more, and Urban Clusters with 2,500 to 49,999 residents (U.S. Census Bureau 2011). These cities and suburbs con- stitute the nation’s “urban” land, and, to Census demographers, all other areas are “rural.” There are also codified definitions for “frontier and remote” communities, which have both low population density and long travel distances to urban centers. Other definitions of rural are less formal. Although no definition of rural was selected for the NCHRP Project 20-122, S U M M A R Y Rural Transportation Issues: Research Roadmap

2 Rural Transportation Issues: Research Roadmap the intent was to focus on research that is relevant to rural (or predominantly rural) com- munities, including all travel modes and all levels of government. As shown in Figure 1, for NCHRP Project 20-122, rural communities were grouped into six types based on their social and economic characteristics. The types are as follows: resource-based; exurban; tourism-based; frontier/remote; beyond the “lower 48” states; and tribal lands and Alaska Native. To ensure that the roadmap was comprehensive and balanced, there was also a need to ensure that it captured the diversity of modes, disciplines, and users in a rural setting. Therefore, to define the boundaries of rural transportation for the roadmap, the Research Team created a list of rural transportation themes that the critical research needs could be sorted into. This list varied slightly throughout the project, but the final list is shown in Figure 2. RNS: Research Needs Statements. Active Transportation Rural Public and School Transportation Aviation Rural Transportation Safety Cross-cutting Funding, Planning, and Policy Transportation Access and Mobility Driver Education and Licensing Technology Including Connected andAutomated Vehicles Economic Development and Tourism Transporting Rural Products to Market Intersection of Health and Transportation Weather, Climate, Resilience, andEnvironment Law Enforcement, Crime, and Drugs Workforce Development Roadway Infrastructure and Balancing Capacity with Demand Figure 2. Fifteen themes. Figure 1. Six rural community types.

Summary 3   Research Approach Work on the roadmap was conducted in two phases and began August 28, 2018. Phase I included an environmental scan, a literature review and gap analysis, and a stakeholder workshop. In this phase, the roadmap developed early action items that addressed over- arching research needs, had a degree of urgency, and were broadly relevant to the rural transportation system. These items were documented in an interim report and seven projects were submitted to the AASHTO Special Committee on Research and Innovation (R&I) in fall 2018. In Phase II, the roadmap identified longer-term research needs (both overarching and specialized) and organized them into a portfolio of critical needs by rural transportation theme. This work was accomplished through three stakeholder workshops and a stake- holder webinar. This phase culminated in this final report and a companion presentation. Activities and Findings The project included eight activities. • Environmental Scan. The Research Team conducted an environmental scan of rural transportation issues in the United States and relevant countries to determine the chal- lenges related directly or indirectly to transportation. The intent was to gather and document as many rural transportation issues as possible. This activity resulted in the creation of 14 fact sheets as well as examples of potential research topics that address the needs of transportation practitioners and the traveling public and close knowledge gaps. These fact sheets were used at the first stakeholder workshop. • Literature Review. This activity identified research that had already been conducted on the topics identified in the environmental scan. An analysis determined the gaps in current rural transportation research (i.e., what topics have not yet been researched). The Research Team logged studies, reports, and projects in progress that were important for the roadmap and documented this information in a literature review. • Research Needs Statements (RNS) Database Search. The Research Team searched the TRB RNS Database to identify rural research needs that had been submitted by TRB committees but had not yet been funded. The Team reached out to several committees and rural practitioners to identify research needs that TRB committees were currently discussing but had not been developed into RNS or had not yet been submitted to the TRB RNS Database. Some TRB committees already had full RNS that they planned to submit for funding in that year, and they provided those to the Research Team. This information was included in the project’s RNS database. • Colorado Workshop. This activity included hosting a 1-day workshop in conjunction with the National Rural Intercity Bus Conference in September 2018. The goals of the workshop were to identify critical rural transportation issues and needs, provide direction on the draft recommended research roadmap, and identify problem statements suitable for submission to NCHRP and other research programs. This workshop included 35 multi- disciplinary, multimodal, multi-community participants. The workshop yielded findings on additional rural transportation challenges, additional operational and research needs, feedback on the seven pre-prepared RNS, and submission of a problem statement prepared by the ADA40 TRB Committee on Parks and Public Lands. The new research needs were incorporated into the project’s RNS database, and an additional 18 RNS were created based on this workshop. • Georgia Workshop. This 2-hour workshop was held as a session entitled “Innovative Rural Safety Research: What Is Needed to Get Rural to Zero” at the 2nd National Summit

4 Rural Transportation Issues: Research Roadmap on Rural Road Safety in December 2018. The goal of this workshop was to identify addi- tional safety research needs to include in the roadmap. This workshop had 13 partici- pants. To ensure that as much information could be collected as possible, the Research Team also invited the 120 participants of the 2nd National Summit on Rural Road Safety to provide their feedback on safety research needs through the use of index cards, even if they did not attend the workshop. The Georgia workshop yielded nine index cards from summit participants, and more than 50 potential safety research needs were developed based on both the workshop and index cards. The new research needs were incorporated into the project’s RNS database. • TRB Executive Committee Workshop. This 4-hour workshop of the TRB Executive Committee was held at the TRB Annual Meeting in January 2019. The objectives of this workshop were to explore and identify potential rural transportation research needs in the areas of economic development and social and health wellbeing. The participants included the 25-member TRB Executive Committee and their guests (i.e., NCHRP Project 20-122 panel, NCHRP Project 20-122 Research Team, and four speakers). The new research needs were incorporated into the project’s RNS database. • TRB Workshop. This 4-hour workshop was held at the TRB Annual Meeting in January 2019. The focus of this workshop was to build awareness of the previous deliverables, seek the endorsement of TRB attendees on the priorities already gathered, and capture research needs from a different group of stakeholders. More than 70 participants provided the perspective of state and federal department of transportation (DOT) employees and members of the research community. The TRB workshop yielded more than 160 single- sided index cards full of notes, and these notes and new research needs were incorporated into the project’s RNS database. • Webinar. A webinar was conducted in March 2019. The purpose of this webinar was to continue prioritizing the research needs and gather additional research needs to fill in the modes, disciplines, and communities that had not yet been represented at the previous stakeholder meetings. At the webinar, the Research Team provided an overview of the project to date and instructions for gathering final stakeholder input. Webinar attendees were also asked to share the recording of the webinar and the method for submitting stakeholder input (a Qualtrics form) with other experts. The 46 new research needs and all rankings were incorporated into the project’s RNS database. Conclusions and Suggestions The research needs in the project’s RNS database were reviewed for duplications; needs not rural specific; issues that were not research at all but rather indicated a need for wider dissemination of existing research results; existing or ongoing research on the topic; and relevance (some gathered from the RNS database may have been older). Research needs were then combined, removed, or revised as needed. The information from this database was used to create several products including the following: • RNS. For this report, RNS include a project title, background, and research objective. In total, 26 RNS were created for this project. The creation of RNS was a cyclical process, undertaken by Research Team members and TRB committees. • Problem Statement. In general, the problem statement is an expansion of one of the RNS. It is written in the Cooperative Research Program (CRP) format which includes a problem title; background; literature search summary; research objective; urgency and potential benefits; implementation considerations and supports; recommended research funding and research period; problem statement author; others supporting the problem statement; potential panel members; and the person submitting the problem statement.

Summary 5   In total, 13 problem statements were created for this project. They were created by Research Team and TRB committees. Several problem statements were submitted through the AASHTO Special Committee on R&I for potential fiscal year 2020 funding, one problem statement was submitted for potential TCRP fiscal year 2020 funding by the CTAA, and four problem statements were created for future submission to the Policy Chair of the TRB Executive Committee for policy funding. • Portfolios of Research. Fifteen portfolios of research have been created. Each portfolio provides the research needs for that particular rural transportation theme. The portfolios are subcategorized, and each research need has an identification number. In some cases, a project description is also included. The major success of this project was having the following problem statements chosen for funding: • Accessing America’s Great Outdoors: Recreational Travel Patterns, Demands, and Needs. This problem statement was submitted to the NCHRP Project 20-122 panel by TRB Committee ADA40. It is now known as NCHRP Project 08-132. The project started in August 2020. Additional information can be found at: https://apps.trb.org/cmsfeed/ TRBNetProjectDisplay.asp?ProjectID=4744. • National Intercity Bus Atlas Development and Implementation. This problem statement was submitted to NCHRP Project 20-122 panel by Dr. Fred Fravel. It is now known as NCHRP Project 08-133. The project request for proposal (RFP) has not yet been released. Additional information can be found at: https://apps.trb.org/cmsfeed/TRBNetProject Display.asp?ProjectID=4745. • Design Guide for Rural Deviated Fixed Route Transit Systems. This problem statement was partially funded. TCRP provided $100,000 to begin the project, and it was then sent to AASHTO to see if it would fund the remainder of the project. This project is now known as TCRP Project B-49. Implementation As with any project, the success of the plan is only as good as the steps taken for its implementation. The implementation of this roadmap has five parts: (1) making people aware of NCHRP Project 20-122 and the final roadmap portfolios, (2) creating additional RNS and problem statements to submit for funding, (3) creating additional marketing items and portfolios, (4) identifying a “home” for the roadmap, and (5) measuring success. To accomplish these implementation tasks, the NCHRP Project 20-122 panel requested that the Research Team create and send an implementation funding request to the NCHRP Project 20-44 panel to continue these activities. The Research Team had begun some of these implementation steps during this project, including project awareness and identifying a home for the roadmap. During this project, the Research Team completed eight conference or TRB committee presentations, a TRB 2020 Workshop on Equity sponsored by eight TRB committees and one joint subcommittee, a postcard handout for the 2020 TRB Annual Meeting, and an article in the CRP Annual Report. Although the final roadmap portfolios were a key milestone in the NCHRP Project 20-122, the Research Team also recognized a critical need to establish a process for updating the roadmap, so it could continue to be a useful, living document. To keep the roadmap updated, items will need to be removed as research is completed and added as rural transportation needs evolve. To prepare for this need, the Research Team included a discussion of this topic at the equity workshop held during the 2020 TRB Annual Meeting. The consensus

6 Rural Transportation Issues: Research Roadmap from participants was that A0040C: Rural Transportation Issues Coordinating Council would be the most appropriate place for the roadmap to reside. The Council comprises representatives from other TRB committees that have ties to the rural topic. TRB reached out to the principal investigator of the NCHRP Project 20-122 about the potential of her serving as the chair of the TRB A0040C: Rural Transportation Issues Coordinating Council and ensuring that one of the responsibilities of the Council will be to house, maintain, and update this roadmap. The A0040C: Rural Transportation Issues Coordinating Council and chair were announced in April 2020. A continued endorsement of this product would elevate and sustain emphasis on rural issues and the recognition of their importance to the transportation system as a whole.