ESD Dissertation Defense – Rebecca Susanne Dodder

Air Quality and Intelligent Transportation Systems: Understanding Integrated Innovation, Deployment and Adaptation of Public Technologies

Abstract:
During the past two decades, Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) have provided transportation organizations with increasingly advanced tools both to operate and manage systems in real-time. At the same time, federal legislation has been tightening the linkages between state and local transportation investments and metropolitan air quality goals. In this context, ITS seemed to represent a case of the potential synergies – or so-called “win-win” outcomes – that could be realized for the dual policy goals of air quality and mobility. If the various public sector organizations responsible for air quality and transportation could cooperate in deploying, assessing and further adapting these new technologies to take advantage of these synergies, they could achieve a “sustainable use” of ITS. However, looking beyond ITS and air quality, these issues point to broader questions of how to appropriately manage technology and its impacts on society, specifically those technologies deployed by the public sector. In particular, how does the public sector innovate and deploy technologies in ways that maximize the benefits, and minimize or avoid the negative impacts? In order to examine this phenomenon, this thesis takes the example of ITS and air quality to develop and test a broader framework of Integrated Innovation, Deployment and Adaptation of Public Technologies (IIDAPT).

In this thesis, we define and articulate a framework for IIDAPT, and identify testable conditions that make IIDAPT either more or less likely to occur. We identify seven conditions – based in the literature of political science, organizational theory, and public administration – that should, in theory, influence the ability of public agencies to achieve synergies for multiple policy goals through technology deployment. Having developed a theoretical framework for the conditions that influence IIDAPT, we then test those conditions using five U.S. cities – Los Angeles, Houston, Boston, Orlando, and Tulsa – as case studies in ITS and air quality. We then extend the framework to a non-US case, Mexico City, in order to further test the IIDAPT framework and to identify possible changes at the federal and local level to better align ITS deployments with both mobility and air quality goals in Mexico City.

This research explains some interesting outcomes in terms of failures by public sector agencies to take advantage of new, lower cost ITS technologies that can provide multiple benefits for both mobility and air quality. We find that “cheap” solutions, such as ITS rather than conventional infrastructure, are not always in an agency’s interests, as defined by the agency. Specifically, we found that lower-cost innovations may compete with an agency’s or elected official’s priorities for certain categories of investment, by undermining the ability to build up the case for that investment. The overarching conclusion, is that the possibilities for synergies (or “win-win” outcomes) must be defined, not according to the stated policy objectives or mission of the public sector agencies, but according to the underlying interests and agendas of agencies, which may, or may not align with the public interest.

We also found that new information on the impacts of new ITS technologies on air quality does not generally lead to adaptation in the application of those technologies either to reduce negative impacts or to provide additional benefits for air quality. Even where evaluations of air quality impacts were required, those assessments were not well integrated into the process of technology deployment and later adaptation in the use of those technologies. Indeed, new information that can change the perception of possible mutual benefits is not always welcomed by agencies, and assessment methodologies will tend to reflect existing agency preferences.

However, there were reasons for optimism. We found that in response to an increasingly “severe” air quality problem (as defined by federal regulations), local agencies are in fact experimenting with the use of ITS to achieve air quality benefits as well as mobility benefits. Furthermore, by creating the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ) program, a dedicated federal funding source for nontraditional transportation investments (such as ITS) with air quality benefits, agencies were provided with the resources and additional motivation to seek out and deploy ITS technologies with air quality benefits.

To conclude this work, we highlight possible areas of future theory development for IIDAPT, and point to additional technology and policy domains where the IIDAPT framework can be applied and tested.

Thesis Supervisor:
Joseph Sussman

Committee member:
Ken Oye, Mario Molina