Planning for uncertain transportation futures: Metropolitan planning organizations, emerging technologies, and adaptive transport planning

Journal article, 2024

In the U.S., Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) play a pivotal role in regional transportation planning. Emerging transportation technologies present new challenges for transportation planning practice, which is experiencing growing uncertainty not only from these new technologies and other uncertainties, and MPOs must increasingly plan for the needs of new technologies and innovation. This study investigates how MPOs are currently planning for emerging technologies by analyzing regional transportation plans (RTPs) of the 50 largest MPOs and interviewing planning staff from 17 MPOs. We examine the extent to which anticipatory governance and responsible innovation, which come from science and technology studies (STS), are integrated into MPO planning efforts, shedding light on trends in transportation planning theory and practice. Findings reveal limited integration of anticipatory governance and responsible innovation into their planning processes. Some include aspects of foresight and engagement, but reflexivity, flexibility, and responsiveness are much less developed. Key actions being taken include more comprehensive thinking about region-specific impacts of technologies, developing policies, piloting technologies, building partnerships, and creating new tools and planning models. The extent to which these practices are creating adaptive capacities within MPOs is still limited. To address this, we propose an adaptive transportation planning model that combines anticipatory governance and responsible innovation with long-range transport planning. This integration is crucial for aiding MPOs and other planning agencies in developing robust governance systems, methodologies, and public policies to effectively manage technology within urban environments and navigate the increasingly complex challenges posed by emerging technologies and other uncertainties.