At a time of uncertainty it is interesting to hear a perspective from outside the EU on the importance of certainty.  At the start of 2016 the Fixing America’s Surface Transport (FAST) Act was introduced that gave five year funding certainty.  Jeff Paniati gives insight into this legislative context, he said:  “The United States has recently introduced new funding whereby Congress has worked out how to provide certainty of funding over a five year period.  This was introduced at the start of 2016 through the FAST Act….it provided that five year window of certainty ….”

Jeff Paniati was formerly Executive Director of the Federal Highways, where he was responsible for 2,900 employees in 65 offices nationwide and an annual operating budget of $400 million.  He is now ‎Executive Director and CEO at Institute of Transportation Engineers.

Listen to the podcast here.

Whilst at the Federal Highways, Jeff led the development and implementation of the highway provisions in the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21) surface transportation program, including the transformative move to a performance-based federal-aid highway programme.  

How roads are funded in the US is a challenging issue and still needs to be addressed as the legislation has pieced together funding from a range of sources.  How the Federal Government works with State Department of Transport (DOTs) in terms of linking funding with performance has been part of the considerations in the development of this policy.  He said:  “The Federal Government will have to report to Congress on the state of the entire infrastructure.  There are a few consequences if they [State DOT] don’t meet their targets but these are mostly to do with coming up with remedial plans to figure out how they will meet their targets”.  

“At this beginning stage of performance management we didn’t feel that it made sense if someone does worse they get less money and if they do better they get more money; because you are not solving the safety problem if your taking money away from someone who was struggling with it.  That was the big fear of the States…they were willing to be held accountable and move into this era of performance era.  But they did not want to start in the situation where they immediately lose money and there are winners and losers in this process”.      

Road safety, like with every country continues to be a challenge but measures such as graduated licences for young drivers appear to be helping according to Jeff.  

Jeff also outlines how cities are changing in the United States he said:  “If you are in a medium or large sized city in the United States.  One you are being pushed to increase the liveability of the city – your bike network, bike share, walking, transit, heavy rail, streetcars.  You are being asked to create an environment that is attractive to draw people back to the cities.   Cities want a vibrant downtown so cities are being asked to do that." 

"At the same time coming into most of the cities are new mobility companies like Uber of Lift that are competing with an established taxi industry and in some cases almost putting them out of business….and transit companies, there is this uneasy relationship….are they are help because they create that last mile connection to, say, a fixed rail connection, or are they a competition.  And then, oh by the way, there is this driverless cars coming”.  

Cities in the United States are changing and he highlighted how they are competing for a prize of $40 million fund under the Smart City Challenge (Columbus was announced as the winner last week).  Jeff also outlines what the US are doing in terms of vehicle to infrastructure communications (useful for autonomous vehicles).

The interview comes from the latest in the CIHT podcast series where Justin Ward speaks to leading individuals in the transport world.  To find others and to listen click here.