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The Source for Public Transportation News and Analysis April 20, 2012
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MTI Studies: Performance, Failed Terrorist Plots

The Mineta Transportation Institute (MTI) recently published Model-Based Transportation Performance: A Comparative Framework and Literature Synthesis, a research report that links transportation performance measures with data from simulation tools, develops a common framework by which to compare many of the measures, and synthesizes the types and results of these measures as implemented to date.

“In a time of serious fiscal and environmental constraints, there has been a renewed call to identify transportation investments and related policy decisions that will optimize transportation, environmental, economic, and equity outcomes,” said Caroline Rodier, Ph.D., principal investigator on the report.

The study demonstrates that many performance measures can be used to quantify impacts of various transportation policies, but it is often unclear how those measures relate and how they can be measured with existing modeling tools. Among the findings:

* Most of the recommended performance measures have not been implemented in transportation and land-use planning studies in the United States. More of them have been used in Europe;

* The survey showed little commonality in the equity measures implemented in studies to date;

* Few economic performance measures have been implemented in the U.S. Regional governments and community groups have evaluated the financial cost of transportation plans but rarely their cost-effectiveness; and

* Environmental performance measures related to energy, air quality, and climate change have been frequently evaluated.

The 103-page report is available here.

MTI also released Carnage Interrupted: An Analysis of Fifteen Terrorist Plots Against Public Surface Transportation, which examines several factors in 13 plots that authorities uncovered and foiled between 1997 and 2010 before attacks could be carried out. It also presents an additional two cases in which terrorists attempted to carry out attacks that failed.

Seven of the plots took place in the U.S. and four in the United Kingdom. Although motive was not critical to the selection of the plots, all but one involve individuals or groups inspired by al Qaeda’s ideology of violent global jihad against the west. The exception is the 1997 Flatbush plot, in which two terrorists, both of them with connections to Hamas and angered by events in Palestine, simply wanted to kill as many Jews as possible to express their opposition to U.S. support for Israel. Other sources suggest that the Flatbush plotters wanted to force the release of jailed Islamist terrorists in the U.S.

“Much can be learned from terrorists’ failures,” the report states. “They offer insights into what terrorists are thinking, how they view and select targets, and what countermeasures appear to be more effective.”

To download this report, click here.

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