Corridor & Systems Planning

Planning the Future of the Nation’s Largest Corridor

The I-95 Corridor stretches nearly two thousand miles through 14 states from Maine’s northern tip to south Florida. The region is home to nearly a third of the nation’s inhabitants and 30 percent of the nation’s jobs, yet contains only eight percent of the total U.S. landmass. Since the 1990s, Cambridge Systematics has provided technical, policy, and logistical support to the I-95 Corridor Coalition’s Commercial Vehicle Enforcement and Intermodal Freight programs and has helped guide the evolution of these programs from addressing specific ITS and highway issues to addressing the broader issues of transportation safety, security, efficiency, and reliability across all modes. Key projects have included:

Development of a Corridor-wide information system that consolidates existing “islands of information” into a single database to guide regional planning and emergency management efforts
Identification of key infrastructure, operational, and information system choke points that hinder passenger and freight rail movements in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions
Assessment of the impact of post-9/11 security requirements on freight mobility and economic competitiveness in the region

Effective transportation systems planning at the state, corridor, and local levels is key to mobility, economic development, public safety, community satisfaction, and environmental stewardship. Whether at the local, regional, state, or national level, technically advanced and practical planning is needed to help clients achieve clear performance objectives and to be fiscally responsible. Cambridge Systematics takes a multidisciplinary approach to corridor and systems planning, often applying a range of expertise in analysis, forecasting, and intelligent transportation systems (ITS).

Our Services

Cambridge Systematics has provided planning support to some of the nation’s largest and most complex transportation corridors and systems. We integrate our expertise in market needs assessment, demand modeling, economic analysis, asset management, land use, environmental impact assessment, and ITS and operations to address client needs with a collaborative working style. As part of our service, Cambridge Systematics:

Assesses entirely new as well as improvements to existing corridors and systems
Provides multimodal forecasts of freight trips and transit ridership
Identifies specific impediments and solutions to mobility within a corridor
Conducts comprehensive benefit/cost analysis and performance evaluations of alternative improvements or investment strategies
Develops recommendations and implementation plans for all types of transportation solutions
Supports decision-makers in highly-charged political debates with support tools designed to facilitate consensus and accountability

Why Cambridge Systematics

For Transit

From transit to freight, and innovative financing to broad public and stakeholder outreach, Cambridge Systematics can meet your corridor and systems planning needs. We have developed a unique approach to assess transit services, operations, and technologies for both corridors and systems. Our approach considers the evaluation of travel markets using innovative market research, benefit/cost, economic, and data collection techniques in conjunction with more traditional analytical tools and models designed to assess the financial, travel demand, engineering, environmental, and operational simulations of transit technologies. Examples of our recent transit experience include:

Long-Range Strategic Transit Plans for the state of Utah, and the San Diego, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington D.C. metropolitan areas
Commuter rail and rapid transit corridor assessments for the Regional Transportation Authority and Metra in Chicago, Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART) in the San Francisco Bay Area, and the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) in Boston
Light-rail and bus rapid transit corridor assessments for the Alameda Contra Costa Transit District (AC Transit), the MBTA, and the Dane County/City of Madison, Wisconsin
In support of the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), conduct ongoing reviews of the financial, economic, land use, and overall submittal of more than 20 New Starts projects per year since 1999

For Highways

State and regional agencies have been using an analytical approach developed by Cambridge Systematics that can be used to evaluate the travel demand, economic, environmental, and financial opportunities of multimodal highway investments. By linking statewide travel demand and simulation models for both passengers and freight to regional econometric models designed to forecast the effects on tourism, business expansion, and growth, we are able to help our clients define and advance practical and defensible investment decisions. Examples of our recent highways experience includes:

Developing the Major Corridor Investment-Benefit Analysis System to assess transportation corridors across Indiana, including the I-69 corridor from Evansville to Indianapolis
Developing the Highway Economic Analysis Tool (HEAT) to assess the travel demand, economic, safety, and benefit/cost associated with corridor and system analysis of expanding a two-lane highway system in Montana and Utah
Assessing the engineering and environmental impacts of proposed new interstate investments and alignments for the I-69 and I-35 Trans-Texas Corridors.

For Operations

Cambridge Systematics has developed operational analysis tools to assess the travel demand, air quality, safety, and engineering design of multimodal and operational improvements for corridors and systems across the United States. Our work has focused on a variety of operational strategies, including “before and after” analysis of ramp meter configurations; highway widening and associated operational improvements; high-occupancy vehicle (HOV), high-occupancy toll (HOT), and commercial vehicle operations and tolling scenarios; and at-grade bus rapid transit and light-rail interactions with the roadway system. Examples of our recent operations experience includes:

Simulating operations for the Doyle Drive Relocation Project in the San Francisco Bay Area, the AC Transit Bus Rapid Transit Environmental Impact Statement in Oakland, the I-405 and I-680 corridors in southern and northern California, and I-70 in Kansas City
Assessing HOT and commercial vehicle lane and toll feasibility for the I-69 Trans-Texas Corridor Study; I-710, SR 60, and I-15 in the Los Angeles region, and the MnPass toll lane system evaluation in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota
Evaluating system operational strategies of before and after ramp metering for the Twin Cities, freight infrastructure for the San Francisco Bay Area, and the options and impacts of replacing a deteriorating bridge structure supporting I-71 and I-90 south of downtown Cleveland, Ohio