Planning for Systems Management & Operations as part of Climate Change Adaptation
1. Introduction
Adaptation to climate change is a topic of recent and great interest in the transportation community. The USDOT Policy Statement on climate change adaptation (USDOT, 2011) states the following:
The United States Department of Transportation (DOT) shall integrate consideration of climate change impacts and adaptation into the planning, operations, policies, and programs of DOT in order to ensure that taxpayer resources are invested wisely and that transportation infrastructure, services and operations remain effective in current and future climate conditions. The climate is changing and the transportation sector needs to prepare for its impacts. Through climate change adaptation efforts, the transportation sector can adjust to future changes, minimize negative effects and take advantage of new opportunities.
FHWA’s Sustainable Transport and Climate Change Team, under the Office of Planning, Environment, and Realty, Office of Natural and Human Environment1 has been identifying climate change issues faced by State DOTs and Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs), conducting workshops and peer exchanges on this topic and developing guidelines and tools to address their concerns. The USDOT Climate Change Clearinghouse (USDOT, 2012) is another important source of information on issues faced by agencies related to climate change. In June 2011, Transportation Research Board (TRB) published a research circular (TRB, 2011) assessing the state of the practice of adaptation strategies being considered by transportation agencies. All of these resources provide an emerging picture of the changes required at an agency level to address the challenges posed by climate change.
One of the gaps in the currently available literature and guidance is an assessment of how systems operations and maintenance adapt to climate change. The challenges posed by climate change to infrastructure design and long-term land-use planning are more easily described than how an agency needs to adapt their day to day operations strategy given the varied nature of evolving climate and travelers’ responses to changing climate.
This paper addresses the “services and operations” portion of the above USDOT policy statement, highlighting potential issues, challenges, and approaches for State DOTs and local operating agencies to consider under shifting climate-related conditions. The scope of operations in this paper is limited to surface transportation activities and does not include air or water-borne transportation.
For the purposes of this paper, “effects” refer to climate change issues and “impacts” are the consequences that climate change effects have on transportation.
The paper includes the following sections:
- Section 2 provides an overview of climate change effects that will impact transportation in the U.S.
- Section 3 describes the impacts of the expected climate change effects on systems management and operations
- Section 4 identifies considerations and approaches to make systems management and operations more climate-resilient.
