Intermodal Passenger Facility Planning and Decision-Making for Seamless Travel (2024)
Chapter: Summary
SUMMARY
Intermodal Passenger Facility Planning and Decision-Making for Seamless Travel
Introduction
TCRP Research Report 250/ACRP Research Report 275/NCHRP Research Report 1129: Intermodal Passenger Facility Planning and Decision-Making for Seamless Travel is a guide for intermodal passenger facility planning and decision-making in an era of accelerated change and uncertainty. An intermodal passenger facility is a transportation hub served by at least two modes of travel with at least one travel mode being air, rail, bus, or passenger vessel. These facilities are also known as multimodal centers or terminals, airports, transit centers or stations, ferry or cruise ship terminals/docks, or mobility hubs. Intermodal passenger facilities have varying levels of activity; facilities located in more urban environments often include other commercial uses and nearby or integrated activity generators, while other facilities are exclusively for transportation.
The report discusses how changes in travel and other trends might alter future facility uses. For example, certain trends in transportation and society that began in the 2010s accelerated since 2020, including increased telework, ongoing disruptions to intercity bus service, increased adoption of digital technologies, and expansion of electric vehicles for personal use and for transit. In addition, the broadening housing crisis, an aging population, and increased frequency of extreme weather events all have implications for the future of intermodal passenger facilities.
Context for Planning and Collaborating
A typology of intermodal passenger facilities has four main components: primary transportation mode or modes at the facility, network function (how the facility connects with the broader transportation network), surrounding context (density of land use and walkability of the surrounding area), and activity generator or generators (other areas activity). (See Summary Figure 1.) At commercial airports, the key distinctions are the intermodal components within airports (airside) and intermodal connections outside airports (landside).
Each intermodal passenger facility is unique, and decisions should reflect the context and goals for that facility. Based on interviews with facility planners and owners, modal operators, and industry experts, planning falls into 10 categories. Summary Table 1 lists these 10 categories and highlights steps and decision-making considerations by category. See Chapter 4 for guidance on applying these categories.
Summary Table 1. Intermodal passenger facility planning and decision-making categories.
| Planning Category | ||
|
Governance and Partnerships |
Site Planning and Design |
Safety and Security |
|
Funding and Finance |
Equity and Inclusion |
User Experience |
|
Permitting and Regulations |
Operations and Maintenance |
Data and Information Needs |
|
Technology and Systems |
||
Key Planning and Decision-Making Considerations
Future Flexibility
Intermodal passenger facility projects take many years to implement, which is a longstanding challenge that may need further investigation to identify methods of shortening the timeline. Because today’s plans may not reflect tomorrow’s needs, this report emphasizes the importance of planning and making decisions with flexibility and adaptability in mind. Flexibility includes designing spaces that can be reconfigured or repurposed. Adaptability includes understanding usage patterns and redeploying resources, retraining staff, or establishing new partnerships to respond to change.
Supporting Seamless Travel and the Complete Trip
The U.S. Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT) describes seamless travel in the context of the complete trip, which is the idea that any individual traveler must be able to execute every part of their trip from origin to destination regardless of location, income, or disability. Prioritizing the customer’s experience means considering how different customers experience intermodal passenger facilities, particularly during complex trips. The complete trip includes seven segments. Summary Table 2 illustrates how intermodal passenger facility planners, owners, and modal providers can support each segment.
Considering Emerging Technologies
The report anticipates how new technologies such as automated vehicles and advanced air mobility (AAM) will affect intermodal travel, facility design, and space allocation. Fully
Summary Table 2. How an intermodal passenger facility supports the complete trip.
| Complete Trip Segment | Role of the Intermodal Facility |
|---|---|
| Trip planning |
|
| Outdoor navigation |
|
| Boarding/using vehicles |
|
| Vehicle/mode transfers/payments |
|
| Indoor/outdoor transition |
|
| Indoor navigation and use |
|
| Connecting to/completing trip segments |
|
automated vehicles may someday be more common and have a transformative impact on use and management of the loading zones, surrounding streets, and parking facilities at intermodal passenger facilities. AAM, which broadly refers to emerging aviation markets and use cases for on-demand aviation in urban, suburban, and rural communities, will use both existing and new infrastructure, including airports, heliports, and vertiports (Cohen et al. 2024). Facility planners may wish to consider whether to accommodate AAM, or at least to design their facilities to not preclude AAM in the future.
Using Data and Information
Intermodal passenger facility owners and providers rely on data to understand daily operations and trends and flag issues requiring attention. The quality of available data and the use of data to make decisions varies, in part due to the lack of established practices around data management and limited understanding of how to leverage insights gleaned from data. Data-driven decision-making can enable those managing and operating intermodal passenger facilities to better adapt to change.
As data availability and analytics capabilities continue to grow, facility planners and owners need data collection and management plans, data stewardship plans, and data-sharing agreements. For example, geolocation technology has made it easier to track people and vehicles. Transit data provided through the General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) is now readily available, and private companies aggregate and resell data and offer analytics for monitoring travel patterns and curb usage, for example. Facility owners may need staff trained in data science to take advantage of these data sources and tools.
Selecting a Governance Model and Project Delivery Method
“Governance is the act or process of governing or overseeing the control and direction of something (such as a country or an organization)” (Merriam-Webster, n.d.). For intermodal passenger facilities, governance typically involves multiple entities supported by strong partnerships. Effective governance and partnership agreements incorporate flexibility throughout the facility’s life cycle and reflect the local stakeholder environment. Ineffective governance can contribute to project delays, cost overruns, legal disputes, and other negative impacts. Identifying the right governance model at project inception is an essential first step in project planning and sets the stage for positive outcomes. Regardless of the model chosen, successful governance of intermodal passenger facilities is built on a shared vision, identification of partners and stakeholders, and clearly defined stakeholder relationships, with the understanding that roles often change over the course of a facility’s life cycle.
Once a governance model is in place and project planning and permitting are complete (scoping, environmental evaluation and clearance, property acquisition, initial business case, and financial plan), the next step is to select a method of project delivery. Appendix C provides more details on available project delivery methods, including structures and timelines.
Funding and Financing Intermodal Passenger Facility Projects
Because intermodal passenger facility projects are often costly and complex undertakings requiring substantial financial resources, owners typically work with multiple entities to explore many sources of funding, financing options, and partnerships to complete and
maintain facility projects. The process of choosing among funding programs and financing approaches includes:
- Conducting the initial project assessment,
- Establishing the base financial condition,
- Identifying funding and financing requirements, and
- Preparing grant applications.
The report explains these steps, provides detailed information on funding programs and financing mechanisms, and provides use case of the Denver Union Station redevelopment project.
Conclusion
Each intermodal passenger facility is unique. The planning and decision-making process should reflect its uniqueness as well as its relationship to the local context, its surrounding environment, and the broader community. At the same time, the intermodal passenger facility’s main function is to serve people undertaking a journey. By prioritizing the experience of the customer, regardless of income, ability, or spoken language, planners, owners, and providers can better adapt to changing trends and make informed decisions. Efforts to advance the complete trip concept, expand mobility as a service (MaaS) to include all modes of transportation, emphasize effective governance, broaden partnerships, and better manage facility pickup and drop-off can all lead to improved facility operations and an enhanced user experience. The following are additional key takeaways from the research effort.
Collaborate Early and Often
Intermodal passenger facility planners, owners, and modal providers need to regularly collaborate with each other and with external stakeholders. This is an ongoing need that begins with governance and continues with partnerships. Owners, providers, and other partners should always be considering the customer’s travel experience traveling to, within, and from the entire facility, not just using one mode of travel. Collaboration also includes forming and maintaining strong partnerships with external stakeholders to address non-transportation matters that can affect a facility, such as coordinating responses to extreme weather events or working to address the housing crisis.
Identify Ways to Streamline Intermodal Passenger Facility Projects
Intermodal passenger facility projects take many years to implement. As projects advance, construction costs continue to escalate; in addition, changes to the climate are accelerating, and plans developed today may be obsolete on project completion. More research may be needed on streamlining intermodal passenger facility projects to ensure that they address current needs and are affordable.
Plan with Flexibility in Mind and Adapt Accordingly
Even with shorter implementation time frames, intermodal travel will continue to evolve, and emerging technologies will continue to change travel behavior. Planning with flexibility and adaptability means assuming decisions made today will need to be revised in the future. This means working to avoid being constrained by decisions that will be hard to reverse.
Collect Data More Often and Share It More Broadly
Facility owners and modal providers need to regularly collect data that measure usage patterns and then use these data to improve facility operations and the user experience. This means regularly conducting passenger surveys, measuring how people enter and exit a facility, investing in automated systems to collect data, and sharing the data, including through open sources and in ways that are agnostic to the individual mode or the technology used.
