Transportation Policy Analysis - Warner Transportation Consulting

Warner Transportation Consulting Inc.'s transportation policy experience includes analyses of energy, air quality, and business and social impacts related to proposed transportation measures. The head of the firm, Marc Warner, has been an adjunct professor at University of Massachusetts where he taught the graduate course, Transportation Policy Analysis. He has also taught Urban Transportation Analysis to graduate students at Northeastern University. Marc Warner has a Ph.D. in transportation systems from MIT, and a Masters in Public Policy and Management from Carnegie-Mellon University.

Recent transportation policy studies include:

Transportation Impacts of Eliminated Off-Street Parking Requirements
Marc Warner served as an expert witness in a legal dispute involving a developer of a proposed large residential apartment building in Boston, the Boston zoning board, and a supermarket adjacent to the development site. His 2024 analysis showed that 1) the project-based parking demand will greatly exceed the project’s parking supply; 2) the streets around the project site will not have available curb space to absorb the new parking demand; 3) without better parking alternatives, the adjacent supermarket parking lot will be too good to pass up; and, 4) these parkers will adversely affect the supermarket.  

Transportation Demand Management Studies--various clients
Warner Transportation Consulting has reviewed and analyzed pricing and regulatory measures to reduce travel demand and traffic congestion for projects in Massachusetts, Los Angeles, and Washington State. Marc Warner's analyses focused on aspects of trip generation, mode choice, and travel time choice. They also included assessments of each measure's equity, political acceptability, legal impediments, costs, supporting programs, and overall potential for implementation. In the US EPA study for the Chicago area, Mr. Warner prepared draft regulations and detailed supporting material on a trip reduction program, gasoline marketing restrictions, a change in driving age, and on other regulatory transportation measures. The supporting material included Marc Warner's estimates of each action's effect on cold starts and vehicle-miles traveled.

Boulder County, CO, Free Transit Analysis
Warner Transportation Consulting, Inc. contracted in July 2015 with Boulder County, CO, to determine an equitable and practical means of introducing fare-free transit for all county residents. The effort involved the evaluation of transit service in different parts of the county, accounting for park-and-rides, transfer facilities, and service concentrations at the destination (non-home) trip end. Designation of "transit service areas" for offsetting the foregone fare revenue included consideration of state laws about taxing authority, and tradeoffs between precise assessment of local benefits and the simplicity of applying fees at a larger geographic level.

Maine Abutter Impact Study
Under contract to Maine DOT, Warner Transportation Consulting examined the agency's effectiveness in dealing with property owners and municipal officials affected by state highway projects. The analysis method developed in the study-and applied for the 1999 construction season as part of the contract-has become an annual departmental activity.

Monroe County (NY) Parking Study
In this study sponsored by the Monroe County Planning Commission, Warner Transportation Consulting developed local standards for parking demand at various land uses in urban and suburban Monroe County, NY. Monroe County includes Rochester. Marc Warner provided guidelines for planning and conducting parking counts at existing land uses, and he conducted all statistical analyses to develop a new set of parking standards. The report has been distributed to planning organizations throughout the United States.

Massachusetts Port Authority Commuter Study
Warner Transportation Consulting managed the 2001 evaluation of commuting habits of the 21,000 people working at Logan, Hanscom, and Worcester airports. This project involved identifying all tenants and sub-tenants at the three airports, development of four distinct questionnaires (plus Spanish versions), on-site and mail distribution to all employees, survey collection, coding, full data analysis, and development of recommendations to improve commuter access.

Costs of Congestion to Businesses Study
Marc Warner co-authored (with Lance Grenzeback) the National Cooperative Highway Research Project report, "Impacts of Urban Congestion on Business." Mr. Warner developed the initial hypotheses and research plan, and conducted dozens of interviews and most of the analysis as part of the effort.

Boston Trip Information Services Study
Warner Transportation Consulting examined user characteristics and area demographic information in order to gauge the potential demand (and the most effective promotional campaigns) for "SmarTraveler," the Boston-area trip information system.

Denver Toll Road Forecasting
For a bond prospectus for the proposed E-470 toll road in the Denver area, Warner Transportation Consulting evaluated the road's potential to divert traffic from existing non-tolled facilities. Marc Warner's review included a discussion of the appropriateness of a "reliability" variable on the toll road diversion models, and he highlighted areas of ambiguity in the specification of travel demand models and in the prior interpretation of model results.

Amtrak Reorganization Study
Warner Transportation Consulting was responsible for estimating the impacts on ridership and revenue of proposed cuts in passenger rail service. Marc Warner's analysis involved working closely with Amtrak marketing managers and intensively with data from Amtrak�s Arrow Reservation System, Marketing Origin-Destination System, and Daily Segment Ridership databases. He also prepared an equipment retirement plan that accounted for equipment maintenance costs, the needs of continuing Amtrak services, and the constraints of the right-of-way and other railroad facilities.

The Role of Amenities in Encouraging Transit Ridership
On a project for the US Department of Transportation's Transit Cooperative Research Program, Warner Transportation Consulting designed and analyzed innovative surveys for gauging the value of transit amenities. Mr. Warner's research identified passenger amenities and transit vehicle characteristics that attract ridership, evaluated their relative impact on ridership, determined their relative cost-effectiveness, and provided the transportation industry with practical tools to assist transit professionals and policy makers in analyzing investment decisions.

Transit Subsidies and Funding Formula Studies
For the Pennsylvania Governor's Office, Mr. Warner analyzed alternative programs to subsidize local transit operations in Pennsylvania. The paper led to changes in state legislation including different programs for large and small agencies, and incentives to ensure that state funds led to increases in service, and not just increases in wages. Mr. Warner has also reviewed taxing and non-traditional revenue generators for the Oklahoma City transit system, and developed a formula for allocating capital funds among New York's commuter railroads and transit provider.

Transit Security Studies
Mr. Warner was the principal researcher for the Los Angeles Metro Rail security policies recommendations study. His comprehensive, 150 page report presented recommendations and rationales regarding physical features of facilities and vehicles, policing strategies, operator responses in the event of emergencies, and coordination between the transit agency and local police and fire services. In another project, Mr. Warner developed Baltimore's subway safety assurance plan.

Commuting in New England
Marc Warner analyzed historic and current journey-to-work patterns and wrote the "commuting in New England" entry for the Encyclopedia of New England Culture.