Atlanta traffic for some of us is a an hour commute or more each day, which can be hampered by construction or accidents. Whether traveling to school or daily job, we can admit that some portions of the city need serious infrastructure investments but we do not see any progress. Public and private sector stakeholders all need to be aligned on objectives and long term planning, yet due to different agenda’s these companies are far apart.

The HBR below discusses the rise of  Freight Flows, an initiative of convening conversations and achieving alignment, and the importance of ‘scenario planning’ in the transportation industry. Scenario planning helps develop point of views for the future and prepare users for a range of possible outcomes rather than placing all your eggs in one basket for one specific prediction. This type of planning helps bring together disparate parties and  effectively ensures that the best capital investments today will best for long term projects.

Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC) created a web based mapping application to track freight movement throughout the region and the impact it will have on transportation.  DVRPC now intends to use this application as the starting point to educate business and other regional stakeholders on the insights  on other infrastructure projects. Scenario planning is sponsored by the National Cooperative Highway Research program and will help guide the allocation of funds to projects. Stakeholder conversations has become a barrier to continual development of US transportation systems but this strategy could pave the way around that obstacle.

http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/07/to-see-eye-to-eye-on-infrastructure-use-scenario-planning/