What We Do

The Office of Transportation Policy Studies (HPTS) assesses the potential for Federal transportation policies and strategies to effectively address future transportation needs. The Office additionally manages FHWA's strategic planning and serves as its economic hub for grant, regulatory, and policy analysis.

HPTS consists of two teams: The Policy and Strategy Analysis Team and the Investment and Economic Analysis Team.

Policy and Strategy Analysis Team

The Policy and Strategy Analysis Team supports FHWA and USDOT by conducting studies on specific transportation policy and program delivery options and managing FHWA's strategic planning process. The team's responsibilities include:

• Evaluating changing travel patterns and needs across socio-demographic, income, and regional users, including the differing impacts of highway policies across different types of rural and urban communities.
• Assessing highway construction costs and inflation.
• Analyzing vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and other highway revenue sources, their impacts on users, and their relationship to vehicle impacts on highways, congestion, and emissions.
• Managing the FHWA Policy Symposia series and Emerging Trends Symposia series.

Economic Investment Strategies Team

The Economic Investment Strategies Team supports national investment decision making through research providing an empirical basis for assessing the value and cost-effectiveness of highway investments. The team's responsibilities include:

• Providing forecasts of future highway conditions and performance under various travel and infrastructure funding scenarios.
• Developing the biennial Status of the Nation's Highways, Bridges, and Transit: Conditions and Performance Report to Congress. (C&P Report).
• Evaluating the impacts of highway investments on communities, individual economic sectors, and national economic indicators such as gross domestic product (GDP) and employment.
• Managing FHWA review of discretionary grant proposal benefit-cost analyses (BCAs).
• Managing FHWA economic regulatory impact analyses (RIA) for significant rulemakings.

Please direct all questions and comments to PolicyStudiesFeedback@dot.gov.