Category Archives: Multi-modal

Multi-modal, Policy and Planning, research

Integrating travel demand management into transportation planning

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Reprinted from Catalyst, June 22, 2026

Minnesota’s transportation landscape is rich with options designed to get travelers to their destinations safely and quickly. These modes, ranging from commuter bike trails and public transit to rideshares, buses, rail, roads, streets, and highways, are strategically interlinked; improvements or disruptions in one place reverberate across the greater transportation network.

Travel demand management (TDM) is an approach to transportation planning that encourages more efficient travel through a combination of mode choice and infrastructure design. This “big picture” approach centers the specific needs of local communities to create viable options for people to shift away from single-occupancy vehicles for at least some trips. Among the benefits of more efficient road use are improved congestion and air quality and reduced costs for road maintenance and construction.

A UMN research study led by Kaitlyn Denten, infrastructure policy researcher at the Institute for Urban and Regional Infrastructure Finance within the Humphrey School of Public Affairs and a CTS scholar, aimed to investigate how TDM strategies can best be integrated into highway construction projects.

In Minnesota, two factors are bringing the TDM approach to the forefront. The Transportation Greenhouse Gas Emissions Impact Assessment (Minn. Stat. §161.178 [2025]) is now part of highway construction and reconstruction projects. This statute requires projects to meet state greenhouse gas (GHG) and vehicle miles traveled (VMT) goals by either modifying the project, halting the project, or offsetting the GHG and VMT created by the project. 

Additionally, the Metropolitan Council, through its 2023 Regional Travel Demand Management Study Action Plan, recommended that a study be conducted to identify how TDM strategies could be incorporated into all phases of highway construction. The Met Council’s goal is to improve commuting, meet climate objectives, and reduce or delay the need for costly highway expansion projects.

In response to the Met Council’s recommendation, the UMN research team first conducted a nationwide scan to identify best practices for integrating TDM into highway projects. Examples in Colorado, California, New Jersey, Delaware, and Washington show how local, state, and federal transportation agencies and other entities coordinated to better understand local travel patterns and solve complex challenges. The scan revealed how TDM has been used to inform planning and policy, improve design and construction, encourage mode choice, and manage demand or emergency situations.

The researchers also studied Minnesota examples. The 2007 collapse of the I-35W Bridge in Minneapolis diverted 140,000 daily commuter trips. MnDOT, the Met Council, and regional stakeholders created travel alternatives from the time just after the collapse through the bridge’s reconstruction, which was completed in September 2008. TDM strategies included new transit services, fare subsidization, teleworking programs, and expanded park-and ride facilities.

In Duluth, a more northern expanse of Interstate 35W became a “mega project” between 2010 and 2012. During this time, 3 bridges and 12 miles of roadway pavement were replaced, shoulders and safety features were added, and intelligent transportation systems components were installed for emergency communications. TDM strategies helped facilitate communications between local and state entities, transit services, and the MnDOT construction teams to improve travel alternatives and ease the flow of traffic during this prolonged disruption.

TDM is becoming a more defined and important part of future transportation planning. “Ultimately, integrating TDM into highway projects enhances travel options and creates modal choices for travelers,” Denten says. “This reduces delay during peak times and improves safety and efficiency for construction crews. It can also remove the need for travel and push travel to non-peak times. Further, holistic TDM approaches for highway construction projects could lead to more efficient transportation systems and perhaps delay or remove the need for a highway project in the first place.”

The study offers best practices to help policymakers, planners, engineers, and local officials within the Metropolitan Council and beyond incorporate TDM into their projects. These strategies provide opportunities to shape policies and projects that respond to unexpected and intermittent challenges while supporting Minnesota’s long-term goals of reducing highway construction costs, climate impacts, and travel disruptions.

This research project was sponsored by the Applied Research in Transportation (ART) Program, which addresses time-sensitive research questions in a 6- to 12-month timeframe. CTS and the Minnesota Department of Transportation contributed initial funding to launch this pilot program in 2024, with the Metropolitan Council joining in 2025. To reinforce the applied nature of the program, ART projects must directly address a current process, document, or policy need with an initial focus on sustainability in transportation and climate change impacts. 

—Amy Goetzman, contributing writer

Pedestrian, research, Traffic and Safety

CTS Webinar: How Infrastructure Shapes Driver Behavior and Pedestrian Safety

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Tuesday, May 19, 2026, 12:00–1:30 pm Virtual

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About the Event 

Improving pedestrian safety requires a deeper understanding of how people interact with roadway design and infrastructure. This webinar will highlight two recent research efforts examining how transportation infrastructure influences driver behavior and pedestrian safety outcomes.

Curtis Craig, a research associate in the Human Factors Safety Laboratory, will present findings from two complementary studies examining infrastructure at intersections. The first study explored how right turn lane configurations affect pedestrian safety using a combination of behavioral analysis and multiple research methods. The second project examined how drivers and pedestrians respond to different infrastructure treatments and how those designs influence behavior in real-world environments.

These study findings offer transportation agencies, planners, and engineers practical considerations as they work to create safer and more accessible pedestrian environments.

Registration and More

This webinar is free, but registration is required. Visit the event web page to register and for more information. 

Related Reading

Active Research by Curtis Craig

Analysis and Risk Management of Motorcycle, Bicycle, and Pedestrian Crashes in Minnesota

Policy and Planning, Public Transit, research

TRB Webinar: Improving Mobility in Rural and Tribal Communities

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February 25, 2025, 10-11 AM CST

More information and Registration

TRB is offering a free webinar tomorrow on rural mobility, which has been a focus of a number of MnDOT studies in the last few years. For a review of research on rural mobility in Minnesota, see the following lists of completed and active projects. To register for the webinar, follow the link above.

Continue reading TRB Webinar: Improving Mobility in Rural and Tribal Communities →
Multi-modal, Policy and Planning, research

Household-based travel measures may help agencies cut emissions

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Reprinted from Catalyst, December 15, 2025

Across the country, transportation agencies, including the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT), are working to meet ambitious targets for reducing vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and climate emissions. To succeed, they need to understand what actually encourages households to drive less. 

A recent University of Minnesota (UMN) research study aimed to answer this question. Led by Eric Lind, director of the UMN’s Accessibility Observatory, the study examined how accessibility—the opportunities reachable by different travel modes such as driving, public transit, or biking—influences a household’s VMT. 

“We wanted to go beyond the typical approach of using roadway volume counts and instead examine households, because that is where VMT comes from,” Lind says. “This helps us better understand the influence of transportation and land-use systems on the travel decisions people make in their daily lives.”

Lind and his research team used Twin Cities travel behavior survey records to match households with access to opportunities on three different levels: local access (biking to jobs within 20 minutes), transit access (walking or rolling to transit to reach jobs within 10 to 40 minutes), and regional access (driving to jobs within 20 to 60 minutes). The models also accounted for important demographic factors including household income, vehicle availability, and number of workers.

The findings point to a challenging road ahead for transportation agencies working to reduce VMT and greenhouse gas emissions. The good news is that higher local and transit access does lead to lower expected VMT. However, the impact is modest: doubling local or transit access to jobs results in a VMT decrease of about 3 percent. 

Conversely, higher regional auto access is the most influential factor and positively predicts higher VMT. According to the model, a modest 10 percent increase in regional auto access to jobs resulted in a VMT increase of roughly 4 percent.

“The challenge is that MnDOT is required to balance increasing roadway capacity with strategies that reduce VMT to the same extent,” Lind explains. “Increasing what is easily reachable by bike or transit does lead people to drive less, but these are nudges compared with the main effects of roadway expansions that have a much larger, counteracting effect on VMT.”

To meet VMT goals, the research team recommends a two-pronged approach. First, agencies must continue to invest in and increase local and transit and nonmotorized access. Second, they must critically assess any planning that increases regional auto access, as its VMT-boosting impact requires non-auto mitigation to balance it out. 

These findings will provide MnDOT and other transportation agencies with a clearer understanding of the levers available to them, offering the estimates needed to calculate the true VMT impact of future infrastructure changes.

This study was sponsored by the Applied Research in Transportation (ART) Program, which addresses time-sensitive research questions in a 6- to 12-month timeframe. CTS and MnDOT contributed initial funding to launch this pilot program in 2024, with the Metropolitan Council joining in 2025. To reinforce the applied nature of the program, ART projects must directly address a current process, document, or policy need with an initial focus on sustainability in transportation and climate change impacts.

Related topics

For an overview of travel behavior in the U.S. generally, see Ten years of measurement reveals evolution of destination access across America.

To see how the transportation system is performing in Minnesota, see MnDOT performance measures.

Multi-modal, Policy and Planning, research

CTS Webinar: Reaching Opportunities Through Transportation—New Results from the National Accessibility Evaluation

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Wednesday, January 7, 2026
noon–1:00 p.m. CST, VIRTUAL

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About the Event

Accessibility is the ease of reaching valued destinations. It can be measured for various transportation modes (auto, transit, bicycling, walking), to different types of destinations (home, work, school, shopping), at different times of day. Accessibility measures can be used to answer questions such as: How many jobs can I reach within a 30-minute transit trip from my home in Evanston, Illinois?

Continue reading CTS Webinar: Reaching Opportunities Through Transportation—New Results from the National Accessibility Evaluation →
Freight and Railroads

CTS Webinar: The Coffee Supply Chain—What Goes into Delivering Your Favorite Coffee to the Store Shelf

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Thursday, December 11, 2025
noon–1:00 p.m. CST, Virtual

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About the Event

This webinar may not be related to MnDOT research, but we thought you might find it interesting if you drink coffee.

Join CTS and Patrick Hessini, CTS Executive Committee member and head of supply chain at Cameron’s Coffee, for an in-depth look at the challenges and logistics of today’s supply chain. Grab a cup of coffee and bring your lunch as we learn about where and how we get our coffee from trees to mugs.

Registration

This webinar is free, but registration is required. Once you have registered, you will receive an email confirmation with a Zoom link. The link should not be shared with others; it is unique to you.

More Information

Visit the CTS website or contact James De Sota at jadesota@umn.edu.

Multi-modal, Policy and Planning, research

CTS Webinar: Innovations for Energy-Efficient Transportation

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Thursday, November 13, 2025, 12:00–1:30 pm Virtual

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About the Event

Transportation is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., and reducing those emissions is key to tackling the climate crisis. New technologies—from eco-friendly navigation apps to connected and automated vehicles—offer exciting opportunities to make our transportation system cleaner and more energy efficient. But these tools can also create unexpected challenges, such as increased traffic congestion or higher overall emissions, if not carefully designed.

In this webinar, researchers will share new approaches to smarter routing and vehicle technology that can lower energy use and reduce emissions. Join us to learn how innovations in navigation, automation, and vehicle control could help shape a more sustainable future.

Speakers

Zongxuan Sun is a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Minnesota. He is an expert on dynamic systems and control with applications in automotive propulsion systems. He worked at the General Motors Research Center for seven years prior to joining the University in 2007. His research work includes system modeling, control theory, building unique instruments, and testbeds for experiments.

Michael Levin is an associate professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geo- Engineering at the University of Minnesota and a CTS scholar. His research focuses on modeling connected and automated vehicles and intelligent transportation systems to predict and optimize how these technologies will affect travel demand and traffic flow. Levin is specifically interested in using traffic flow, transportation network analysis, and operations research methods to study these new technologies and their effects on cities.

Registration

This webinar is free, but registration is required. Once you have registered, you will receive an email confirmation with a Zoom link. The link should not be shared with others; it is unique to you.

Credit

Attendees are eligible for Professional Development Hours (PDHs) and American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) certification maintenance credits.

More information

For more information or to request support, go to complete announcement on the Center for Transportation Studies website.

Related MnDOT Research Projects

Bicycling, Policy and Planning, research

Minnesotans geared up for e-bike rebates. Now data reveals more about them

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Republished from CTS News (Catalyst) for October 14, 2025

More than 14,600 Minnesota residents applied for a rebate through the state’s e-bike rebate program when it launched in 2024. Established by the Minnesota Legislature to help reduce the cost of buying a new e-bike, the program was so popular that within minutes of opening in June 2024, the number of applicants overwhelmed the system and crashed the website. The state was forced to fix the technology challenges and reopen the application about a month later.

The scenario drove researchers at the University of Minnesota to dig deeper into the data about who applied for the rebate in the first year. Their project aims to shed light on who benefitted from the program, get feedback on the application process, and learn more about rebate use.

E-bikes, which operate like a bicycle but have an electric battery and motor for pedaling assistance, have increased in popularity in recent years, and supporters are promoting their potential as a sustainable transportation option. The state legislature allocated $2 million in both 2024 and 2025 for the rebate program.

“Minnesotans seem to have an appetite to get an e-bike, whether that’s because of the state’s incentive or for other reasons—including that Minnesota has some of the best bike infrastructure around,” says Kaitlyn Denten, a researcher with the Humphrey School’s Institute for Urban and Regional Infrastructure Finance (IURIF) and project co-lead.

For the first part of this project, researchers analyzed rebate applicant data, which included demographic information, income level, tax filing status, and ZIP code but no personal identifiers. Data also included a person’s rebate application status, the rebate amount, and whether the applicant used the rebate to purchase a new e-bike.

In the program’s first year, the maximum rebate was $1,500; individual amounts depended on an applicant’s income level and tax filing status. People who applied for and received a rebate certificate could purchase their e-bike and eligible bike accessories from a participating retailer. Of the total applicants, 1,519 people received a rebate and 1,327 used one to purchase an e-bike. According to the data, half of the rebates went to households earning less than $75,000 a year.

The Twin Cities seven-county metro area had strong representation, with 66 percent of applicants, 67 percent of recipients, and 66 percent of rebate users coming from the metro area. The average age of applicants was 49 years old.

For the project’s second part, researchers used an online survey to collect feedback on the application process and information about how people who received a rebate were using their e-bike, among other data. The survey, which was available between March 17, 2025, and April 5, 2025, received nearly 4,500 responses.  

Of the survey respondents, 3,920 individuals applied for a rebate, 496 received a rebate, and 455 used the rebate to purchase an e-bike. For those who received a rebate but didn’t use it, among the reasons cited were that the rebate didn’t cover enough of the e-bike’s cost and the rebate certificate expired before they were able to use it. 

One surprising finding: Some people bought an e-bike even if they didn’t receive a rebate, says CTS scholar Camila Fonseca-Sarmiento, IURIF director of fiscal research and project co-lead. “Or, if a couple received a rebate, they ended up buying two e-bikes. This could be spurring the use of e-bikes instead of personal vehicles.”

Many survey respondents expressed frustration with the initial application process, referring to the technical glitches, long wait times, and unclear instructions. Several respondents did note, however, that the second application round ran more smoothly.

Some respondents also raised concerns about the fairness of the program’s rollout, pointing to barriers faced by people with limited internet access and electronic devices, people with disabilities, and people with inflexible work schedules (the application period opened on a weekday).

Future research should focus on the effects of 2025 program changes, including income eligibility, application processes, and rebate amount, the researchers say. In addition, researchers noted that a statewide travel study could help assess how rebates might influence a shift from personal vehicle use to an e-bike, a question left unanswered because of limited e-bike use among current rebate recipients.

This research project was sponsored by the Applied Research in Transportation (ART) Program, which addresses time-sensitive research questions in a 6 to 12 month timeframe. CTS and the Minnesota Department of Transportation contributed initial funding to launch this pilot program in 2024, with the Metropolitan Council joining in 2025. To reinforce the applied nature of the program, ART projects must directly address a current process, document, or policy need with an initial focus on sustainability in transportation and climate change impacts.

—Peter Raeker, contributing writer  

Related Research from MnDOT

Operational Characteristics of Conventional and Electric-Assisted Bicycles and Their Riders (ongoing)

Assessing the Economic Impact and Health Benefits of Bicycling in Minnesota

Multi-modal, Pedestrian

Impact of Start Time on Students Walking and Biking to School

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To increase the number of students who walk or bike to school, policymakers first need to understand the primary factors that prevent students, parents and caregivers from choosing these travel modes. A look at the factors that influence this decision provided information to address barriers to walking and biking for children and families in Minnesota communities.

Continue reading Impact of Start Time on Students Walking and Biking to School →
Policy and Planning, Public Transit, research

Examining off-peak transit behaviors to improve transit equity

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Originally published in Catalyst, February 19, 2025

Transit service planning has traditionally focused on peak trips and the needs of “rush hour” commuters rather than off-peak travel. Often, off-peak trips are taken by shift-based essential workers and those who cannot or do not drive. The COVID-19 pandemic further underscored the need for a closer examination of these trips to improve social equity.

Continue reading Examining off-peak transit behaviors to improve transit equity →