JONATHAN GIFFORD: NATIONAL ACADEMIES FELLOW

Until next spring, Professor Jonathan Gifford will be on sabbatical, working on a project that will investigate how individuals make decisions about transportation, as a Transportation Research Board Fellow at The National Academies in DC. “Most individuals don’t have the time or inclination to rethink their transportation alternatives and choices every time they make a trip—habit and routine play a strong role,” Gifford says, explaining the work he will be doing. “Yet most transportation planning organizations do not have systematic ways to take bounded rationality into account when evaluating new transportation facilities and services. So I’ll be considering questions like: How will users respond to the introduction of varying tolls on the Beltway? What are the most effective ways of designing software to provide route and fare information for transit users? Will users give up searching before finding the optimal choice?” The research approach for the study includes a literature review and the exploration of promising case studies.

Professor Jonathan Gifford

“Jonathan has been one of our most active volunteers,” Mark R. Norman, the director of the Technical Activities Division of the Transportation Research Board, has said. He points out that Gifford currently chairs the TRB Standing Committee on Transportation and Land Development; and is a member of five other standing committees, as well as the being GMU university representative to TRB. Gifford is also the director of the Master’s of Transportation Policy, Operations and Logistics program at SPP.