The Urban Partnership Agreement: A Comparative Study of
Technology and Collaboration in Transportation Policy
Implementation
John M. Bryson, Barbara C. Crosby, Melissa M. Stone, Emily Saunoi-Sandgren, Anders S. Imboden
April 2011
Report no. CTS 11-07
Abstract
The problems faced by today's public managers are often too large to be solved by a single entity and require
collaboration across government, nonprofit, and business sectors. As new technologies and systematic approaches
transform the transportation field, cross-sector collaboration has become an increasingly important policy
development and implementation approach. Particularly within the transportation field, an assemblage of
technologies is often critical to implementing system-wide strategies aimed at, for example, mitigating traffic
congestion. In many cases, designers and implementers of effective transportation policies must combine a variety
of technologies with deft relationship building and management. Through the development of comparative case
studies of three of the Urban Partnership Agreement initiatives, this research study will examine how technology
and collaborative processes may be combined to achieve important transportation goals and create public value
more generally.
Sponsored by: ITS Institute (RITA)