This book discusses a unique combination of best practices and lessons learned, including evaluation and transparency issues not found elsewhere in other texts. Given that P3s are evolving and changing, it contains the most up to date information and review of relevant sources. Other topics that have become more important are reviewed, including the value of benefit cost analysis and the appropriate discount rate to use for value for money analysis. Practices and policies are discussed throughout, highlighting efforts that could lead to successful outcomes. Although transparency is an issue discussed by many, this research indicates that greater transparency would lead to more publicly accepted P3s and ensure greater success. Given recent national news coverage of relevant topics, such as the Highway Trust Fund “running out of money," President Obama’s call for an infrastructure fund, and increasing Congressional interest and testimony, the content of this book is timely. A concurrent theme commonly addressed by other books and commentaries is the complexity of the topic and the lack of understanding of P3s. This research identifies practices and procedures that are innovative and “cutting edge.” Many of the best practices identified are not uniformly adopted by all officials wishing to create P3s. The analysis does not simply describe these practices, but provides insights into the potential advantages of adoption. Experiences in the United States as well as selected international efforts provide a wide range of potential sources from which to draw upon. This book provides a series of case studies and examples, including one chapter devoted to ten studies that were written by several internationally known authors. References to actual experiences are found throughout almost all of the chapters. These case studies reinforce and illustrate relevant points made throughout.

Transportation Planning and Public Participation: Theory, Process, and Practice explains why, and then how, transportation professionals can treat public participation as an opportunity to improve their projects and identify problems before they do real damage. Using fundamental principles based on extensive project-based research and insights drawn from multiple disciplines, the book helps readers re-think their expectations regarding the project process. It shows how public perspectives can be productively solicited, gathered, modeled, and integrated into the planning and design process, guides project designers on how to ask the proper questions and identify strategies, and demonstrates the tradeoffs of different techniques. Readers will find an analytic and evaluation framework - along with process design guidelines - that will help improve the usefulness and applicability of public input. - Shows how to apply quantifiable metrics to the public participation process - Helps readers critically analyze and identify project properties that impact public participation process decisions - Provides in-depth examples that demonstrate how feedback, representation, and decision modeling can be integrated to achieve outcomes - Demonstrates basic principles using examples from a wide range of types and scales - Presents tactics on how to make public meetings more efficient and satisfying by integrating appropriate visualizations

This synthesis was prepared to report on the state of the practice and to identify effective public involvement using limited resources. Basic information is offered here for transportation agencies to further their efforts in this area. This synthesis provides information about staff and agency experiences in the application of effective and cost-effective strategies and implementation techniques used to engage the public in the development of transportation plans and projects, as well as strategies found to be ineffective. It captures respondents' definitions of successful, effective, and cost-effective public involvement and reveals a rudimentary state of the practice in the areas of costs and measures of effectiveness. Although there appeared to be no clear cut definitions of responsibilities or implementation strategies, similarities and differences were identified in four areas - organizational structure, staffing, cost quantification, and process. Detailed appendices provide abstracts of the literature reviewed and document survey questionnaire interview responses.

Because the power industry is anticipating greatly increased generating capacity requirements in the 1990s, political controversy over electricity demand and supply is likely to return to--and perhaps surpass--the level of rancor experienced during the 1970s. Fortunately, a sizable number of utility companies have come to believe that destructive c

While ecosystem management requires looking beyond specific jurisdiction and focusing on broad spatial scales, most planning decisions particularly in the USA, are made at local level. By looking at land-use planning in Florida, this volume recognizes the need for planners and resource managers to address ecosystem problems at local and community levels. The factors causing ecosystem decline, such as rapid urban development and habitat fragmentation occur at the local level and are generated by local land use policies. This book argues that understanding how local jurisdictions can capture and implement the principles of managing natural systems will lead to more sustainable levels of environmental planning in the future.

During recent years, the topic of participation has increasingly been gaining importance in Iran – in the scientific field, in practice and rhetoric. However, in current scientific literature – and especially in English literature – there is little knowledge on the conditions, legal background, perceptions, experiences and processes of citizens’ participation in Iran. This book aims to shed light on the paradoxical question of participation in Iran: it is old and new, dysfunctioning and functioning, disappointing and promising. This slippery status of participation convinces scholars to suggest contradictory interpretations and understandings about the existence, functionality, and potentiality of this concept. The book therefore shows the different perspectives, interpretations, historical developments and case studies of participation in Iran, thus giving the reader a kaleidoscope view on the question of participation in Iran.

Reflecting advances in theory, research, and application in the discipline since the publication of the Handbook of Public Relations in 2001, this new volume is global in scope and unmatched in its coverage of both academic research and professional best practice. It presents major theories in the words of the leading advocates for each theory; positions public relations as a positive force to help make society more fully functional; and challenges academics and practitioners to identify best practices that can inform the work of those in the profession.

The world’s collective archaeological heritage is threatened by war, development, poverty, climate change, and ignorance. To protect our collective past, archaeologists must involve the general public through interpersonal experiences that develop an interest in the field at a young age and foster that interest throughout a person’s life. Contributors to this volume share effective approaches for engaging and educating learners of all ages about archaeology and how one can encourage them to become stewards of the past. They offer applied examples that are not bound to specific geographies or cultures, but rather, are approaches that can be implemented almost anywhere.

TRB’s Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) Synthesis 89: Public Participation Strategies for Transit documents the state-of-the-practice in terms of public participation strategies to inform and engage the public for transit-related activities.