About The New
Paradigms Project
The Transit Cooperative
Research Program (TCRP) began in 1997 to explore the scope and
scale of change that may be needed to enhance the relevance of
public transportation in the decades ahead.
The search for new paradigms
reflects a recognition that public transportation institutions and
services, which have remained largely unchanged over the past 40
years, have become unresponsive and inflexible in the face of
trends, conditions, needs and expectations that are dramatically
different than they were even a decade ago.
In contrast, the same
factors threatening public transportation organizations have given
rise to dramatic changes across many businesses and industries:
-
Whole industries are
being "reinvented"
-
The roles and
responsibilities of organizations and individual business units
are being redefined; and
-
Long-standing business
practices and processes are being discarded and redesigned.
The search for New Paradigms
in public transportation is, therefore, an effort to understand
how future public transportation organizations might be structured
and managed, assuming that in 10 to 15 years, public
transportation services must be pursued in a dramatically
different way if transit is to continue to support our quality of
life, the character of our communities and the competitiveness of
our economy.
The New Paradigms project is
being undertaken with three objectives in mind:
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To spur debate over the
need for fundamental change;
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To identify what types
of change may be pursued; and
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To support efforts to
enhance management and delivery of public transportation in
selected localities around the country.
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