To learn more about what we do, you can find descriptions of our projects. The site also offers detailed information about the PSA team and our mission. If you want further information about any of our projects, or you would like to discuss our research program, please contact us. We would be happy to assist with your inquiry.

The PSA team works on a wide variety of transportation related problems. PSA Team work features:

Innovative Methods

The PSA Team works to develop analytic approaches that facilitate and integrate public preferences more efficiently. We work from the premise that all stakeholders have legitimate opinions and preferences and that ways should be sought to include their input. We draw on various advanced analytic techniques such as multicriteria decision analysis and visualization. Emphasis is placed on understanding the merits of specific technologies when used in public processes.

These techniques contribute towards a rethinking of public involvement that places technologies in their social context and treats them as embedded dialogic factors. We term this concept Structured Public Involvement.

Project Experience

The team has many years of experience working with partners including Federal and State highway and transportation agencies, private consultants, local development organizations and various groups of stakeholders including residents, commuters, commercial organizations and interest groups. Team members have extensive experience preparing, hosting and facilitating public meetings and focus groups and designing and delivering training programs.

Applied Research

The team's work is always focused on real problems of genuine importance to the transportation community. For example, in partnership with a local development authority, one study investigated the performance of different visualization methods for a specific highway design problem. Another project deals with using visualization in collaboration with a metropolitan transit organization to determine the preferred features of a Transit-Oriented Development. Another project calls for the integration of a wide range of stakeholders in determining features of an ITS system in the Cumberland Gap Tunnel.

Interdisciplinary Knowledge

Team members hold a wide variety of qualifications and they are skilled in a range of research techniques, including advanced quantitative methods and qualitative methods as well as more traditional statistical and survey methods. The team works to overcome the compartmentalization of knowledge.

Policy and Systems Analysis is a division of the University of Kentucky Transportation Center.