news>>awards>>mcdonough named tdmi young researcher

Patrick McDonough, a former student researcher at PATH, has received the Traffic Demand Management Institute’s (TDMI) Young Researcher Award for his Master’s Degree research project, “A Case-Based Reasoning Tool to Compare and Evaluate Employer-Based Transit Pass Programs.”

McDonough, who is completing his degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, created the “case-based” tool to help identify transit pass programs that are relevant to projects being developed and that might be useful as models.

The tool is built on data from 30 cases of employer-offered transit pass programs around the country.

In awarding the prize, TDMI described McDonough’s work as “well-researched and written, the approach and methodology were well-documented, and the results were solid and substantial. In addition, Mr. McDonough used the research results to develop a practical tool that will be useful to many professionals in the TDM field.”

Data for his project were collected from employers and organizations sponsoring or administering transit pass programs. McDonough included information on employer, worksite, and pass program characteristics, and analyzed characteristics related to pass participation.

According to TDMI, McDonough’s work contributes to the body of TDM knowledge in two ways: It developed the start of an employer pass programs database, and it created a tool to assist TDM practitioners to identify pass program cases that could be used as models for other regions.