Question

In the 1990s, a task force was formed among executives of seven regional transportation agencies in the New York–New Jersey area.11 The mission of the task force was to investi- gate the feasibility and desirability of adopting electronic toll collection (ETC) for the inter- regional roadways of the area. Electronic toll collection is accom- plished by providing commuters with small transceivers (tags) that emit a tuned radio signal. Receivers placed at tollbooths are able to receive the radio signal and identify the commuter associated with the particular signal. Commuters establish ETC accounts that are debited for each use of a toll road or facility, thus elimi- nating the need for the commuter to pay by cash or token. Because the radio signal can be read from a car in motion, ETC can reduce traffic jams at toll plazas by allowing tag holders to pass through at moderate speeds. At the time the New York and New Jersey agencies were studying the service, electronic toll collection was already being used successfully in Texas and Louisiana. Even though several of the agencies had individually considered implementing ETC, they recognized that independent adoption would fall far short of the potential benefits achievable with an integrated interregional system. The task force was most interested in identifying the ideal configuration of service attributes for each agency’s commuters and determining how similar or different these configurations might be across agencies. The task force identified a lengthy list of attributes that was ultimately culled to six questions:

• How many accounts are necessary and what statements will be received?

• How and where does one pay for E-ZPass?

• What lanes are available for use and how they are controlled?

• Is the tag transferable to other vehicles?

• What is the price of the tag and possible service charge?

• What are other possible uses for the E-ZPass tag (airport parking, gasoline purchases, and so forth)?

From a researcher’s perspective, it also seemed important to assess commuter demand for the service. However, the task force was not convinced that it needed a projection of demand, because it was committed to implementing ETC regardless of initial com- muter acceptance. The task force considered its primary role to be investigating commuters’ preferences for how the service should be configured ideally.

Questions

1. Evaluate the problem-definition process. Has the problem been defined adequately so that a relevant decision statement can be written?

2. What type of research design would you recommend for this project?

3. What research questions might be tested?

4. What might a dummy table include in this research proposal?

Subject: Business Research Management

Please write more than 500 words.

Answer 1

1. Problem definition process:

The process involves various stages like analysis of the environment to identify symptoms, relate the symptoms to problems and then come up with decision statements to address the problems. In this case of implementing E-Z Pass in New York, the problem-definition process appears incomplete.

• Situation analysis: The situation of traffic jams is experienced and is proposed to be fixed through implementation of an electronic toll collection system. There is no analysis of the situation. Interviewing the road users, probing them on different aspects of their experience will give better insights.
• Symptoms: basic data collection on what is causing the traffic jam must be analysed. Data must be collected on growth of population, demand, road-vehicle capacity, peak hour traffic, average time to pass through toll booths, amounts being collected at toll booths, etc. to arrive at possible symptoms.
• Potential Problem: Based on the evaluation of the symptoms, the possible problems must be identified. All symptoms may not be problems, and at the same time, what appears to be the problem may only be a symptom of a larger problem. In this case, the transportation agencies have stated the problem to be the long waiting time at toll booths resulting traffic jams. However, there may be several reasons for the traffic jam like growth in population, higher demand for cars due to lower oil price, poor public transport, etc. This can be evaluated only after all the data analysis of the symptoms are done.
• Decision statement: There must be actionable terms with consensus from all the stakeholders on what problem is being solved. In this case, the decision to implement electronic toll system is based on assumptions and lacks a clear research-based problem identification.

2. Research design: To understand which independent variables are the causes resulting in traffic jams at the toll booth, a causal research design may be adopted in this case. If the agencies are not open to revisiting their decision, then the research design will be a descriptive one restricted to merely finding out the user experience of the new electronic system. Research methods will include survey of road users with a scientific sample size.

3. Research questions: Since the electronic toll collection system is seeking to solve the problem of traffic jams, the research question must reflect the research objective. Some of the hypotheses that can be tested iare “reducing waiting time at toll booth will result in lesser traffic jams”, “easy electronic toll collection will encourage more people to use the toll roads, thereby increasing traffic”.

4. Dummy tables give a hypothetical result of the research in an easy presentable style. In this case since the research is testing the relation between traffic jams and toll booth waiting times, the dummy table to be included in the reasearch proposal may be as shown below: