DOI

10.5703/1288284317131

Abstract

The Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) is tasked with the stewardship of billions of dollars’ worth of public invested highway infrastructure. Not only does INDOT continually seek design and operational policies that foster cost effective project delivery and procurement, they also seek opportunities for revenue generation.

Due to population growth and the increased demand for online connectivity and global information transmission, the fiber-optic cable industry has experienced rapid growth over the past few years. Information and communication technology (ICT) companies have long sought to achieve higher economic productivity by installing fiber-optic cables in the right of way (ROW) of access-controlled highways.

Based on these developments, an experiment was conducted to measure the economic impact in Indiana. To determine this impact, a database was developed by compartmentalizing the analysis into (1) GDP per county per industry type, (2) the natural growth of GDP as a factor, and (3) the extent of contribution of broadband in the growth of GDP. A general formula was developed to incorporate the adjusted median income on both the industry and county levels, along with a broadband contribution factor. This formula was employed to determine policies that can produce optimum economic outcome by leveraging the Pareto method.

Report Number

FHWA/IN/JTRP-2020/15

Keywords

conduit, fiber-optic, global connectivity, information transmission, economic productivity, GDP growth

SPR Number

4319

Performing Organization

Joint Transportation Research Program

Publisher Place

West Lafayette, IN

Date of this Version

2020

Additional Files
SPR-4319 Technical Summary.pdf (476 kB)
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