Interpretation of Public Feedback to Transportation Policy: A Qualitative Perspective

Due to inadequate funding for road maintenance and expansion, many state governments are exploring the implementation of a vehicle-miles-traveled (VMT) policy. Such a policy requires adequate communication to the public that not only informs but also communicates the issues of concern to the constituents. As part of this communication, the Nevada Department of Transportation began by conducting workshops, while local newspapers allowed Internet-based response to the basic idea of this tax. Our article takes the qualitative data obtained from these multiple sources and analyzes it via a two-pronged qualitative methodology. First, we ascertain common profiles through iterative coding, and then we use concept maps to delve into the relationships between themes within these segments. Our findings indicate that by using qualitative segmentation followed by concept mapping of open-ended customer data, public policy officials can find genres or issues of interest to large segments and address those in communication endeavors.

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