TCRP Legal Studies

The TCRP Legal Aspects of Transit and Intermodal Transportation Programs provides legal research on topics of interest to the public transportation community. The studies focus on legal and regulatory issues and challenges affecting the public transportation industry and their findings are published in TCRP's Legal Research Digest (LRD) series. The LRD series provides attorneys practicing in the area of public transportation with a single repository of authoritative and well-researched papers on the issues affecting them and their clients.

Expert Volunteers

A panel of transportation attorneys provide project oversight for TCRP Project J-05 by selecting topics and providing technical guidance on each digest written by contractors. These dedicated volunteers represent the various stakeholders in the public transportation legal community, including CEOs and Chief Counsels who are tasked with navigating through the complexities of the legal and regulatory issues.

TCRP Legal Studies Research Process

The panel selects the topics and prepares the scope of work for which proposals are solicited. Through consensus the panel selects the proposer who they believe will best meet their research objective. The panel then oversees and approves the research and makes a publication recommendation.

Most legal studies follow the same tasks and panel oversight, though there are topics in which the panel believes that more oversight and guidance is necessary.

Task 1: The contractor conducts preliminary research and prepares an outline of the paper. The panel reviews it for three weeks and then engages in a conference call with the contractor.

Task 2: The contractor conducts further research.

Task 3: The contractor prepares a preliminary draft based on the approved outline. The panel reviews it for three weeks and then engages in a conference call with the contractor.

Task 4: The contractor prepares the draft report based on panel feedback and submits a red-lined version and a clean version for panel review. The panel will review it and within three weeks provide detailed comments and feedback. The contractor will then respond to each comment and make changes as appropriate and submit the final report.

Once the final report has been approved for publication by the National Research Council, it will be quality checked and lightly edited. The contractor can expect queries from these processes that require the contractor's quick response to ensure timely publication.

Topics

The legal studies program has researched and published a variety of subject areas exploring the legal implications of a broad range of topics, including: federal, state, and local regulations; day-to-day operations and tenant activities; and airport governance. Our topics are selected by the TCRP J-05 panel which are submitted by the industry at any time throughout the year.

Getting Involved

Submit a topic idea
Submit a proposal in response to an RFP
Volunteer to serve on the panel
Read TCRP's Legal Digests

For further information, contact Gwen Chisholm Smith at 202/334-3246 or gsmith@nas.edu .

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