The progressive improvement of the transport system depends on the level of understanding of it. In turn the level of understanding depends on the quality of the research used to develop it. It is important to ensure that research is carried out independently and produces results which progressively improve the level of service of the transport system. This paper forms part of a larger study identifying the means of increasing the real and perceived value of transportation research in Australasia, with a view to making the funding thereof a more attractive investment to potential funders. It concludes that currently, economic benefits of transportation research are the primary and practically sole means of assessing transportation research quality. There is reason to believe that this undervalues the research in terms of the impact it has or potentially can have on social endeavours. Research quality has moved beyond being a measure of the academic or intellectual impact of research. While the extent to which outputs from research are used is still a measure of other researchers perceptions of quality, factors such as rigour, relevance of the topic and innovation are increasingly important factors in determining research quality’ and need to be considered. The common link between these two overarching observations is that the new measures of both impact and quality are of a qualitative nature. (a)
Abstract