A successful National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process requires defensible land-use and travel forecasts to supply information for purpose and need, alternatives analysis, and environmental impacts. While technical guidelines for producing forecasts for projects had been documented by others, guidance had not been provided on the procedural or process considerations in forecasting.

Acknowledging this, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) sought RSG’s support to develop guidance on the state-of-the-practice and relevant case law, and to describe good practice in a series of case studies. The resulting piece shares key considerations, collective lessons learned, and best practices regarding how to apply forecasting in NEPA. This is now used to help departments of transportation avoid common issues and improve the quality of their forecasts—resulting in both faster and more effective project delivery. The guidance, case law review, and case studies are available from FHWA.