The California Department of Transportation has a budget of approximately US$ 10 billion over a four-year period for the repair of the infrastructure of the freeways and freeway bridges in California. However, this budget is not sufficient to implement all the measures requested. A selection of measures to be carried out must therefore be made. Among other things, this is difficult because, for example, the respective representatives of the various Californian districts are demanding as many repair measures as possible in their own administrative area in order to improve the infrastructure in their district, create jobs and ultimately be re-elected. Similar problems, for example in the allocation of funds for broadband expansion, are all too well known in Germany. Clear and precise evaluation criteria are required for transparent evaluation and logical selection.
Prof. Ralph Keeney and Prof. Johannes Siebert supported the California Department of Transportation in this selection decision in autumn 2014. In the first step, individual and group interviews were conducted with decision makers from the California Department of Transportation to identify relevant values and goals. In the second step, the goals were structured and, in particular, the strategic goals were calculated. In the third step, the goals were operationalized, i.e. made measurable. On this basis, the California Department of Transportation can evaluate all measures transparently and comprehensibly and make an appropriate decision about their selection.