To help alleviate congestion and improve connections across the Ohio River between Kentucky and Indiana, the states pursued the Louisville-Southern Indiana Ohio River Bridges Project. The project, which opened in 2017, built a new bridge and doubled the capacity of an existing bridge over the Ohio River, with each state responsible for the financing of one of the bridges.
How we helped
Steer prepared investment grade traffic and revenue forecasts for the project to support Kentucky’s financing of its share of the project. In this role, we undertook an extensive data collection program to support the development of the traffic forecasting model. The data collection included a travel survey, traffic counts and travel time runs. The traffic forecasting model included both network model and econometric model components.
We also helped analyze environmental justice issues and are now providing traffic monitoring services.
Successes and outcomes
Our forecasts were included in project’s plan of finance and we presented them to bond rating agencies, US Department of Transportation (DOT) Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) and potential investors to support successful bond issuance in 2013.