Abstract—Thepaper examines the change of U.S.transport policy on the institutional analysis framework. The U.S.governmenthas always paid more attention to the development of transport and issued aseries of transport policies. Transport policy change in U.S.experiences three phases: enlarging capacity, regulating structure, promotingsustainable transport. In the process, the change of the status of transport,the characters of exterior resource and environment are the direct inducementof transport policy change; political institution and transport organizationalinstitution decide the difficult or easy change; society notion and ideologyadvocating liberty affect the direction of the change. The U.S.transport policy change provides the veryvaluable experiences for Chinathat the policy should be formulated scientifically and should beforward-looking, and the institution in political fields should be reformed toreduce the barriers in the process of formulating and implementing of transportpolicy.

Keywords-Institutional economic analysis, Transport policy, Transport policy change,U.S.

1. Introduction

At present, the development of variousmodes of transport in U.S.leaps into the front ranks of the world. There are 6.24 million km of roads,3.2 million km of oil and gas pipelines, 192 thousand km of railways, more than40,000 km of commercial inlandwaterways and more than 5,000 public airports in 2004 according to the U.S.Department of Transportation (abbr. DOT). The gigantic transport system isattributed to the transport policies for years.

2. The process of transport policychange in U.S.

As the important status in socio-economicdevelopment and economic characteristics of transport industry sector, the U.S.government has always issued transport policy which paid more attention totransport[1]. Overall, the U.S.transport policy change is divided into the following phases: