Sen. Barack Obama's transportation policies fall under the "Additional issues" category of the "Issues" section of his website, which is surprising given how much political discussion revolves around transportation these days. In general he makes the sort of "big commitments" that can be expected. However, while there are definite IT implications to these commitments, the lack of specificity makes it difficult to pinpoint what the potential impact might be at the state and local levels.

• Obama's foremost commitment is to repairing the nation's aging road and bridge infrastructure. So, this would drive significant interest in technologies for managing worksite safety and traffic flow. In some cases these would be purchased by contractors and, in other cases, by the state or locality, depending on whose crew is doing the work. There should be a play here for implementation of new sensor technologies to help monitor the state of bridges and allow some prioritization of repair projects.
• The Democratic Presidential nominee's position on passenger and cargo rail is more muddled. He takes pride in his support of "The Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2007," but this legislation is focused primarily on Amtrak and improving the high-speed Northeast Corridor. It certainly proposes no great leap forward in day-to-day rail technology. Obama doesn't even mention the recent passenger collision in L.A.--one of the nation's worst ever--or Congress's recent legislation to implement positive train control systems nationwide...by 2015!
• Obama pays some attention to congestion, which implies the potential for additional federal support for IT-intensive congestion pricing programs, but his verbiage is mostly concerned with encouraging bike riding and walking.
• Finally, his platform pays a fair amount of attention to critical infrastructure protection (CIP) as it pertains to transportation. However, the vast majority spending in this area has been for air traffic control and safety via the FAA and DHS's TSA, and the weight of his verbiage does not imply any significant departure from this trend with the possible exception of mass transit systems.

See Republican Presidential nominee Sen. John McCain's (AZ) position on this issue below. INPUT will be providing weekly coverage of the candidates via this blog.