This Handbook focuses primarily on the assessment of indirect effects and cumulative impacts for individual transportation projects. This Handbook also briefly describes a range of approaches for using the statewide or metropolitan transportation planning process to address indirect effects and cumulative impacts for a region or corridor.

A consistent theme throughout this Handbook is the importance of maintaining a clear distinction between an indirect effects analysis and a cumulative impacts analysis. For that reason, those analyses are addressed separately in the Practical Tips section of the Handbook.