An Agency Guide on How to Establish Localized Congestion Mitigation Programs

A. Templates for Implementation

A.1 Template #1. Public Outreach Identification Process

Overview

This approach to starting a LBR program utilizes a public outreach campaign to identify bottleneck locations. After all, who knows more about traveling local roads than the people who use them every day? Major congestion issues are usually thoroughly identified through the traditional regional long-range planning approach, but there are hundreds of more targeted neighborhood-based problems throughout any region that are sometimes overlooked, even though they can be just as frustrating to drivers. Often these bottlenecks can be addressed much more quickly than larger projects.

Key Elements

• Good method to quickly identify bottlenecks at a modest cost.
• Requires coordination between different organizational elements within an agency.
• Builds public support which could be leveraged for targeted revenue initiatives to fix the worst bottlenecks.
• Response rates from the public can be significant and feedback of results is critical to success.

Approach

Step 1. Establish the types of bottlenecks to solicit.

Agencies should first decide how broadly or narrowly they want to explore bottlenecks in their region. For example, a region could choose to only look for suggestions for pedestrian-related issues. Likewise, the focus could be on signalization issues on corridors or even centered on modal concerns.

Step 2. Determine outreach mechanisms.

Once the scope of the outreach is clarified, an approach to solicit the public’s input should be developed next. Leveraging the public input is an appealing approach to identifying bottlenecks since almost all transportation agencies have experience in communicating with the public. Outreach mechanism to consider include public meetings, telephone surveys, mail-in questionnaires, web-based surveys, and even newer social media surveys.

Whichever approach is selected, a targeted questionnaire should then be developed. The length, detail, and composition will be driven by the delivery mechanism. Care should be taken if multiple channels are utilized such as public meetings and telephone surveys. In these cases, one survey approach or questionnaire will probably not be appropriate and multiple methods to solicit responses to the public will be warranted.

Agency Public Information Offices (PIO) should be engaged in this process early; since they can provide a wealth of experience and expertise in reaching the public. The PIO can also help secure local press coverage of the agency’s bottleneck efforts. This exposure can increase participation in public meetings as well as any survey mechanisms utilized.

Step 3. Develop prioritization and sorting methodology.

Once bottleneck locations are collected, a mechanism must be developed to rank and prioritize the responses. Transportation agencies routinely prioritize and rank projects. However, for this effort, it is not recommended that any traditional extensive modeling or benefit analyses be conducted. These traditional planning processes, although well established, are too cumbersome for this effort since in this case input from the public is the driver not a technical processes.

Instead, priorities should be established by agencies using sketch level and simplified ranking mechanisms. Examples in include comparing the public identified projects with those in the TIP and LRTP as well as against congested sections identified in their Congestion Management System. Priorities could also be assigned by simply assessing the frequency of the number of occurrence of either specific bottlenecks or bottleneck subregions thereby generating regional hot spots.

Step 4. Create feedback mechanism.

Sharing the results of the bottleneck outreach and prioritization is vital to the success of this approach. Working with the PIO, agencies should ensure the results are released. Examples include holding another round of public meetings, additional press conference or releases, or a coordinated public relations campaign to promote the findings.

Example: Operation Bottleneck, Metroplan, Little Rock, Arkansas

Metroplan, the MPOs for the Little Rock region, implemented a program dubbed “Operation Bottleneck” aimed at identifying current congested locations that are amenable to relatively quick and inexpensive treatments. Major congestion problems – arterial corridors and freeway sections/interchanges with major capacity deficiencies – are well known throughout the area. Further, future (major) problems have been identified with the modeling done for the long-range transportation plan. However, funding for the major improvements necessary at these locations must come from either:

• State DOT, Arkansas State Highway and Transportation Department (they would be managed as state projects); and
• Local governments saving up several years of state and Federal allocations for a single project.

Metroplan wanted a way to serve their constituents better than constructing a scarce few megaprojects. Further, the region is almost in nonattainment for the eight-hour ozone standard. Operation Bottleneck is largely based on the establishment of a Regional Mobility Authority (RMA). In Arkansas, an RMA is a coordinating body with no taxing powers – member counties would have to raise the taxes necessary to fund projects; multiple counties would be involved. Most likely, the RMA will be based on a temporary increase in local sales taxes county-by-county; they feel it is important to sunset the tax so it is more palatable to the public and elected officials. Metroplan leverages state and Federal funds against their self-generated revenue to fund the projects. Also key to the strategy is a specific list of projects to be funded by the tax increase, and most of the Operation Bottleneck effort went into project identification, as discussed below.

Project identification is being driven almost exclusively by public input via local meetings and an Internet survey. Metroplan also hired a marketing firm to promote the program through local media. Both congestion safety problem areas are being solicited, along with other modal deficiencies (transit, special transportation). A huge range of responses have been received, from megaprojects to minor problems on local roads. For congestion problems, signals and interchanges are dominating the responses. Safety problems identified by the public tend to be more general than site-specific.

Metroplan staff assembled the projects and developed a list of projects to iterate with the public. Staff also made revenue projections under different sales tax rates. No formal benefits assessment was conducted – as with project identification Metroplan emphasized that public input is the driver for Operation Bottleneck, not technical processes (which they use for all other transportation planning activities). The staff compared public-identified projects with those in the TIP and LRTP as well as against congested sections identified in their Congestion Management System in developing a prioritized list. Metroplan staff said two types of improvements that dominated the project list:

1. Low-cost arterial improvements. Improved timing, intersection approach geometric improvements, and access management.
2. Roundabouts at uncontrolled, stop sign-controlled, or low-volume signal locations.

A.2 Template #2: Leverage Existing Non-Bottleneck-Related Processes

Overview

This approach to starting a LBR program promotes integrating a bottleneck program with congestion or safety programs already active in a transportation agency. Since starting a LBR program can sometimes face institutional, bureaucratic, as well as funding challenges, one successful method of addressing bottlenecks is to ensure LBR issues are integrated into already existing agency project identification and funding procedures. Established congestion or safety programs routinely survey for issues and hot spots and provide a great opportunity to be integrated with LBR issues. The advantage of this approach is that LBR-related projects will have access to an established funding mechanism.

Key Elements

• Provides LBR-related projects access to established funding mechanism;
• Bottleneck identification is linked to traditional processes which are potentially slower than other LBR approaches discussed in this report;
• Requires internal institutional reconfiguration of traditional processes which could take time as well as political momentum; and
• Care must be taken in ensuring LBR projects are given opportunity to compete fairly against other more traditional projects.

Approach

Step 1. Identify existing program.

Transportation agencies looking to integrate LBR projects into existing procedures should first do an assessment of which of their current programs are applicable. Options could include integrating LBR concepts into an agency’s traditional corridor improvement process. For example, the identification of bottlenecks and potential short-term fixes could be included as part of an overall and long-term strategy for making corridor improvements. Or a review of existing traditional large-scale corridor studies could identify opportunities for using LBR improvements as part of the package of improvements similar to that of a road safety audit. Agencies could also work to integrate LBR activities and initiatives into their existing Congestion Management Programs. Finally, LBR projects could be linked with safety programs and bottleneck issues and criteria could be added to the process of identifying safety projects.

Step 2. Integrate bottleneck-related metrics into project evaluation procedures.

Ensuring bottleneck-related metrics are included into the project evaluation process is a critical step in this approach. The metrics to include vary greatly depending on the type of traditional program. However, there are some core metrics which should be considered. Examples include simple V/C ratios, hours of delay, total daily delay, reliability, or something as simple as frequency of signal retiming. Since this approach is promoting the integration of LBR issues into existing processes, it should be noted that only a few bottleneck-related metrics will be eventually included in the final process.

Example

When the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) revamped their Highway Safety Plan (HSP) efforts a number of years ago, one of the controlling elements identified was the level of congestion. A number of analyses showed that the highway safety and levels of congestion were intertwined, so an element was included in the HSP to specifically address congested locations regardless of the crash levels. ODOT’s HSP for the past six years has addressed congested locations in addition to freeway and nonfreeway high-crash locations. The HSP is administered by the Office of Systems Planning and Program management in the Division of Planning and the Districts through the District Safety Coordinators. Each year about $65M in funding is awarded for projects in the various categories that make up the program. Additionally, the districts utilize a portion of their budgets for low-cost improvements. The program has four elements in addition to the identification and study of high-crash locations that are described below.

• Hot Spot Locations. Defined as any two-mile segment of freeway with more than 250 crashes or a nonfreeway location with more than 250 crashes over three years.
• Rear-End Hot Spot Locations Map. Crash threshold set at 150 rear-end crashes for the section (both freeways and nonfreeways).
• Congestion. Identified by calculating a roadway’s volume to capacity ratio (V/C). Sections with V/C ratios greater than 1.0 are considered congested and added to the annual work plan. Sections with V/C ratios between 0.9 and 1.0 are added if they are outside of Columbus, Cincinnati, and Cleveland.
• Corridor Safety Program. Corridors with the highest density of fatal crashes are studied and addressed using a crossjurisdictional approach that combines engineering, enforcement, and educational resources.

The District Safety Review teams are required to study the locations identified in these components, as well as high-crash locations. The congested locations often show up on multiple lists, including the Hot Spot or High-Crash Location lists. When this is the case, the higher order study takes place and the location is listed as the higher order need. In general, this order is High-Crash Location, Hot Spot Location, then Congestion Location. This makes it difficult to identify all congestion relief efforts since a significant number of locations are listed on the higher order lists. The statistics presented here are based on locations flagged in ODOT’s Safety and Congestion Work Plan as congested locations, so they should not be considered as all inclusive of ODOT’s efforts in congestion relief.

The list of congested locations is determined using ODOT’s Road Inventory databases and applying highway capacity calculations to determine V/C ratios. The methodology includes analysis of signalized intersections and the development of artificial signalized intersections in urban areas that do not have accurate traffic signal inventories. Attachment 1 is the current ODOT list of congested locations that was generated in July of 2007. Study outcomes and fixes are tracked in a database. This database includes all locations since the effort started approximately six years ago.

Each location is studied using an abbreviated format that includes verification of the actual congestion issue by the District Safety Review Team. This is necessary since the data used to determine that statewide list is system level and may not always reflect actual conditions within a given section of roadway. ODOT has been collecting cost data and hopes to eventually be able to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of the various countermeasures being utilized at congestion locations.

Solutions are grouped according to length of effectiveness and cost. Each Congestion Fix receives a Cost/Time code that is determined by rating Cost as Low, Medium, or High and Time as Short Term, Mid Term, or Long Term. The solutions range from simple maintenance activities to the programming of major projects. A number of Short-Term/Low-Cost recommendations have included meeting with the local law enforcement agencies, review of signs and pavement markings for upgrade, and use of time lapse video to analyze actual travel patterns.

Additional low-cost improvements have included signal timing revisions; minor striping and signing changes (e.g., changing lane assignments on intersection approaches); and other measures that can be accomplished by state or local staff. Medium-cost improvements have included signing, striping, and RPM upgrades/revisions; minor widening (e.g., turning lanes; and traffic signal system upgrades). High-cost improvements are either new projects with the primary purpose of addressing the congestion or are major components of larger projects that are often major system rehabilitation efforts.

In summary, Ohio has been studying congestion sections and locations as part of their Highway Safety Program for the past six years and has been applying solutions to these that range from increased law enforcement and roadside assistance patrols to major reconstruction projects. They are collecting data and intend to use it to develop benefit/cost factors for future use and to evaluate the effectiveness of the solutions implemented. The location studies are prepared and reviewed by the District Safety Review teams that are multidiscipline teams well acquainted with using a wide variety of methods to implement solutions. They also can quickly determine if a specific location is listed on the various other components of the HSP. A variety of methods are used to implement improvements ranging from state or local forces performing the work to Federal-aid construction contracts.

A.3 Template #3: Internal Identification Processes

Overview

This approach to starting a LBR program leverages internal expertise within a transportation agency in identifying bottlenecks. Major congestion issues are usually thoroughly identified by transportation agency personnel through the traditional regional and state long-range planning approach. However, there are perhaps hundreds of smaller scale targeted bottleneck problems which are overlooked simply because their scale does not compare to the larger congestion issues. In this approach to setting up a LBR program, the districts and regions are called upon to identify these other smaller projects. District and regional employees have the closest interaction with public; engage with them on a regular basis on a variety of traffic, congestion, or safety issues; and are in many times the best experts in identifying real bottlenecks that affect drivers every day.

Key Elements

• Low cost since agency staff are being polled and no public outreach is required; and
• Short timeline since many times, district and region engineers and planners already know where many local bottlenecks exist.

Approach

Step 1. Establish the types of bottlenecks to solicit.

Agencies should first decide how broadly or narrowly they want to explore bottlenecks in their region. For example, a region could choose to only look for suggestions for pedestrian-related issues. Likewise, the focus could be on signalization issues and corridors or even centered on modal concerns.

Step 2. Determine bottleneck solicitation mechanisms.

Once the scope of the outreach is clarified, an approach to solicit the districts or regions should be developed. It is recommended that an internal “call for projects” be developed and disseminated to the districts and regions. This call should have explicit directions on the information required for each bottleneck to target. This information should include standard performance measures such as traffic and safety, but the submission criteria should be flexible enough to include nontraditional metrics. It is recommended that a relatively short timeframe be assigned for the projects to be submitted. A shorter timeframe will promote a “tiger team” approach and districts and regions will be more motivated to ensure projects in their region are included to compete with other statewide projects.

Automated survey mechanism (i.e., web-based) could be utilized as well but care should be taken to ensure they are robust enough to allow districts and regions flexibility in submitting a wide variety of projects.

Step 3. Develop prioritization and sorting methodology.

Once bottleneck locations are collected, a mechanism must be developed to rank and prioritize the responses. Transportation agencies routinely prioritize and rank projects. However, for this effort, it is not recommended that any traditional extensive modeling or benefit analyses be conducted. These traditional planning processes, although well established, are too cumbersome for this effort.

Instead, priorities should be established by agencies using more strategic and simplified ranking mechanisms. Examples include comparing the potential LBR projects with those in the TIP and LRTP or ranking projects higher if they have lesser environmental documentation.

The ranking could be conducted by engineers and planners from Central Office or Headquarters or an expert panel could be formed with representation from each district and region to determine the priorities of the bottlenecks.

Step 4. Develop Bottleneck Project Plans.

Once projects are identified, project plans need to be developed and the projects programmed. It is recommended that a quick turn project plans be developed for these projects. Elements include geometric sketches, traffic and safety impacts, costs, and even rough benefit/cost analyses. The projects need to be developed so that they can either compete for set aside LBR dollars or compete with other projects in the traditional programming process.

Example

Mn/DOT was originally driven to explore low-cost congestion relief projects because of budgetary restrictions but quickly realized that these projects could be implemented very quickly (and thus were highly visible to the public). They also found that because of low costs, they could identify multiple locations all over the region – the projects could be “spread around.”

The cornerstone of this process is the Congestion Management Planning Study (CMPS). This was developed as quick turnaround study so that projects could be recommended to the Legislature before it adjourned for the session. (The process was started in February and results achieved in May.) It was envisioned as a “tuning study” – how can the system be “tuned” in specific areas to get congestion relief rather than rebuilt. Although cast as a single study, it is hoped that it can be integrated as an ongoing process within the Department. The process works as follows:

• Step 1: Project Identification. Projects were identified from a number of different sources, including Mn/DOT project lists, Mn/DOT Area Managers, SRF Consulting Group, Inc., Mn/DOT Metro District’s Safety Capacity, Mn/DOT’s freeway congestion maps and the Governor’s 2007 bonding list. By combining the information gathered from the sources, 184 projects were identified and included in this study as congestion management projects.
• Step 2: Screening #1. A series of binary tests (pass/fail) were applied to the projects, resulting in downsizing the list to 100 projects:
• Project cost < $15M;
  • Project not in three-year TIP;
  • Could require project memorandum or lesser environmental documentation;
  • Annual hours of delay > 25,000 hours of congestion;
  • Freeway or Arterial > two hours of congestion; and
  • Arterial relieves parallel congested freeway or directly responsible for freeway congestion.
• Step 3: Screening #2. Qualitative criteria were applied, resulting in 60 projects still under consideration:
  • Project implementation/design readiness;
  • Cost range;
  • Congestion benefit (weighted delay);
  • Traffic management for construction;
  • Future demand changes; and
  • Relieves congestion without adverse downstream affects.
• Step 4: Expert Workshop. Short-range congestion projects were prioritized by expert group during half-day workshop, resulting in 19 projects totaling $60.8M. The projects fell into three broad categories:
  • Low-cost capacity improvements (e.g., auxiliary lanes);
  • Restriping to change lane configuration (which the maintenance department could handle); and
  • Traffic control device improvements (add ramp meters and “tune” signal timing).
• Step 5: Project Planning. For each of the 19 projects, the following project estimates were prepared:
  • Geometric sketches;
  • Type and scope of project;
  • Congestion impacts;
  • Safety impacts; and
  • Estimated benefit-to-cost ratio.

Bottleneck Performance Measures

The State of Minnesota (not just the DOT) has been a leader in developing and using performance measures to assess how it is meeting customer expectations. In accordance with these principles, evaluation of completed projects is being done to track the effectiveness of current and future investments:

• Measurement of “before” and “after” project conditions to assess the project’s effectiveness and build experience for the type of benefits those different projects can deliver;
• Annual system measures that can capture overall congestion trends for different systems over time (e.g., Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) congestion index, percentage of Metro Urban Freeway System (MUFS) congested); and
• Measurement of strategies to shifts peak demands to off-peak periods (e.g., number of persons moved at the per lane capacity with speeds greater than 45 mph).

A preliminary list of performance measures being considered are as follows. Additional ones may be developed in the future and not all may apply to the bottleneck relief projects:

1. Percentage of miles congested (i.e., number of directional miles with speeds < 45 mph during peak periods);
2. Total daily delay (volume x time difference between actual and posted speed);
3. Reliability (TTI – Congestion Index/Travel Time Buffer Index);
4. Miles of FIRST/incident response coverage;
5. Number of hours where volume > capacity;
6. Frequency of signal retiming;
7. Percent of arterials with coordinated signals;
8. “Before/After” benefit/cost ratio of corridor improvements;
9. “Before/After” benefit/cost ratio of signal retiming;
10. Customer satisfaction survey of peak-hour travel (omnibus transportation survey);
11. Percent of MUFS instrumented;
12. Planned lane closures System;
13. Unplanned lane closures System;
14. Average clearance time for snow and ice removal;
15. Average clearance time for freeway incidents; and
16. Throughput (i.e., number of vehicles through a specific corridor or across a screenline over a specified time period).

Overall, the CMSP process follows a procedure to develop candidate projects. (Freeway Performance data are used in the screening but in a very high-level way). Mn/DOT”s freeway data system provides lane by lane data for all controlled access road as well as all ramps – this allows them to easily created accurate and timely analysis on an as needed basis. This existing archive data system allowed Mn/DOT order to keep to the aggressive schedule. At the end of the process (Step 5) more quantification comes into play. This process worked extremely well in the eyes of Mn/DOT – they feel that a more labor intensive, and drawn-out procedure would have essentially yielded the same project list. The reason appears to be that current bottleneck problems are easily identified through visual inspection and via the freeway surveillance data, so a detailed analysis is not required.

Another aspect of the streamlining (in addition to the qualitative project identification and screening process) is that some larger environmental aspects could not be addressed (e.g., area drainage). In order to keep the costs low and the projects quickly implementable, these environmental concerns were thought to be within the scope of the longer-term “megaprojects” being planned for.

Bottleneck Funding

No separate funding program was established for the CMPS projects – they have to compete for funding with other projects. If projects are seeking Federal funding, then they have to go through the evaluation process established by the MPOs, which has its own set of evaluation criteria.

Example Bottleneck Projects

Three low-cost bottleneck projects were highlighted by Mn/DOT. (These are being submitted as examples by the Division.) The positive impacts of these projects on congestion are dramatic. (See Table A.1 and A.2 for details.)

• I-394 at Louisiana Street. Mn/DOT added an auxiliary lane one mile long at a cost of $2.6M. Previously, queues could back up for six miles on this section; after completion, queues were reduced to zero! (for recurring conditions).
• I-94 in St. Paul. A four-lane section of freeway connected to two six-lane sections (a lane-drop bottleneck). Queues were 2.0 miles in the eastbound direction. Mn/DOT increased the number of lanes to six throughout this extended segment at a cost of $10.5M. Although the desired result was achieved, the existence of other major bottlenecks at the end of the segment (freeway-to-freeway interchanges) limited the effectiveness of this improvement.
• TH-100 in St. Louis Park. This is another example of a 6-4-6 lane drop with a highly restricted cloverleaf interchange in the four-lane section. The shoulder was used to provide an additional through lane; two close-spaced interchanges were connected with CD roads and the 1950s cloverleaf interchange was redesigned to a diamond interchange at a cost of $7.5M. Northbound queues were reduced from 5.25 miles to 0.25 miles and southbound queues were reduced

Table A.1 Cost and Travel Time Benefit of Completed Congestion Management Projects (Congestion data for Tables A.1 and A.2 were provided by Mn/DOT Metro Traffic and based on freeway loop detector data from 2004 to 2007).

	Project Cost (In Millions)	Reduction in Annual Hours of Delay	Estimated Annual Travel Time Benefit (In Millions)	Project Service Life (In Years)	Estimated Travel Time Benefit Over Project Service Life (In Millions)	Estimated Travel Time Benefit to Cost Ratio
I-394	$2.6	87,000	$1.1	20	$21.6	8
I-94	$10.5	139,000	$1.7	20	$34.6	3
TH 100	$7.1	1,063,000	$13.2	7	$92.3	13
Total	$20.2	1,289,000	$16.0	–	$148.5	–

Table A.2 Other Benefits of Completed Congestion Management Projects

	Peak Period Vehicle Flow Increase	Decrease in Miles of Congestion	Increase in Peak Period Speeds	Preliminary Safety Impacts
I-394	4,650	6.0	30 mph in p.m.	Sixty percent reduction of property damage crashes, no change in injury crash rate.
I-94	3,200	2.5	40 mph in a.m. 25 mph in p.m.	Modest reduction in number of mainline crashes.
TH 100	14,450	10.75	45 mph in a.m. 30 mph in p.m.	Thirty percent reduction of property damage crashes, 70 percent reduction of injury crashes.