2. Opportunities for Linking Planning and Operations
The Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) identifies seven specific planning factors that must be considered in the transportation planning process at both the metropolitan and statewide level. Although the TEA-21 legislation does not define these factors in detail, the importance of operating and managing the transportation system is a focal point for transportation planning. Specifically, Planning Factor #6 requires that transportation plans "promote efficient system management and operation." This Factor establishes a formal role for M&O activities in the transportation planning process (see Box 1).(3, 4)
Box 1: The MPO Certification Process
Through the MPO certification process, the U.S. DOT considers whether the seven planning factors have been adequately assessed. Every three years, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and Federal Transit Administration (FTA) are required to jointly review and certify that Transportation Management Areas (metropolitan areas with populations greater than 200,000) are planning in accordance with the TEA-21 Metropolitan Planning Regulations. For some MPOs, this certification process has been used to successfully promote greater consideration of systems management and operations in the planning process. The certification process is open to comment from other government agencies as well as from individuals and stakeholder organizations. MPO certification thus provides an opportunity for considering how well the regional transportation planning process is taking advantage of regional M&O strategies.
In addition, Highway Trust Fund dollars are available for implementing systems management and operations activities. For example, through the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement (CMAQ) Program, a number of regions have implemented operations strategies to help meet mobility and air quality challenges. In general, projects eligible for CMAQ funds include programs to improve traffic flow, such as traffic signalization coordination and incident management programs, as well as transit, freight, and demand management programs. By dedicating funding to these alternative strategies, CMAQ has helped to foster greater consideration and awareness of operations projects and programs within the transportation planning process.
Planning Factor #6 and funding programs that inherently support system management and operations improvements (such as CMAQ) provide a genesis for linking transportation planning and transportation management and operations. Although the basis for the linkage has been established, however, both planners and operators need specific information on how to go about taking advantage of opportunities that exist within the current transportation decision-making process.
This chapter provides a roadmap to linking planning and operations by focusing on nine linkage opportunities. First, a general discussion on integrating operations considerations into the core regional transportation planning process is provided. The purpose of that discussion is to demonstrate how the current planning process generally can serve as the foundation for a more integrative approach. Second, the following eight specific linkage opportunities are discussed:(5) 1) Data Collection and Sharing, 2) Performance Measurement, 3) Congestion Management Systems, 4) Institutional Arrangements, 5) Funding and Resource Sharing, 6) Regional ITS Architecture, 7) Regional Transportation Systems Management and Operations Projects, and 8) Regional Concept for Transportation Operations. The discussion of each of these eight linkage opportunities is organized as follows.
- Background – An overview of the linkage opportunity, with a general description of how it brings together planners and operators is provided in a background subsection. As appropriate, this subsection also identifies intended outcomes of successful linkages and describes geographic and institutional conditions under which the linkage is most applicable.
- Linkage Implementation – This subsection illustrates specific linkages along with illustrative examples. These examples are provided to give the reader a concrete sense of how an effort to engage in each described activity will enhance communication or coordination among practitioners.(6)
- Lessons Learned – This subsection identifies common challenges, obstacles, and unanticipated benefits. Issues that have been raised repeatedly during interviews with MPO and State DOT practitioners and that are discussed in the planning and operations literature are discussed. In addition, this subsection identifies actions for implementing the concepts and processes that may define a specific linkage opportunity.
3. The Metropolitan Planning Regulations can be found in 23 CFR 450.
4. Other planning factors focus on safety and security (#2), enhancing the integration and connectivity of the transportation system (#5), and preservation of the existing system (#7), emphasizing the importance of efforts to operate the transportation system efficiently and safely across multiple modes of transportation and across multiple jurisdictions.
5. These eight linkage opportunities were identified via the literature analysis and practitioner interviews that were conducted as part of this effort.
6. The examples that are used throughout this chapter focus disproportionately on the particular regions that were interviewed for this guidebook. There are undoubtedly many additional illustrations of the mechanisms discussed in this section that would be helpful to practitioners. Readers are encouraged to share successes and lessons learned so that others may continue to learn form each other's efforts. Some easy ways to share such examples are listed in the Reference Section at the end of the Guide.
