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21st Century Operations Using 21st Century Technologies
Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION

Since the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient, Transportation Equity Act - A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU) legislation was passed in 2005, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Road Weather Management Program (RWMP) had been involved in various programs, projects, and activities to help state and local agencies improve the performance of the transportation system during adverse weather conditions. Beginning in 2006, the RWMP has used a set of performance measures to gauge its success in achieving its goals which include improving national capacity for road weather management. Assessments of program performance were conducted and documented in 2009 and 2012.(1, 2) The program has evolved over time, informed by past performance as measured by existing indicators and influenced by emerging trends in the field (e.g., Connected Vehicles). The RWMP continues to conduct a periodic review of its performance indicators to ensure that the performance measures reflect the changes in program objectives as well as the broader policy context. The 2015 Road Weather Management Performance Measures Survey, Analysis, and Report project is the next iteration of this periodic review of the RWMP's performance, an update to the 2012 report.

Project Scope and Objectives

The 2015 update included a review of current RWMP objectives, activities, and products since 2012 to understand how the program has evolved in the last two years, and to identify the connection between these activities and RWMP's seven programmatic objectives and existing performance measures. In general, the reporting period for the performance update is 2012-2014 with some limited activities from 2015 included in the update. Additional performance measures were identified to better reflect new and emerging initiatives of the RWMP. Then, the updated list of measures was quantified as part of this effort. The sequence of tasks for this project is shown in Figure 1.

The step-wise order of project activities includes the following: review RWMP objectives, products, and activities; identify new and emerging measures for RWMP; review and update performance measures; and prepare final reports and related materials.
Figure 1. Illustration. Project Activities.

Organization of Report

The remainder of the report is organized to reflect the progression of the project:

  • Chapter 2 summarizes the RWMP activities since 2012.
  • Chapter 3 highlights the new performance measures, updates to previously defined performance measures, and the methods used to quantify performance.
  • Chapters 4-11 provide an assessment of performance by RWMP objective.
  • Chapter 12 provides research conclusions.
  • Chapter 13 presents recommendations for future performance measure updates.

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1 Federal Highway Administration, Road Weather Management Program Performance Metrics: Implementation and Assessment. FHWA-JPO-09-061, 2009. Available at: http://ntl.bts.gov/lib/31000/31600/31611/14492_files/14492.pdf. [ Return to note 1. ]

2 Federal Highway Administration, Road Weather Management Performance Measures – 2012 Update. FHWA-JPO-13-87, 2013. Available at: http://ntl.bts.gov/lib/51000/51000/51065/26615E33.pdf. [ Return to note 2. ]

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