Advancing Transportation Systems Management and Operations through Scenario Planning

Section 5: Illustrations of Scenario Planning for Transportation Systems Management and Operations

This section provides three hypothetical examples that illustrate how scenario planning approaches can be used to advance transportation systems management and operations (TSMO) concepts in the context of various planning efforts. For each phase, the questions driving the phase's planning activity and example outputs are provided. The three fictional examples are:

Southcom Coalition: Planning for Operational Resilience During Tropical Storms – A regional transportation operators coalition uses scenario planning to identify strategies for improving system resiliency in the face of increasingly intense and frequent storms.
Corridor Q: Development of a Multimodal Corridor Operations Plan – A State department of transportation (DOT) and a metropolitan planning organization (MPO) partner with TSMO agencies to conduct a scenario planning process aimed at building consensus on strategies to balance local accessibility and regional throughput on a busy suburban arterial.
Fairview Metro Plan: Development of Regional TSMO Strategies – Facing challenges of declining funds and rising congestion, a metropolitan region uses scenario planning to identify strategic TSMO investments that optimize roadway capacity at the least possible cost.

Each hypothetical project description includes a brief summary of the context, a set of questions considered during each of the six scenario planning stages, and the outcome of the process.

Southcom Coalition: Planning for Operational Resilience during Tropical Storms

Southcom is a regional transportation operations coalition of traffic, transit, and public safety agencies in 16 jurisdictions across three States. It operates on a 24/7 basis to tie together the agencies for regional traffic incident management (TIM), implementing intelligent transportation systems (ITS), and emergency management. In the past 2 years, the Southcom area has had more frequent and stronger tropical storms that have flooded primary roads and subway systems, caused widespread power outages, and damaged bridges and other infrastructure. Southcom leaders have decided to use scenario planning to improve transportation system resiliency during major storms over the next 10-15 years. Their goal is to identify the investments and actions needed to prepare for future storms.

Phase 1: Getting Started

Questions to address: What do we want to accomplish? What are the important issues or uncertainties to consider? Who should be involved? What type of scenario planning do we need?

Southcom leaders and staff from member agencies determined that they wanted to identify the operational strategies—including new ITS and communications infrastructure—that would be needed to prepare for future storms.
Southcom member agencies identified the primary area of uncertainty as being the timing, number, strength, and duration of storms. They anticipated that Southcom systems would continue to be stressed, and so climatological data and forecasts for the region would need to be considered.
This scenario planning effort was led by the Southcom leadership committee along with the operations, planning, and emergency management staff from coalition's agencies, including the cities, counties, port authorities, transit operators, State DOTs, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and others. Southcom decided to involve a variety of additional stakeholders, including local businesses, commuters, and other members of the public.
Southcom scenario planning participants used the exploratory type of scenario planning because they were looking to examine the potential impacts of several storm scenarios and identify the best response based on this uncertainty.

Phase 2. Where Are We Now?

Questions to address: What does the recent climatological data for this region say about size, frequency, and timing of past tropical storms? What are the climatological forecasts for this region over the next 10-15 years and how certain are the forecasts? What has been the impact on transportation system operational performance during recent major storms? What are the strengths and weaknesses of our coordination of emergency transportation operations during these storms?

Climatological data show that annual precipitation has varied over time, showing a clear shift towards greater variability and higher totals since 1970. There are recent elevated levels in extreme precipitation and shorter rainfall recurrence intervals. The amount of rain that constituted a 50-year event during 1950-1979 is expected to occur on average once every 30 years based on the more recent data.
The region has experienced 18 tropical storms, including two hurricanes in the last 5 years with significant impacts on travel and goods movement.
The strengths of Southcom's emergency operations during storms included participation by all necessary agencies on hourly calls and consistent messages provided to the public. Weaknesses included a traveler information website outage during most recent storm and difficulty publicizing travel conditions information (with the exception of freeways in the metro areas) in a timely manner.

Phase 3. Where Do We Want to Go?

Questions to address: What are the values and priorities that are relevant in selecting TSMO strategies? What are the goals and operations objectives for transportation system operations during tropical and other major summer storms? How will we measure progress?

Southcom's goal: Provide a resilient transportation system that enables the safe and reliable movement of people and goods and supports the region's economic well-being.
Southcom's operations objectives (performance measures underlined):
- Within 10 years, 50 percent reduction in loss of life, property, and injury on roadways or rails during tropical storms.
- Average travel times on the freeways, primary arterials, and rail without structural damage is back to normal within 24 hours of a level one storm and within 48 hours of a level two storm.

Phase 4. What Could the Future Look Like?

Questions to address: Given the current trends and operations objectives, what are the scenarios we should consider in exploring the preferred approach to system resiliency? What are the TSMO strategies needed to realize these scenarios?

Triple Hit Scenario: The Southcom area is hit by three hurricanes (Category 2 or less) during one tropical storm season each within just a couple weeks of another. The largest metropolitan area in the Southcom region is directly under the eye of one of the storms with road flooding and signs and traffic signals damaged.
Business as Usual Scenario: The Southcom area receives roughly the same number, intensity, and frequency of hurricanes and other tropical storms as it has over the past 5 years.
The Big One Scenario: A Category 5 hurricane hits the Southcom area and major roads are cut off. Rail systems are unable to function and many buildings are destroyed.

Southcom determined that the most effective TSMO strategies across the scenarios would be highly redundant data and voice communications systems, several backup servers and databases located over 750 miles away, backup power for all variable message signs and traffic signals, inclusion of additional stakeholder groups into coalition, additional closed-circuit televisions (CCTV) on roads and rails, and road weather information systems (RWIS) in rural areas.

Phase 5. What Impacts Will the Scenarios Have?

Questions to Address: What are the impacts of these scenarios on the region's transportation system? What are the benefits and costs of the TSMO strategies selected to handle each scenario? How well do the strategies help achieve Southcom's objectives in each scenario? What level of system resilience is desired or obtainable within the current resource constraints?

Using a combination of analysis tools, models, and expert opinion, the group assessed the expected impacts of the three scenarios and selected TSMO strategies on loss of life, property, and injury on roadways or rails and the recovery time of the system.

Phase 6. How Will We Achieve Our Desired Future?

Questions to address: Based on the three scenarios, how do we best create resiliency in our transportation system operations? What have we learned about the effectiveness of TSMO strategies? What projects or programs should be developed to support the preferred way forward?

The stakeholders found benefits in the TSMO strategies used to respond to each of the scenarios and merged together the elements of each scenario to develop a preferred set of solutions that incorporated communications system redundancy, increased monitoring, and extended the hardening of traffic control devices.

Outcome: Plan for Operational Resiliency during Tropical Storms

The direct result of this scenario planning activity was the development of a strategic plan for creating greater operational resiliency, including operations objectives, performance measures, and a list of operational investments and actions to improve Southcom's coordination during emergencies.

Corridor Q: Development of a Multimodal Corridor Operations Plan

Corridor Q is a six-lane arterial that parallels a major highway (just two miles away) and is dominated by older shopping centers, fast food restaurants, and some older two-story office buildings. It serves as one of the main corridors connecting several residential neighborhoods to shopping destinations, and also provides a link into the traditional downtown commercial business district and the region's major job center about 10 miles away. The regional economy is strong, and there are mounting pressures to redevelop and infill along this corridor at higher densities. Local businesses and residents may welcome this new development, but have concerns about how best to address the additional travel caused by the development. There is also a strong sentiment among local residents that it would be counterproductive to take land to accommodate additional lanes of roadway, and there is interest in both increasing transit service along the corridor and making the areas on each side of the arterial more walkable. The State DOT, in coordination with the MPO, has decided to lead a scenario planning effort to look at different visions for how the corridor might evolve over time and identify the TSMO goals, objectives, and strategies that can best support that vision.

Phase 1: Getting Started

Questions to address: What do we want to accomplish? What are the important issues or uncertainties to consider? Who should be involved? What type of scenario planning do we need?

The desired outcome was to help participants reach consensus on a preferred vision for travel conditions in the corridor and develop the framework for the creation of a corridor operations plan.
Additional outcomes may involve the identification of potential land-use and transportation policy changes in addition to specific transportation design and operational improvement projects.
To develop the scenarios, participants needed to include land-use planners, economic development practitioners, transit agency partners, traffic operations staff, transportation planners, housing agency representatives, and other interested stakeholders in the process.
Participants agreed to apply a normative type of scenario planning to examine different desirable future scenarios for the corridor and reach consensus on a vision.

Phase 2. Where Are We Now?

Questions to address: What are the existing conditions and the trend forecast? What are the forecasted operational conditions?

Existing conditions were defined by current development patterns (density and mix of use) within a half mile, socio-demographics, tax revenues, auto and transit travel time, corridor travel time reliability, current non-auto mode splits, vehicle miles traveled (VMT) per capita, percent truck traffic, signal timing data, crash rates, air quality indicators, etc.
The trend forecast included projecting out future travel demand (using the regional travel demand model) based on regional growth trends and existing policies over a 20-year horizon.
Participants noted that while specific operational conditions might be difficult to forecast, a sketch-planning method to correlate reliability with levels of congestion might be beneficial as part of the trend analysis.
Sample data provided the following overview of the corridor:
- Daily traffic volume was 55,000, with peak hour volume of 4,950 and peak direction of 2,970.
- Volumes were projected to increase to 60,000 vehicles per day; this increase would be predominantly from regional through traffic.
- There were eight intersections and one major cross street with similar volumes.
- Bus stops were about 0.8 miles apart—there are no bus bays.
- The signal system was interconnected.
- The signal timing plans had not been updated in more than 5 years.
- Stretches along the corridor experienced access management challenges.

Phase 3. Where Do We Want to Go?

Questions to address: What are the community values and priorities that are relevant for this corridor's future? What are the TSMO goals and objectives for the corridor? How will we measure progress?

Some community constituents wanted to see the corridor maintained as a high-mobility corridor, providing high-speed access between the suburbs and downtown.
Others saw the corridor evolving into more of a destination corridor driven by market demand for infill and redevelopment with significantly more jobs and housing.
All constituents wanted to encourage redevelopment to improve the aesthetics, bring in new amenities, and contribute to the tax base—but they do not want that new growth to diminish accessibility for those living adjacent to the corridor.

Given these goals, the stakeholders identified some operations objectives and performance measures to gauge progress and evaluate scenarios. These include travel time for auto and transit, number of destinations within walking distance, levels of congestion, economic development, and cost.

Phase 4. What Could the Future Look Like?

Questions to address: In light of the current system data, trends, and community goals, what are the scenarios we should consider? What are the TSMO strategies needed to realize these scenarios?

New Destination Scenario would target a single, large redevelopment project at a major arterial intersection with a large new office and mixed use complex. Mobility through the corridor would still be a major goal, but the primary intersection along the corridor would now be a key job destination. TSMO strategies include: signal priority, grade-separated intersections, express buses to a new job center, high-occupancy vehicle (HOV)/carpool lanes, transportation demand management (TDM) strategies, system timing, and access management.
Livable Corridor Scenario would focus on infill and redevelopment by adding new, higher density residential space and smaller scale neighborhood retail along the corridor. This new housing would be aimed at a younger, professional generation with a preference for more "car-lite" lifestyle. This new residential space would be dispersed along the corridor, and these new residents would still need to get to jobs in the downtown, but they will do so by using transit and accessing non-work destinations through more walking and biking options. TSMO strategies included signal priority for buses, dedicated bus lane and express buses, TDM for the central business district (CBD), limited parking at the CBD to reduce the amount of automobile traffic to the CBD, bike sharing in the CBD to facilitate pedestrian movement at the CBD, and improved pedestrian signalization and crossings between adjacent parcels along the corridor.
Get-Me-to-Town Scenario would assume that development patterns would not change all that much and the corridor would remain a through corridor for transit and autos. The goal of the third scenario was to improve auto and transit mobility to and from the central business district. TSMO strategies included: signal priority, grade separated intersections, dedicated busways, HOV/carpool lanes, TDM strategies, signal timing, and access management.

Phase 5. What Impacts Will the Scenarios Have?

Questions to address: Which set of development and transportation concepts perform best against community goals? How does each scenario perform against our measures? How does each scenario contribute to reaching our objectives?

While the Get-Me-to-Town Scenario performed well with improved auto and transit travel times to the CBD, that scenario did not support the economic development objectives of the community and it reduced the viability of significant new development within the corridor.
The Livable Corridor performed well in supporting economic development, but added additional congestion to the corridor, which in turn could negatively impact the economic viability of the CBD.
The New Destination Scenario supported economic development, the investment and time required were a deterrent for many stakeholders.

Phase 6. How Will We Achieve Our Desired

Questions to address: What is our preferred scenario, or, is there a combination of scenarios that we would like to adopt? What projects or programs should be developed to support the preferred way forward?

The group determined that none of the three scenarios seemed vastly superior and determined that the best course of action would be to combine concepts from all three into a hybrid approach.
The hybrid approach included creating limited nodes of compact, mixed-use development distributed along the corridor. This would entail the following:
- Walkable street grids and frontage streets that would be developed at each node and connected with the arterials at major intersections.
- Improved signal timing along the arterial to ensure auto and transit speed improvements.
- Limited transit stop locations to locations at key development nodes.
- The goals of this approach were to have comparable transit and automobile travel times and travel time reliability to the CBD and to increase transit mode share.

Outcome: Clear Vision for the Corridor and TSMO Strategies to Achieve that Vision

The scenario process allowed for a more robust discussion of the range of TSMO strategies that could be applied within the corridor. At the end, there was clarity in the need to align data gathering, monitoring, and signal timing to optimize both auto and transit travel to and from the CBD. There was also a need to improve pedestrian safety and signal timing at major intersections and transit stops.

Fairview Metro Plan: Development of Regional TSMO Strategies

The Fairview Regional TSMO Committee, hosted by the Fairview MPO, sought to exert a stronger operations influence on the next update of the metropolitan transportation plan (MTP). Over the coming 20 years, the region expects to experience major cuts in transportation funding and a projected tripling of peak period congestion on area freeways and primary arterials. Local leaders are increasingly looking at the potential for low-cost operational improvements as an alternative to high-cost capacity expansion projects to reduce congestion and improve accessibility. The committee worked to develop a Fairview Regional TSMO Plan to identify TSMO investments for consideration in the pending update of the MTP, and in programming decisions by individual member agencies. They had already developed the TSMO plan goals, operations objectives, and related performance measures. The committee then decided to use scenario planning to select the most cost-effective TSMO strategies to recommend for the MTP.

Phase 1: Getting Started

Questions to address: What do we want to accomplish? What are the important issues or uncertainties to consider? Who should be involved? What type of scenario planning do we need?

The Fairview Regional TSMO Committee wanted to identify the most cost-effective set of TSMO strategies to reach its objectives.
The committee decided that it needed to consider the trend of significantly increasing delay with almost no system expansion possible.
The effort was led by the TSMO Plan Steering Committee of the MPO with support from operations and planning staff from agencies in the region including the city, county, port, transit, State DOT, and others. The committee involved a variety of stakeholders, including public safety, towing, local businesses, commuters, and other members of the public.
The scenario planning participants used the predictive type of scenario planning because they were looking for transportation packages that would be most effective in light of the likely trends.

Phase 2. Where Are We Now?

Questions to address: What are the current travel and goods movement measures that will help us identify the largest sources of delay and unreliability? Where, when, and why is our greatest congestion occurring? What are the growth, travel demand, and mode share trends that will help us identify effective strategies? What are the most significant challenges for our system managers and operators?

The MPO's most recent travel demand forecasting model outputs identified the greatest growth in demand coming from the northwest quadrant of the region toward the center in the morning and back out in the evening. Freight truck travel will increase by 20 percent over next 10 years, and the region will experience an increase in walking and biking by 25 percent in 10 years. Transit and car-sharing will increase by 10 percent in 10 years.
Areas of freeways and primary arterials with greatest delay during peak periods were confirmed with archived speed data, and when matched with incident and work zone area data, these two types of events were found to be the primary contributors to unreliable travel.
Traffic management center operators, local traffic engineers, and bus operators provided qualitative information that helped identify several other key factors.

Phase 3. Where Do We Want to Go?

Questions to address: What are the community values and priorities that are relevant in selecting TSMO strategies? What are the goals and objectives for the TSMO Plan? How will we measure progress?

The TSMO plan goal was to provide a safe, efficient, and reliable multimodal transportation system.
The following were the TSMO plan operations objectives (performance measures underlined):
- Hold average travel time during peak periods at 2015 levels during the next 10 years across all modes.
- Improve the planning time index, a measure of travel time reliability, by 20 percent by 2020 on freeways and primary arterials.
Top community values include economic growth, jobs, and clean air.

Phase 4. What Could the Future Look Like?

Questions to address: In light of the current system data, trends, and top community values, what are the scenarios we should consider in identifying the preferred approach to meeting our operations objectives? What are the M&O strategies needed to realize these scenarios?

All-Knowing Traveler Scenario: Investments would focus on regional traveler information including transit, parking, and commercial vehicle operators. Real-time and predictive information would be ubiquitous and travelers would adjust their own route, mode, and time of travel based on this information.
Do-Not-Disturb Scenario: Investments would focus on reducing disruptions to travel quickly and safely. This would include improved transportation management center (TMC) capabilities, TIM, work zone management, special event management, and road weather management.
Manage-Me Scenario: The focus here would be on managing traffic flow and travelers to maximize the effective capacity of the system. This would include variable speed limits, flexible lane use, ramp metering, enhanced traffic signal operations, geometric improvements at intersections, transit signal priority, truck electronic screening or clearance programs, and access management.

Phase 5. What Impacts Will the Scenarios Have?

Questions to address: What are the benefits and costs of each scenario? How does each scenario contribute to reaching our objectives?

Using a combination of analysis tools, models, and expert opinion, the group assessed the expected impacts of the three scenarios on hours of delay, planning time index, and air quality. They also discussed how each scenario would contribute to the regional economy and job growth.

Phase 6. How Will We Achieve Our Desired Future?

The stakeholders found benefits in each of the scenarios and merged together the lower cost elements of each scenario to develop a preferred set of solutions that incorporated traveler information and choice, minimizing disruptions, and managing traffic flow.

Outcome: Package of TSMO Strategies for the Regional TSMO Plan

The direct result of this scenario planning activity was the identification of a package of TSMO strategies that were cost-effective, helped to bring the region closer to its operations objectives, and took into consideration the top values of the community.

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