Planning for Transportation Systems Management and Operations Within Corridors: A Desk Reference

Chapter 4. Moving to Implementation: Transportation Systems Management and Operations Within Corridors

This chapter presents several components that are critical to successfully implementing the plans for transportation systems management and operations (TSMO) on a corridor and maintaining those strategies over time. This includes identifying funding for the selected TSMO strategies and using the overarching systems engineering process and regional intelligent transportation systems (ITS) architecture to further define the TSMO strategies into specific, implementable systems that work with each other and connect to relevant operations systems already in place. This chapter also highlights the need to consider designing transportation infrastructure and ITS installations to enable and support planned TSMO strategies.

Programming for Transportation Systems Management and Operations within Corridors

Programming funds for TSMO strategies is a necessary step in making TSMO strategies a reality on corridors (Figure 19). TSMO investments and strategies within a corridor can be funded by a combination of Federal, State, and local funding sources. Monies may come from general funds, local sales taxes dedicated to transportation, toll revenues, vehicle registration fees, or specialized taxes on local businesses or residents in a defined geographic area to fund local improvements, including corridor improvements. There are a few potential approaches for programming TSMO projects, including the following:⁶⁸

• TSMO funding set-aside - Some agencies set aside funding for TSMO projects such that a portion of the available funding is restricted and spent only on TSMO projects. With this approach, amounts may be set aside for specific projects (e.g., highway emergency local patrol, ITS) or individual TSMO projects. Strategies are selected for funding based on pre-established selection criteria. Some regions have specific operations-focused plans that inform the development of the selection criteria, such as a regional operations strategy, a regional concept for transportation operations, or an ITS strategic plan.
• Open competition - Many TSMO projects might compete with other types of projects for funding. In this approach, the merits of each project are evaluated using criteria that address broad transportation needs. The long-range transportation plan should guide the selection of projects that are funded in the transportation improvement program (TIP). In this way, when all projects compete for general funds, project selection criteria should prioritize projects according to a performance-based approach that aligns with the regional long-range transportation plan. One evaluation approach is to rank all projects using a set of common criteria, as well as mode-specific criteria (TSMO can be a category with mode-specific criteria). For example, out of a scale of 100, 70 points may be attributed to common criteria and 30 from mode-specific criteria.
• A combination or hybrid approach - Some areas use a combination of set-aside funding for some types of projects, but also with the ability for TSMO projects to compete for general funds.

In addition, it is important to consider prioritization processes used for State and local funding sources, which may serve as a match for Federal funding or may be used entirely to fund operational improvements. For instance, the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority is responsible for prioritizing regional revenues for regional transportation improvement projects in the congested Northern Virginia region. Northern Virginia Transportation Authority uses a systematic project selection procedure, which includes preliminary screening (to ensure projects meet basic criteria for funding), development of a quantitative score for each project using weighted selection criteria, calculation of a Congestion Reduction Relative to Cost (CRRC) ratio, and consideration of qualitative factors. The quantitative scoring is conducted in relation to defined goals using a rating scale and the assignment of points to each project. The scoring assigns points based on an evaluation of how each project rates in terms of factors, such as improving the management and operation of existing facilities through technology applications, reducing vehicle miles traveled, and improving the safety of the transportation system.⁶⁹ While the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority cannot directly fund operations, it can fund infrastructure related to operations, such as transit signal priority technology.

As another example, the San Diego Association of Governments administers funds from TransNet, a county-wide half-cent sales tax generated for local transportation projects, with a focus on addressing traffic congestion and improving mobility. The program provides funding for specific projects pulled from the Regional Transportation Plan; these were selected as high priority through public surveys and focus groups and were named in the program ballot measures approved by voters. In addition to these specific projects, some TransNet funds are allocated to the San Diego Association of Governments' member jurisdictions for local street and road projects and awarded to other projects through a competitive process. An Independent Taxpayer Oversight Committee is charged with ensuring that expenditures from the TransNet fund support the implementation of the program's intent to reduce congestion and improve regional mobility.⁷⁰

Prioritizing Transportation Systems Management and Operations Strategies for Funding

The goals and objectives of the long-range transportation plan should guide funding decisions and the selection of projects at the State and regional levels. Regions that place importance on system operations in the long-range transportation plan have a strong basis for allocating funding for TSMO strategies.

Regional goals, objectives, and performance measures relevant to system operations and management provide a foundation for setting aside funding for TSMO strategies, developing a project prioritization process that enables TSMO strategies to be competitive for general funds, or a combination of both. In addition to the long-range transportation plan, some metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) develop regional operations or ITS plans. These specific operations-focused plans can further advance the implementation of TSMO strategies. For example, the Puget Sound Regional Council,⁷¹ the MPO for the Seattle, Washington, area, has developed a regional ITS implementation plan that identifies 25 key arterial multijurisdictional corridors and the recommended ITS physical improvements for each corridor (e.g., signal improvements). The 25 corridors were selected using criteria, such as roadway characteristics (e.g., vehicle miles traveled and congestion level), regional significance, and stakeholder significance (e.g., identified by transit agencies as an existing or planned route for bus rapid transit service or transit signal priority (TSP)).

Aligning the corridor plan with the goals and objectives outlined in the long-range transportation plan and developing regional operations or ITS plans will improve the likelihood that the strategies identified in a corridor study receive funding for implementation.

Prioritization of Transportation Systems Management and Operations Projects among All Project Types

The potential for TSMO projects to be selected in an open competition process is highly dependent on the selection criteria used for evaluation. Criteria that address mobility, reliability, and cost-effectiveness help TSMO initiatives compete effectively for funding.

Prioritization of Projects with Funding Dedicated to Transportation Systems Management and Operations Projects

When a region decides to set aside or dedicate funding for TSMO initiatives, criteria that link to key regional objectives are often used for prioritizing that funding. In addition, a TSMO plan can be used to prioritize funding. For instance, Metro, the Portland, Oregon, metropolitan area MPO developed a 10-year regional TSMO plan to guide operations investments in the region.⁷³ The TSMO plan identifies two categories of actions: (1) those for regional programs and projects that require interagency cooperation, and (2) those for individual travel corridors and single-agency services. After the allocation of funding for the TSMO program in the metropolitan TIP, Metro then works with its regional operations collaborative group, called TransPort, to evaluate and select projects to receive TSMO program funds. Of these funds, one-third goes to region-wide projects and two-thirds go to corridor-specific projects. Corridor projects are organized under mobility corridor concepts, in which 24 unique, multimodal corridors in the Portland region connect major activity centers. Each corridor includes a combination of freeways and highways, parallel networks of arterial streets, regional multi-use paths, high-capacity transit, and frequent bus services that connect major activity centers, as defined by the regional growth concept.

Incrementally Funding Transportation Systems Management and Operations Strategies within a Corridor

Investments to support TSMO do not have to be implemented at one time as part of a large corridor capacity project. Recognizing the scarcity of funding and the value that different TSMO strategies can have, agencies can develop a multiphased approach to implement strategies incrementally. Phasing can have the benefit of not only allowing small investments to proceed more quickly, but also can recognize that some potentially effective strategies may require more partner cooperation and more complex institutional arrangements (see the Virginia Department of Transportation I-66 and I-95 Corridor Projects: Phase-In Approach to Deploying Operational Strategies for an example of this approach on page 2).

Life-Cycle Costing for Transportation Systems Management and Operations Projects

When evaluating TSMO strategies for a corridor, it is important to consider not just the initial investment required to deploy a strategy, but the costs incurred throughout the life of the strategy. ife-cycle costing is an approach for determining the true cost of a project - the total cost for acquiring, installing, configuring, operating, maintaining, and disposing of a system throughout the entity of its intended use. For TSMO strategies, costs associated with maintenance and dayto- day utilization (e.g., staff time, software) are particularly critical, because the ongoing costs of operations are typically critical to the effectiveness of the strategy.

Agencies typically do a good job estimating the cost of physical items associated with a strategy and the resources necessary to install them; however, over the life of a program, the costs to operate and maintain a system usually exceed the original investment. This can create challenges for agencies that did not prepare for the increased costs required to utilize such systems or it can lead to an unused investment. A system includes the people who are required to operate and manage it.

Depending on the agency and TSMO strategy, there are numerous facets of cost that can be included. In some agencies, years of research and development may be conducted before the initial roll-out of a system. The typical phases to be considered for life-cycle costing consist of:

• Installation: All costs associated with getting the system in place and ready for use, including purchasing, construction, configuration, process development, staffing, and other activities conducted prior to "Day One."
• Operations: Utilization of the system on a day-to-day basis.
• Maintenance: Preventive and corrective maintenance necessary to keep the system working in accordance with performance measures.
• Technology Refresh: Replacement of individual components of the system as they wear out or become obsolete.
• Decommissioning: Any costs associated with end of life.

The methodologies agencies use for estimating lifecycle costs for TSMO strategies vary greatly in detail and scope. Some agencies maintain detailed spreadsheets tracking cost components such as operations, maintenance and repair, and upgrades over the useful life of a specific strategy or device, factoring in whether and for how long any of these components are covered by the product warranty (e.g., whether repairs are covered by a product manufacturer for the first several years of deployment). Other agencies use more general cost estimates, such as the overall staffing costs for operating all ITS devices managed by the agency (e.g., transportation management center staffing costs). Still others only factor capital infrastructure costs into their lifecycle estimates.

Key considerations when estimating lifecycle costs for TSMO include:

• Factor in All Costs - When calculating lifecycle costs, it is important to factor in all of the costs required to operate and maintain a system. This includes labor and materials for day-to-day operations and repairs, as well as "hidden" costs, such as electricity and general facility costs for a TMC.
• Split Preventive and Emergency Maintenance - By tracking these two costs separately, agencies have found that preventive maintenance is more cost-effective and have been able to better incorporate it into their budgets rather than rely on costlier reactive repairs. This can also help an agency make a case for funding for upgrades before a system's end of life.
• Conduct Benefit-Cost Analysis - When it comes to operating and maintaining their systems, agencies often focus on "keeping things working" without considering what benefits their system is actually providing to the customer. By regularly conducting a benefit-cost analysis of the system, agencies will be able to adjust their budget to cover the lifecycle costs for those components of the system that provide the biggest "bang for the buck." This analysis can also be used to make a case to senior management and legislators for increased funding for TSMO.
• Use Alternate Data Sources - Even if an agency has not been internally tracking operations and maintenance costs long enough to use as historical data to generate lifecycle costs, they can rely on examples from peers or Federal resources to generate preliminary lifecycle estimates. They could also gather several representative cases (e.g., camera, sign, or traffic signal installation), and develop scenarios to estimate lifecycle costs based on internal knowledge.

Implementation

There are several frameworks and methods to consider when preparing for the implementation of an integrated TSMO approach within a corridor (Figure 21). This section provides an overview of those frameworks and methods that can be critically important for successful implementation of TSMO within corridors.

Interagency Agreements

TSMO within corridors frequently requires close coordination to be successfully implemented among transportation and non-transportation agencies. Interagency agreements are used to facilitate needed collaboration across agencies for corridor operations activities such as traffic incident management, fiber sharing, special event management, traffic signal optimization, and joint purchasing.

Interagency agreements have become increasingly important as a collaborative transportation operating environment has emerged in the past decade. Individual agencies are increasingly collaborating with other agencies for a variety of reasons: transportation needs exceed resource levels, customer expectations for seamless travel across jurisdictions and modes, and advances in technology that have opened up opportunities and needs for the integration of systems that facilitate operations activities.

Within a single agency, there is an institutional structure for performing operations and allocating resources on an ongoing basis, but as agencies within a region increasingly seek ways to improve their effectiveness and efficiency through working together, they need a mechanism to formalize and codify those relationships to preserve and encourage the collaboration. Agreements provide a framework to facilitate and guide the collaboration. They are critical to enabling many of the partnerships that are now in existence and avoid fragmented operations. As resources become involved in the collaboration, agreements can be used to provide a legal means to protect the participating agencies and preserve the intent of the agreement. Interagency agreements are an important mechanism for allowing government agencies to combine services and resources, or just follow the same policy direction without giving up their autonomy. Interagency agreements serve a valuable purpose in that they formalize the complex coordination that needs to take place to develop and implement multi-agency projects that have different stakeholders and priorities.

There is not a standard naming convention or classification scheme for interagency agreements. Interagency agreements can be associated with three large groupings and refer to all types of agreements between government agencies. The first type of agreement is one that actually is not documented. The handshake agreement is a paperless agreement based on good faith. This may be appropriate for more informal collaborative efforts that do not require resource commitments from parties. The next two types of agreements are memoranda of understanding and intergovernmental agreements. The memorandum of understanding is generally less detailed and not legally binding, while the intergovernmental agreement is specific and binding for the signing parties.

As mentioned, general types of interagency agreements include:

• Handshake agreement.
  • Paperless agreement based on good faith.
• Memorandum of understanding.
  • Formal expression of intent by parties to engage in a specific course of action.
  • Defines roles and responsibilities.
  • Establishes common direction for achieving shared policy goals.
  • Documents area of mutual understanding.
  • Generally non-binding.
• Interagency or intergovernmental agreements.
  • Legal pact between two or more units of government.
  • Defines responsibility, function, and liability of each party.
  • Includes any financial or other resource obligations.
  • More detailed procedures for agreed upon activities.

The interagency agreement should serve as the vehicle for establishing an agreed upon course of action relating to TSMO. The agreement can be used to:

• Define the program or project objectives.
• Identify stakeholders.
• Address roles and responsibilities for each stakeholder.
• Establish guidelines for how agencies will work together.
• Identify timelines.
• Facilitate communication.
• Offer an opportunity to resolve any issues encountered during the life of the agreement.

Systems Engineering Process

Systems engineering is an organized approach intended to improve the success rate of system projects by reducing schedule and cost risks and ensuring that user needs and requirements are met. The approach can be applied to any of the TSMO strategies described in this Desk Reference. Systems engineering analysis is required for all ITS projects using Federal funds, per Title 23 Code of Federal Regulations 940.11. Although there are many ways to represent the systems engineering process, the winged "V" (or "Vee") model diagram shown in Figure 22 has been broadly adopted in the transportation industry.⁷⁴

Figure 22. Graph. Corridor planning within the systems engineering "V" model.
Source: Federal Highway Administration and California Department of Transportation.

The left wing of the "V" process shows the regional ITS architecture, needs assessment, and concept exploration that support initial identification and planning for a project. Corridor planning interfaces and feeds into the systems engineering process primarily in the left wing. The regional ITS architecture can be used to inform corridor planning and a concept of operations, both of which are described below. The operations objectives and performance measures identified during the planning phases should be applied throughout the systems engineering process and validated once the project reaches the operations and maintenance phase in the right wing of the "V" diagram. This approach provides a systematic method to plan and design systems to achieve the desired operations objectives.

Regional Intelligent Transportation Systems Architecture

A regional ITS architecture is a framework for institutional and technical integration in a particular region. Over 300 regional ITS architectures have been developed; therefore, it is likely that one is available in any region or at the Statewide level as a tool to support the corridor planning process. Figure 23 shows how the regional ITS architecture can provide support in an objectives-driven, performance-based approach to planning for operations on a corridor. The regional ITS architecture helps answer important questions, such as:⁷⁵

• What existing or planned management and operations strategies may be available to help achieve the corridor operations objectives?
• What stakeholders and collaborative relationships can be leveraged as part of the corridor planning process?
• What data is available to monitor transportation system performance and track progress toward corridor operations objectives?
• What parts of the ITS architecture's operational concepts, functional requirements, or other contents can be used to support project development?

Concept of Operations

Another crucial step in the systems engineering process is the completion of a concept of operations. Once TSMO strategies have been recommended as part of the needs assessment and concept-selection phase of a corridor planning process, the recommended strategies should be carried forward into a concept of operations, which provides a stakeholder view of the system being developed in a non-technical manner with a focus on user needs, activity-based operations objectives, performance measures, roles and responsibilities, and institutional agreements. The concept of operations provides the basis for developing the systems requirements, which is the next step in the "V" diagram.

A successful concept of operations includes these key activities:⁷⁶

• Identify stakeholders - This includes anyone involved in or impacted by the project, such as owners, operators, maintainers, users, etc. Stakeholder identification is described in Chapter 3 of this Desk Reference and often uses the regional ITS architecture as a starting point.
• Develop a consensus on roles and responsibilities - This is typically done by working through operational scenarios for the corridor, such as normal system operation (e.g., traffic signal operations) and various fault-and-failure scenarios (e.g., major incident and communications failure). This process also helps identify institutional agreements that may be needed to design and operate the project (e.g., agreement for one agency to implement signal timing adjustments to another agency's traffic signals on a multijurisdictional corridor).
• Define stakeholder needs - This captures a clear definition of stakeholder needs and differentiates between what is essential for system operations and wish-list items for "wants" and "nice-to-haves."
• Define performance measures - These measures should assess the effectiveness of the system in comparison to the operations objectives of the corridor. The performance measures provide the foundation for the system validation plan used in the systems engineering process.

The size of the concept of operations should be commensurate with the size and complexity of the TSMO strategies selected for the project corridor. A corridor with one or two simple TSMO strategies, particularly ones that expand on existing systems, may only require a document that is several pages. For example, the addition of TSP on an arterial corridor where TSP is already used by the transit agency within corridors in neighboring jurisdictions may require only a reference to other concepts of operations, but the concept of operations document will focus on the roles and responsibilities for the subject corridor. A larger, more complex corridor project, such as instituting integrated corridor management (ICM) on a freeway corridor, will require a much more extensive concept of operations document to capture numerous systems and stakeholders.

Designing for Operations

The success of the corridor TSMO strategies to be implemented depends in large part on the design of the roadway or transit infrastructure. Examples of roadway design treatments that are important for improving the management and operation of the facility include:

• Median crossovers, which allow for incident responders to quickly access the opposite side of the road.
• Crash investigation sites, which reduce impacts associated with collecting incident information.
• Snow fences, which reduce blowing snow and drifts on the road.
• Emergency access between interchanges, which decreases response time to incidents.
• Bus turnouts, which ease arterial congestion.

Ideally, planning for TSMO within a corridor would occur in conjunction with the initial construction of the corridor's roads or rails so that TSMO strategies could be factored into the infrastructure design. For example, truck-only toll lanes or median breaks and crash investigation sites can be included as part of the road from the beginning. Even after the road or rail is initially built, TSMO planners and operators can take advantage of opportunities to influence design during reconstruction or maintenance projects. For example, laying fiber optic cable could be considered during reconstruction.

The effectiveness of TSMO strategies also relies on what type, how, and where the ITS and other equipment is deployed to support operations. These physical components that enable TSMO strategies include speed harmonization gantries, variable message signs, or traffic surveillance equipment. The current and future operational use of ITS equipment should help drive the design decisions. For example, the installation of variable message signs in locations prior to significant route or modal decision points for travelers or common incident areas supports relevant, actionable traveler information to the public.

The FHWA document, Designing for Transportation Management and Operations: A Primer, introduces the concept of designing for operations, describes tools and institutional approaches to assist transportation agencies in considering operations in their design procedures, and points out some specific design considerations for various operations strategies.⁷⁷ The tools and approaches to aid in designing for operations may include checklists for designers to reference operational considerations, formation of a technical advisement committee with operations expertise, or agency policies that instruct designers on how to incorporate operational elements within the project development process. These will benefit multiple practitioner groups, including planners, project designers, scoping engineers, maintenance and traffic managers, and contract development personnel. This primer can be consulted by corridor TSMO teams to learn more about how to integrate design elements that facilitate TSMO strategies within corridors into roadway design.

Life-Cycle Planning - Monitoring and Maintaining Level of Operations Over Time

To fully realize the value of an objectives-driven, performance-based approach, it is necessary to assess how well the corridor strategies meet the objectives immediately after implementation and over the time the strategy is in use. The monitoring and evaluation feedback loop involves several elements (Figure 24):⁷⁸

• Evaluate the effectiveness of implemented strategies - Develop a corridor evaluation plan during the planning or design process, and put the plan into action following implementation. Figure 25 provides an example evaluation plan with key steps during design, data collection and validation, data archiving and transformation, data analysis, and performance measure reporting. Some regions already have established performance measures and evaluation plans in place through the regional or metropolitan transportation plan, ITS or TSMO plan, congestion management process, or corridor planning process. These may be tailored to the corridor level.
• Report corridor performance - Inform decisionmakers and stakeholders about trends in corridor system performance. Highlight project benefits for any objectives that have been met or exceeded. For under-performing objectives, proceed to the next step.
• Assess and refine operations objectives - If measured corridor performance falls short of meeting a desired objective, consider refining the objective or contemplate alternate strategies that may meet the objective.

This process should be repeated on a regular cycle, perhaps in conjunction with other regional planning cycles, to identify any issues and address them to stop the degradation of corridor performance.

Figure 25. Diagram. Example process for automated corridor performance measurement.⁷⁹