Planning for Transportation Systems Management and Operations within Subareas – A Desk Reference

CHAPTER 4. MOVING TO IMPLEMENTATION: TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT AND OPERATIONS WITHIN SUBAREAS

This chapter presents several components that are critical to successfully implementing the plans for transportation systems management and operations (TSMO) within a subarea 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 system (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 SUBAREAS

Programming funds for TSMO strategies is a necessary step in making these strategies a reality in subareas (Figure 13). TSMO investments and strategies within a subarea can be funded through a combination of Federal, State, and local sources. There are several Federal programs that offer funding for TSMO activities, and State and local resources also are commonly an important source of funding as well. 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 subarea improvements.

There are a few potential approaches for programming TSMO projects, including the following:⁷⁹

• 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 programs (e.g., traffic signal operations, etc.) or individual TSMO projects (e.g., transit signal priority (TSP) installation). Strategies are selected for funding based on pre-established selection criteria. Some communities have specific operations-focused plans that inform the development of the selection criteria, such as an ITS strategic plan or regional concept for transportation operations (RCTO).
• Open competition: 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 (LRTP) 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 LRTP. 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 to 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. See the text boxes for examples.

Prioritizing Transportation Systems Management and Operations Strategies for Funding

The goals and objectives of the LRTP should guide funding decisions and the selection of projects at the State and regional levels. Regions that place importance on system operations in the LRTP 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 LRTP, some regions develop regional operations or ITS plans. These specific operations-focused plans can further advance the implementation of TSMO strategies.
• Aligning a subarea plan with the goals and objectives outlined in the LRTP and developing regional operations or ITS plans will improve the likelihood that the strategies identified in the plan 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, competitive 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 often are used for prioritizing that funding. In addition, a TSMO plan can be used to prioritize funding. For instance, Metro, the Portland, Oregon metropolitan planning organization (MPO), developed a 10-year regional TSMO plan to guide operations investments in the region.⁸⁰ The TSMO plan identifies two categories of actions: (1) those for regional programs and projects that require interagency cooperation, and (2) those for key individual travel corridors and single-agency services. After the allocation of funding for the TSMO program in the 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 area-specific projects.

Incrementally Funding Transportation Systems Management and Operations Strategies within a Subarea

Investments to support TSMO do not have to be implemented all at one time as part of a large capacity project. Recognizing the scarcity of funding and the value that different TSMO strategies can have, agencies can develop a multi-phased approach to implementing 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.

Life-Cycle Costing for Transportation Systems Management and Operations Projects

When evaluating TSMO strategies for a subarea, 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. Life-cycle costing is an approach for determining the true cost of a project—the total for acquiring, installing, configuring, operating, maintaining, and disposing of a system throughout the entirely of its intended use.

For TSMO strategies, costs associated with maintenance and day-to-day utilization (e.g., staff time, software, etc.) are particularly critical, because funding the ongoing costs of operations is typically essential to the effectiveness of the strategy.

IMPLEMENTATION

There are several frameworks and methods to consider when preparing for the implementation of an integrated TSMO approach within a subarea (Figure 15). This section provides an overview of those frameworks and methods that can be critically important for successful implementation of TSMO within subareas.

Interagency Agreements

TSMO within subareas 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 subarea operations activities (e.g., traffic incident management (TIM), 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 for facilitating and guiding the collaboration. They are critical to enabling many of the partnerships that are now in existence and avoiding 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/or resources, or to 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 among government agencies. The first type of agreement (handshake) 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. A 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 and 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 systems 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 16 has been broadly adopted in the transportation industry.⁸¹

The left wing of the "V" process shows the regional ITS architecture, feasibility studies, and concept exploration that support initial identification and planning for a project. Subarea planning fits within the left wing. Figure 17 shows how the regional ITS architecture can be used to inform subarea planning and a concept of operations, both of which are described in the next two sections. The operations objectives and performance measures identified during the planning phases should be applied throughout the systems engineering process and be 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 subarea planning process. Figure 17 shows how the regional ITS architecture can provide support in an objectives driven, performance-based approach to planning for operations within a subarea.

The regional ITS architecture helps answer important questions, such as:⁸²

• What existing or planned management and operations strategies may be available to help achieve the subarea operations objectives?
• What stakeholders and collaborative relationships can be leveraged as part of the subarea planning process?
• What data are available to monitor transportation system performance and track progress toward subarea operations objectives?
• What parts of the 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 subarea 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:⁸³

• Identify stakeholders - This includes anyone involved in or impacted by the project (e.g., 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 accomplished by working through operational scenarios for the subarea, such as normal system operation 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; for example, an agreement for one agency to implement signal timing adjustments to another agency's traffic signals on multi-jurisdictional sections of the subarea.
• Define stakeholder needs - Capture a clear definition of stakeholder needs and differentiate 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 subarea. 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 subarea. A subarea 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 transit signal priority (TSP) on an arterial corridor within the subarea where TSP is already used by the transit agency in other neighboring jurisdictions may reference other concept of operations but will focus on the roles and responsibilities for the subject subarea. A larger, more complex subarea project, such as instituting special event management in a downtown area, will require a much more extensive concept of operations document to capture numerous systems and stakeholders.

Designing for Operations

The success of TSMO strategies in a subarea 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 a subarea include:

• Alternative intersection designs.
• Intersection traffic control (e.g., pre-timed, actuated coordinated, closed loop, adaptive control, roundabouts).
• Median treatments (e.g., pedestrian refuge, center turn lanes, raised medians).
• Multimodal transportation facilities – this includes bus stops or turnouts, bus lanes, and bicycle lanes.

Ideally, planning for TSMO within a subarea would occur in conjunction with the initial construction of roads or rails within the subarea so that TSMO strategies could be factored into the infrastructure design. For example, bus or bike lanes, alternative intersections, and pedestrian refuges 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 to facilitate data collection for performance measures 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 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.⁸⁴ 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 subarea TSMO teams to learn more about how to integrate design elements that facilitate TSMO strategies within subareas.

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 subarea strategies meet the objectives immediately after implementation and over the time the strategy is in use (Figure 18). The monitoring and evaluation feedback loop involves several elements:⁸⁵

• Evaluate the effectiveness of implemented strategies - Develop a subarea evaluation plan during the planning or design process, and put the plan into action following implementation. Figure 19 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 subarea planning process. These may be tailored to the subarea level.
• Report subarea performance - Inform decision makers and stakeholders about trends in subarea 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 subarea performance falls short of meeting a desired objective, consider refining the objective or choosing 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 subarea performance.