Organizing for TSMO
Case Study 11: Metropolitan Planning Organization Examples

Chapter 2 - Best Practice Examples

The North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG), Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG), and the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) participated in the second Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP2) workshops to complete capability maturity model (CMM) assessments. The workshop assessments helped guide them to implement transportation systems management and operations (TSMO) in their agencies. This section highlights several successful initiatives each agency accomplished.

North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG)

NCTCOG works with the Regional Transportation Council to make up the metropolitan planning organization (MPO) for the greater Dallas-Fort Worth region. Areas served include Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, Denton-Lewisville, and McKinney urbanized areas and surroundings. NCTCOG works closely with regional, State, and federal partners to plan and recommend transportation projects that will improve mobility and encourage more efficient land use. Major products produced by NCTCOG include a long-range Metropolitan Transportation Plan, a shorter-term Transportation Improvement Program (TIP), a Congestion Management Process (CMP), and a Unified Planning Work Program.³

Incorporating TSMO into the Planning Process

Over the past few years, NCTCOG has focused largely on incorporating TSMO and transportation demand management into existing planning processes. The 2013 update to NCTCOG's CMP seeks a management solution to increased transportation challenges by integrating a TSMO approach into planning activities. NCTCOG collaborated with stakeholders to identify strategic business processes such as regional transportation objectives. They developed a programmatic process to evaluate facilities that either lack coverage or have deficiencies based on desired performance values. The MPO, along with regional partner agencies, developed a list of TSMO strategies that could be implemented to address facility deficiencies. Each identified strategy is associated with a type of project and is listed in table format to be used as a resource for future transportation projects. Figure 2 provides an excerpt from this table. Compliance with CMP goals and objectives is a prerequisite for projects funded through the TIP.

A similar process is followed for long-range planning efforts. Operational efficiency is a key element of the region's "Mobility 2045" planning document. This long-range plan notes that TSMO strategies are critical to addressing the growing transportation demand of the region. TSMO policies have been established to ensure management and operations are considered on every project. The plan provides strategic and programmatic business processes such as goals, implementation measures, and performance values for regional operations and management programs such as the Employer Trip Reduction Program, Regional Vanpool Program, and Park and Ride facilities.

Including TSMO in the planning process has helped the agency use resources more efficiently. Through TSMO activities, they can identify if transportation challenges will be mitigated through less traditional and less costly mobility improvements. The MPO worked closely with regional partners to integrate TSMO into their planning process. They noted that stakeholder collaboration was critical to their success.

Using Performance Measures to Identify Success

Defining and utilizing performance measures is a key component of NCTCOG's TSMO initiative. Planning documents such as the CMP, Transportation Improvement Program, and the long-range transportation plan all use performance measures to assist with project prioritization. Performance measures for project prioritization refer to both traffic and operational asset conditions. The MPO looks at existing operational assets such as signal controllers and intelligent transportation systems (ITS) devices and evaluates life expectancy and interoperability. Considering both traffic and operational asset performance measures enables the agency to optimize project prioritization by evaluating the impact of implementation against desired facility performance.

Additionally, NCTCOG implemented performance measures based on before and after studies on projects. An analysis was completed to evaluate performance metrics of travel time, number of stops, and emission output before and after retiming of over 1,000 traffic signals as part of an effort to maximize capacity in the Traffic Signal Retiming Program of 2016. The agency noted improvements in all categories through this operational approach.⁴ NCTCOG also conducts before and after studies when implementing pilot projects. For example, a pilot project allowing peak-period use of shoulder lanes on a State highway in the region was implemented with studies to explore potential improvements to corridor speeds, congestion, and safety. These performance-based before and after studies enable the agency to identify mobility solutions that work for the region. The studies also help to make the business case for TSMO to local policy makers.

NCTCOG's next step in progressing performance measures is to research the current state of performance measure usage in the region. The agency plans to conduct outreach to determine what metrics stakeholders currently track. The MPO plans to collaborate with their partner agencies to develop a regional performance measure standard through identifying opportunities for tracking additional metrics using assets currently deployed.

Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG)

MAG serves as the Maricopa County regional air quality planning agency and MPO for transportation. This includes the Phoenix area and the neighboring urbanized area in Pinal County, containing the Town of Florence and City of Maricopa. MAG provides regional planning and policy decisions in areas of transportation, air quality, water quality, and human services. MAG was formed in 1967 when local elected officials recognized the need for long range planning and policy development on a regional scale. They realized that many issues such as transportation and air quality affected residents beyond the borders of their individual jurisdictions.⁵

Using Collaboration as a Tool

During development of MAG's Systems Management and Operations Plan, the MPO undertook an 18-month study with regional partners. They held working group meetings every month over the duration of development that included local agency staff representing the MAG ITS Committee and Technical Advisory Group members. This collaboration enabled the agency to create a plan that identified TSMO strategies to address the needs of the entire region.

MAG frequently collaborates with many local agencies. Because of this ongoing collaboration, the MPO is very familiar with challenges that every regional stakeholder experiences and can provide recommendations to help optimize transportation operations, such as providing fiber backbones for regional ITS use, training for ITS applications, deploying projects and programs, and making other recommendations for improvement.

In particular, a pilot project between MAG, the Arizona Department of Transportation, the Department of Public Safety (DPS), and other local partners aimed to improve both safety and mobility in the region using a collaborative TSMO strategy. DPS staff were co-located in a regional traffic management center and utilized traffic incident management concepts to improve conditions on the regional transportation network. The results from the pilot found that response time, roadway clearance time, incident clearance time, and incident duration all improved with a benefit cost ratio of 258:1.

MAG's continual collaboration in plan development and projects has helped the agency make the business case for TSMO to regional policy boards. The success of the co-location pilot project mobilized an improved cultural shift towards using more management and operations strategies on the transportation network.

Investing in TSMO

MAG's Systems Management and Operations Plan was released in 2018. Their approach to developing strategic and tactical business processes for this plan is uniquely driven by financial considerations. For strategic business processes, TSMO objectives are presented as four key investment priorities, as shown in Figure 3.

Tactical strategies were developed for each of the key investment priorities as follows:

Integrated Corridor Management Corridors

• Ramp metering.
• Real-time closed-circuit television monitoring at intersections with arterials.
• Actuated detection for vehicles and pedestrians to support operations and real-time collection of data, including turning movements
• Static detour wayfinding.
• Wrong-way detection.
• Documented Integrated Corridor Management Plans to include detour routes, preset signal timing plan scenarios, agency coordination, and notification processes.
• Upgrade and replace freeway management systems equipment

Regional Priority Arterials

• Real-time visual monitoring of intersections.
• Additional detection for real-time data collection and archiving.
• Remote management of traffic operations at intersections.
• Regional asset upgrade/replace program.

Local Priority Corridors

• Invest in local priority ITS projects.

Regional Operations Priorities

• Incident response and management.
• Freeway service patrol.
• Update Regional Archived Data Service server and data management program.
• Track performance measures of system operations using real-time and historical data.
• Acquire real-time arterial traffic data via private sector or develop a system.
• Regional connected and autonomous vehicle guide.
• Integrate transit data and systems to facilitate real-time coordination between operations agencies.
• Equipment support for after-hours traffic management center (TMC) response.
• After-hours traffic operations - 3-year pilot project.
• After-hours traffic operations - 2-year support.
• Regional qualified vendors list.

Funding constraints for transportation improvements are common throughout the industry. MAG overcomes this challenge by planning for TSMO. When developing priority strategies, MAG also determined the cost of each strategy and where the funds would come from. With this data, the strategies were divided into three phases that will be implemented over several consecutive fiscal years.

Funding constraints in the region are not just limited to facilities or assets. Another common funding challenge is availability of staff. MAG recognized the benefit that additional TMC staff have on the transportation system and is currently using systems and technology to pilot virtual TMCs in the region as part of their regional operations priorities. The after-hours traffic operations pilot project will provide constant TMC surveillance without the cost incurred to staff the TMC at all times.

Using CMM dimensions, such as business processes and systems and technology, MAG has set the stage to fully implement and fund TSMO strategies in the region. The MPO noted that implementation of any TSMO strategy requires frequent stakeholder collaboration. The input and assistance provided by partner agencies was extremely valuable during MAG's TSMO plan development.

Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC)

ARC is the regional planning and intergovernmental coordination agency for the 20-county Atlanta region. "Some counties are considered within all elements of ARC's work, while others are only involved in one aspect." Further, "ARC coordinates planning efforts across the Region in many areas such as aging, community services, environmental planning, governmental services, job training, land use, and public facilities as well as transportation planning.⁶" Since 1947, ARC and its predecessor agencies have helped focus the region's leadership, attention, and resources on critical issues. The agency serves as a regional facilitator, bringing diverse stakeholders to the table to address the most important issues facing metro Atlanta.⁷

Addressing Thoroughfare Challenges with TSMO

In 2011, ARC developed their Strategic Regional Thoroughfare Plan and identified strategic arterial corridors for improvements using a performance-based selection process. Both a quantitative and qualitative analysis was used to identify the thoroughfare (road network). This network excludes freeways and any limited access facilities to spotlight the most significant arterials and collectors. Furthermore, the Regional Thoroughfare Network is identified as the CMP-monitoring network (in addition to the instrumented freeway network, supported by the NAVIGaTOR freeway ATMS). Quantitatively, the MPO used systems and technology concepts to efficiently use data. ARC uses data in many aspects of TSMO planning. In developing the Strategic Regional Thoroughfare Plan, data collected on regional roadways was used for corridor identification and prioritization. Travel time and speed data was collected from the roadway network and ARC used this data to develop a linear reference system that enabled the agency to also gather crash data and traffic volumes. Qualitatively, the MPO identified which corridors needed improved pedestrian access, transit options, and other multi-modal components.

Once critical corridors were identified, each thoroughfare was classified on land use, multimodal capabilities, freight considerations, and traffic conditions, both current and forecasted. The classification process allowed ARC to develop congestion management and desirable adjacent land use strategies for different thoroughfares. For example, some corridors are affected by both mobility and accessibility challenges. Needs, priority, and strategies were established once corridors were classified. This list of prioritized corridors is the backbone of the thoroughfare plan and influences planning decisions in the region.

Through development of the selection process, the MPO discovered the importance of using quantitative, qualitative, and transparent criteria when applying TSMO processes to program development. As the MPO moves towards implementation of the plan, they noted that identifying funding sources early in development would mitigate some of the challenges they currently face.