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21st Century Operations Using 21st Century Technologies
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The Value of a Business Case in Mainstreaming TSMO

5. Business Cases for TSMO

Many State DOTs have developed a business case to advance TSMO in their organizations. These business cases vary from formal, stand-alone documents to sections of TSMO plans to informal talking points shared across divisions and offices. This section provides business case examples, identified through document reviews and agency interviews, that focus on the transportation challenges faced by agencies in their State, and how TSMO can be used to address them.

Arizona

Arizona DOT’s mission is “Connecting Arizona. Everyone. Everywhere. Every Day.” (Arizona Department of Transportation n.d.) The TSMO division’s focus areas include Operational and Traffic Safety, System Maintenance, Systems Technology, and Traffic Maintenance and Management. Arizona DOT has identified a number of challenges that TSMO can address and has articulated the importance of TSMO in addressing these challenges. This information is on Arizona DOT’s website and helps make a business case for advancing TSMO. The challenges Arizona DOT identified are (Cain 2016):

  • Congestion and delay increasing as the economy and population grow
  • High value placed on reliability
  • No longer able to build its way out of congestion
  • Over $3 billion of economic loss due to vehicle crashes in 2014

Arizona DOT makes the case that TSMO is important for the following reasons:

  • It provides better alignment with present and future operations.
  • System preservation and operations are more important than ever.
  • There are synergies through improved interagency coordination.
  • It maximizes the efficiency of existing infrastructure.
  • It maximizes the effectiveness of tools and data for mobility, reliability, and safety.
  • It advances technologies.

Iowa

A section of the Iowa DOT TSMO strategic plan, entitled “The Case for TSMO,” outlines the benefits of TSMO in terms of safety, efficiency, and reliability. It also discusses how TSMO supports Iowa DOT’s vision of “Smarter, Simpler, Customer-Driven.” (Iowa DOT 2016) Iowa DOT leadership presented the business case across the agency to increase understanding of TSMO and its benefits for all levels of the organization. Iowa DOT also made the case for TSMO to the public and elected officials to enhance support and funding for the TSMO program. The plan presents statistics on congestion in Iowa, shown in figure 1, and discusses the impacts of congestion on system delay, reliability, and safety.

This pie chart breaks out the causes of recurring and nonrecurring congestion.

Source: Iowa DOT.

Figure 1. Chart. Iowa congestion from 2013 to 2015.
This pie chart breaks out the causes of recurring and nonrecurring congestion. Recurring congestion is due to bottlenecks, which account for 23 percent of all congestion, and poor signal timing, which accounts for5 percent of total congestion. The causes of non-recurring congestion and the total percentage of congestion they cause include traffic incidents (27 percent), work zones (12 percent), bad weather (28 percent) and special events (5 percent).

Iowa DOT estimates $2 billion of unanticipated transportation costs in Iowa associated with delay. These costs include wasted time, wasted fuel, financial costs of traffic, and vehicle costs. The TSMO strategic plan argues that TSMO:

Offers resources and strategies to realize the full capacity of the existing transportation system, increase reliability, improve safety, and target safety and operational problem locations. With increasing travel demand reflected in a growing population and VMT, and with funding constraints for construction of additional lanes, TSMO brings together Iowa DOT and its external partners to reduce traffic congestion and address nonrecurring traffic disruptions in a collaborative and cost-effective program. These strategies can be implemented faster and more economically than new construction and support environmental and sustainability objectives by reducing congestion and avoiding more impactful construction options. (Iowa DOT 2016, p. 5)

Michigan

Michigan DOT developed multiple business cases, tailored to various stakeholder groups and audiences, that summarize the mobility, safety, and reliability benefits of TSMO. Figure 2 shows Michigan DOT’s business case developed for the public.

Michigan DOT’s TSMO Implementation and Strategic Plan includes a section on the importance of TSMO for Michigan DOT. (Michigan DOT 2020) This section discusses the opportunities for TSMO’s “‘toolbox’ of cost-effective and quick-to-implement transportation solutions that can complement and enhance traditional capital expansion projects for the approximately 60 percent of traffic congestion that is due to … nonrecurring traffic issues.” (Michigan DOT 2020, p. 8) It makes the case that “TSMO solutions increase mobility, reliability, and safety during incidents, bad weather, work zones, and special events.” (Michigan DOT 2020, p. 8)

This infographic is entitled 'Tired of Sitting in Traffic? Us too.'

Source: Michigan DOT.

Figure 2. Infographic. Michigan Department of Transportation's public business case for TSMO.

Nevada

As part of Nevada DOT’s TSMO program planning process, it developed a business case for TSMO that addresses current challenges and the benefit of TSMO in addressing those challenges. The challenges include population growth, a tourism-based economy, congestion and associated costs, increasing vehicle miles traveled (VMT), deficient roads and bridges, safety, truck and freight movement, and asset and performance management. The business case is presented in a two-page graphical format (one page shown in figure 3) that highlights the current need, the benefits provided by TSMO strategies to address the need, and example projects underway by various DOTs to apply TSMO strategies.

Screen capture of an informational panel from a TSMO business case highlighting the challenges to Nevcada DOT and the benefits that implemented TSMO solutions have brought.

Note: NDOT = Nevada DOT, DPS-NHP = Department of Public Safety Nevada Highway Patrol, RTC-FAST = Regional Transportation Commission Freeway and Arterial System of Transportation; TSMO = transportation systems management and operations.
Source: Nevada DOT.

Figure 3. Infographic. Element of Nevada Department of Transportation’s TSMO business case.

Pennsylvania

PennDOT is developing a business case and believes that good data are essential to building the case. In the agency’s TSMO Strategic Framework for Pennsylvania, the section “Why TSMO” highlights mobility, safety, and funding issues and how TSMO can address those. (PennDOT 2018) “The TSMO Business Case” section states that we cannot build our way out of congestion. Additionally, capacity-adding projects generally cost more and provide a lower return on investment compared to operations solutions. Traditional road capacity adding projects have generally shown benefit/cost ratios of 2:1 to 5:1, while TSMO strategies that target specific causes of congestion at a specific location are extremely cost effective with benefit cost ratios as high as 60:1. (PennDOT 2018)

In addition to formal efforts to define the TSMO business case, TSMO staff are committed to making the case on an ongoing, informal basis through elevator speeches and short pitches across the agency whenever an opportunity presents itself. This is intended to build understanding and mainstreaming of TSMO through everyday conversations.

Utah

Utah DOT recently completed its business case for TSMO as the first step toward developing its TSMO program plan. The six-page document, which advances Utah DOT’s slogan “Keeping Utah Moving,” is summarized in an overview section that states:

UDOT is taking an integrated, agency-wide approach to continually improve our work by promoting TSMO solutions that leverage technology and partnerships to optimize network performance. This includes raising awareness of how TSMO helps advance all UDOT work and of the many opportunities to apply TSMO solutions to the full spectrum of UDOT projects to improve safety, reliability, and efficiency for all UDOT travelers. This document presents the UDOT-specific business case on the benefits of advancing TSMO solutions capabilities – and of ‘mainstreaming’ TSMO solutions across the agency. (Utah DOT 2019, p. 1)

Utah’s Keeping Utah Moving by Advancing TSMO: The Business Case includes the following topics (Utah DOT 2019):

  • Why TSMO?—addresses TSMO’s cost-effective solutions for today and tomorrow’s transportation challenges; the benefits of TSMO; and the institutional, organizational, and procedural changes for improving TSMO.
  • TSMO at Utah DOT Today—describes current TSMO activities within the DOT; UDOT TSMO strengths, challenges, and opportunities; and how TSMO fits into the executive director’s top-10 goals for Utah DOT.
  • Next Steps at Utah DOT—discusses TSMO planning and outreach activities to advance TSMO at Utah DOT.

Texas

The Texas DOT website explains that congestion is increasing throughout Texas and that the statewide TSMO program is intended to improve mobility and safety by coordinating mobility strategies. The agency focuses on creating a culture that recognizes traffic management systems as a core priority and states: “TSMO brings a customer-centric focus to the project development process by prioritizing mobility solutions which apply technology and other innovative techniques. TSMO mobility strategies are relatively low in cost compared to adding capacity, can be implemented in less time, and potentially offer higher benefit-cost ratios.” (Texas DOT 2020)

Texas DOT’s TSMO Statewide Strategic Plan includes a section on how TSMO helps meet specific transportation needs. (Texas DOT 2018) The plan is considered Texas DOT’s business case for TSMO. It argues that “TSMO is an effective approach to planning for and delivering projects using innovative and efficient strategies. TSMO helps agencies provide safe, reliable, efficient, and sustainable mobility for all users.” (Texas DOT 2018, p. 7) It includes six ways TSMO improves system management:

  • Effective use of funding
  • Collaboration with stakeholders and across disciplines
  • Data-driven, performance-based implementation
  • Immediate improvements to system reliability
  • Integration of TSMO strategies in all project phases
  • Improved mobility, reliability, and safety

Washington

Washington State DOT’s assistant secretary for multimodal development and delivery provided the business case for TSMO in a presentation, which identified the State’s challenges and need for TSMO. (Elizer 2018) It discusses how the State’s robust economy continues to add challenges to the transportation system, as documented in Washington State DOT’s Corridor Capacity Report. (Washington State DOT 2018) It outlines the importance of freight movement to the State economy, the cost of transportation incidents, the impact of congestion, and the inability to provide enough lane miles to solve congestion through construction. Washington State DOT’s approach to solving these challenges is through its Practical Solutions initiative. This approach is based on smarter designs and better system operations: “TSMO offers the potential to provide an integrated program to optimize the performance of existing infrastructure through the implementation of specific systems and services that preserve capacity and improve reliability and safety.” (Elizer 2018)

Washington State DOT believes that “TSMO is foundational to the delivery of [its] three Strategic Plan Focus Areas:” (Elizer 2018)

  • Inclusion—focuses on diversity and engagement across the organization to ensure all voices are heard.
  • Practical Solutions—TSMO supports cost-effective planning, design, construction, operations, and maintenance of the transportation system.
  • Workforce Development—TSMO’s focus on out-of-the-box thinking supports the creation of a motivated, modern workforce.