Appendix A: Who is Doing It? Some Examples

While the term “Regional Concept for Transportation Operations” is not widely used, several regions have developed a similar approach to guide investment decisions, design and deployment activities, and day-to-day activities. Two such examples are in Phoenix, Arizona and San Francisco, California.

Maricopa Association of Governments Regional Concept of Transportation Operations [1]

The central region of Arizona contains one of the largest urban areas in the nation, Maricopa County. It spans the Phoenix urbanized area where more than three million people live in roughly 1,500 square miles. The complex jurisdictional division of transportation services in Maricopa County presents a significant challenge to the delivery of regional system management and operations. Each city has its own transportation system, operational procedures, and priorities, although public safety is well-coordinated under mutual aid agreements. Crossing several jurisdictions are many major arterial corridors that often include multiple traffic signal systems. A few organizations provide a foundation for regional transportation operations coordination including the Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG) ITS Committee, AZTech TM, and the East and West Valley Traffic Signal Timing Groups.

Spearheaded by the MAG ITS Committee in 2001 and fueled by the region’s need for ITS deployment coordination, the MAG Regional Concept of Transportation Operations was developed by a group of stakeholders from city, county, regional, State, and Federal agencies and assisted by consultants.

The stakeholders arrived at a common vision and mission for the region’s transportation system operations by reaching a consensus between stakeholder perspectives. Guided by the vision, the stakeholders developed three- and five-year operational goals for the region, such as “limit the percent increase in average arterial travel time to less than the percent increase in traffic volume.” To address these goals, eleven initiatives and associated steps for action were created such as the initiative of transit signal priority and its associated action, “plan, deploy, operate, maintain and evaluate a Transit Signal Priority pilot project.” In order to track their progress, they agreed upon common operational performance measures.

Several measures were taken to insure success of the newly formed initiatives. A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to be signed by each participating agency was formed. The intent of the MOU is to acquire commitment from the participants to work towards the initiatives and coordinate with one another in managing and operating the region’s transportation system. Furthermore, existing regional forums or committees and a champion were assigned responsibility for one or more initiatives. The champion’s duties included being a leader for the area and reporting on the progress at the MAG ITS Committee meetings. A guidance document is currently being developed to assist agencies as they begin to implement the actions described in the MAG Regional Concept of Transportation Operations.

Bay Area Freeway Concept of Operations

The Bay Area, a heavily urbanized region of California which includes San Jose , San Francisco , and Oakland , is home to more than 6.7 million people. Between 1990 and 2000, the area experienced rapid population growth, contributing to severe congestion. [2] The extensive freeway network of the Bay Area is managed primarily by three regional agencies: Caltrans District 4 (Caltrans), Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), and California Highway Patrol Golden Gate Division (CHP) along with several local agencies.[3]

The Bay Area Freeway Management systems include independent congestion management, incident management, and traveler information systems. Congestion management is primarily the domain of Caltrans through its Traffic Operations System (TOS). MTC covers traveler information for the area though TravInfo. CHP has historically been the primary agency for freeway law enforcement and incident management and utilizes a computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system. Because the freeway management activities demand a high level of coordination among so many agencies, the three regional agencies, Caltrans, MTC, and CHP, decided to jointly develop the Bay Area Freeway Concept of Operations in order to improve the Bay Area operations policies, procedures, and practices. [4]

The development process involved a Technical Advisory Committee composed of agency staff, an Executive Committee of a top executive from each of the regional agencies, and public agency stakeholders who provided input during the process. The formation of the Bay Area Freeway Concept of Operations followed approximately these steps: [5]

• Define a mutually agreed upon Freeway Management Program Vision, and develop supporting goals and measurable objectives at three levels: Freeway Management Program, Freeway Operations, and the Freeway Concept of Operations.
• Inventory the current policies, practices, and resources of regional and local agencies in order to identify areas of potential improvements especially those involving interactions between regional agencies.
• Identify key institutional and technical issues likely to be significant in future freeway operations. Institutional issues that are raised indicate where coordination is lacking and should be improved such as harmonizing ramp meters with nearby traffic signals on arterials and data sharing policies.
• Develop a strategy plan that recommends institutional and technical improvements that will facilitate freeway operations.
• Create an action plan that prioritizes initiatives from the strategy plan and provides a sequence of actions to implement each strategy. Within the action plan, a lead agency is designated for each initiative, and the timeframe and resources needed to implement the strategy are defined.

The immediate result of the Bay Area Freeway Concept of Operations project consists of several key documents that delineate a regional consensus of what freeway operations should look like in the near future and how the participating agencies can meet the new expectations.

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