Rhode Island Department of Transportation TMPs

The Rhode Island Department of Transportation (RIDOT) developed requirements for TMP preparation and submission that begin during the initial planning stage for all RIDOT construction and maintenance projects/activities. At this stage, the project manager completes a conceptual screening-level assessment of the expected work zone-related impacts and uses a qualitative process to assign a Work Zone Impact Level to the project. The TMP strategies selected for the project are based on the project's Impact Level. Projects assigned as Impact Level 1 or 2 are considered significant projects. Projects assigned a Level 3 are considered to have moderate impacts, and projects assigned a Level 4 are considered to have low impacts.

All RIDOT TMPs include general project information; a listing of the Temporary Traffic Control (TTC) plans to be used to facilitate traffic flow and safety through the project's work zones; any traffic-related work restrictions (as determined based on the criteria included in the RIDOT Traffic Design Manual); and any other transportation management strategies to be used to maintain or improve road user/worker safety and/or minimize road user congestion and delays during the work. RIDOT's Work Zone Policy specifies certain strategies that must be used:

All projects must use an appropriate set of traffic control, coordination, and contracting strategies.
All Work Zone Impact Level 1, 2, and 3 projects must use, at minimum, public information strategies of RIDOT travel advisory news releases, RIDOT travel advisory web site, and the RIDOT 511 traveler information system.
All Work Zone Impact Level 1, 2, and 3 projects expected to include work zones that extend into the range of one or more RIDOT CCTV surveillance cameras must use the RIDOT Transportation Management Center for coordinating and managing traffic/incident management activities in and around the work zone.
All Work Zone Impact Level 1 and 2 (Significant) Projects must use an appropriate set of public information (PI) and transportation operations (TO) strategies.
All Work Zone Impact Level 1 Projects must hold project team meetings on a regular basis during the work to discuss/assess (1) the safety and mobility impacts of the work zones and (2) the performance of the transportation management strategies to date.

To assist designers in preparing TMPs for projects, RIDOT has developed a set of four TMP Templates (scroll down to the Work Zone Safety & Mobility section of the page.), one for each Work Zone Impact Level. The templates are in Microsoft Excel format, with worksheets for the TMP (includes areas for roles and responsibilities, project information, TTC Plan, PI Plan, TO Plan, Performance Monitoring Plan, Contingency Plans, and TMP approvals), implementation costs, and post-construction performance assessment. The template also includes a list of potential TTC, PI, TO, and performance monitoring strategies that can be used in the TMP. The post-construction performance assessment must be completed by the RIDOT TMP Implementation Manager upon completion of the work to document lessons learned and provide recommendations on how to improve the TMP process and/or modify guidelines. RIDOT requires that TTC plans must either be attached to the TMP or, when included in the project construction plan set, incorporated by reference.

It is the responsibility of the designer to obtain the appropriate TMP Template and to develop, update, and complete the TMP as the project progresses. Guidance for completing TMPs is presented in RIDOT's Work Zone Policy and is also provided in comments in the TMP Templates. RIDOT has also developed four sample TMPs to provide additional guidance on filling out the templates. The sample TMPs, as well as RIDOT's Work Zone Policy, are available from the RIDOT Project Management Portal. Once on the portal, select the DPMs link in the Documents box on the left side of the page, and then scroll down to the documents associated with DPM 450.05.