Executive Summary

Advancing Metropolitan Planning for Operations: The Building Blocks of a Model Transportation Plan Incorporating Operations – A Desk Reference is a resource designed to enable transportation planners and their planning partners to build a transportation plan that includes operations objectives, performance measures, and strategies that are relevant to their region, that reflect the community's values and constraints, and that move the region in a direction of improved mobility and safety. It offers practitioners a menu of options for incorporating operations into their plans through an organized collection of sample operations objectives and performance measures. It also features excerpts from a model metropolitan transportation plan, illustrating the results of an objectives-driven, performance-based approach to planning for operations. Succinct commentary on the excerpts ensures a clear understanding of the benefits and applications of each element presented.

This reference is a companion to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and Federal Transit Administration (FTA) resource, Advancing Metropolitan Planning for Operations: An Objectives-Driven, Performance-Based Approach - A Guidebook.¹ The guidebook introduces the objectives-driven, performance-based approach to planning for operations and how to use this approach while this desk reference supplies the reader with tangible examples of operations objectives and associated performance measures that can be tailored for a specific region or pulled directly into a metropolitan transportation plan (MTP). The resources are provided to assist metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) and their planning partners in addressing the Federal requirements to include "operational and management strategies to improve the performance of existing transportation facilities" in the MTP and "promote efficient system management and operation."² The collection of operations objectives and the model plan excerpts can be used to inspire discussion among operations planning partners as they work to develop their own operations objectives and a plan that reflects this approach.

This is not a document that needs to be read from cover to cover for the full benefit. The reader is encouraged to use the table of contents and reference tables in Section 3.2 to locate information of interest. Section 1, Introduction, Executive Summary and Section 2, Developing Operations Objectives, offer background to the desk reference and the objectives-driven, performance-based approach. These sections are helpful in orienting the reader to the information found in the remainder of the document.

Section 3, Menu of Operations Objectives, is for the reader interested in creating operations objectives and performance measures to be included in the MTP or other planning documents. This section contains cross-reference tables to locate operations objectives related to a specific interest. Following the table is a collection of information sheets that hold operations objectives and their associated performance measures, data needs, management and operations (M&O) strategies, and a sampling of safety benefits. The information sheets are organized according to desired system performance outcomes (e.g., efficiency, reliability, quality) and operations areas (e.g., arterial management, work zones, incident and emergency management). Each sheet gives one or more operations objectives focused on a specific topic, such as "System Efficiency: Extent of Congestion." Performance measures needed to assess progress toward those objectives are given along with a list of anticipated data needs. Potential data resources or necessary partners are listed as well as a short description of M&O strategies that may be considered in achieving the objectives. Finally, safety benefits that result from achieving the operations objectives may be described.

Readers are encouraged to consult Section 4, Model Metropolitan Transportation Plan, when developing or updating a plan. This model reflects the use of an objectives-driven, performance-based approach to planning for operations and its effects on the content and focus of the MTP. Sections of a plan offer an illustration of how a plan incorporates this approach while acknowledging that no single format will fit all regions. Excerpts of this plan have been tailored for three levels of operations planning: basic, advancing, and comprehensive. This will allow readers from a range of regions to find useful examples.

Finally, Section 5, References and Resources, gives the readers a list of other sources on which to rely for additional information or assistance.