Integrating Travel Time Reliability into Transportation System Management: Final Technical Memorandum
Chapter 7. Next Steps
The goal of this effort was to develop and demonstrate a methodology for integrating travel time reliability concepts and analysis into ongoing transportation system management activities and programs as well as into transportation system management strategies and operational tactics at the network and corridor levels.
This section describes several actions that the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) or other organizations can take to advance this methodology with planners and system managers and operators at State and local departments of transportation and metropolitan planning organizations. The practitioners who participated in this project's workshop stated that they thought this methodology would help planners and operators find a way to "meet in the middle" and connect the planning goals and objectives with the more detailed operational objectives, strategies, and tactics.
Continued Refinement of the Overall Aproach
This research highlights the need to refine, harmonize, and integrate the collection of processes for planning, implementing, and managing transportation systems, beginning with long-range transportation system planning and extending to corridor- or facility-level systems engineering and tactical deployment. The methodology developed through this project provides a conceptual framework for linking these processes into an integrated and holistic approach that enables planners and operators to connect their plans in ways that ensure responsiveness to higher level plans, which are informed by operational needs, opportunities, and possibilities. This effort complements but does encompass or replace other related methodologies and processes that also support planning for operations.
Continued refinement of this framework should further explore correlations between this methodology and other processes to create a unified process that harmonizes terminology, anticipates the integration of emerging transportation services and technologies, and identities opportunities to overcome structural constraints (e.g., funding timelines, institutional silos) that obstruct a seamless approach to systems management from planning through implementation.
Outreach, Communications, and Technical Assistance
Currently, the methodology is not in a format that is easily understood and adopted into existing processes. Communications products such as a brochure and presentation could be developed to explain the methodology to each primary audience and why it would benefit them. As part of adopting this methodology, planners and operators in the same region or State would need to work together to identify how to use this methodology to connect their efforts. Providing a facilitated forum for planners and operators to convene in a region or State and be led through these discussions would help with adapting their current practices.
Analytical Foundation for Methodology
As noted by the workshop participants, many of the analysis tools currently available to evaluate reliability and operations strategies require highly skilled staff or outside consultants. While some tools or methods can help agencies with this methodology, as mentioned in previous sections of this report, more is needed to reduce this obstacle to using the methodology with quantitative analysis. This methodology may benefit from guidance on how to more definitively identify operational strategies or tactics that will help achieve operational objectives.
Enriching of Management Strategies
One step in the methodology that could use more research and definition is the development of management strategies for a corridor or network. While this is meant to represent an overarching strategy for reaching the operational objectives, it tends to be more of a collection of tactical program areas. This is key to helping agencies develop the management portion of TSMO as opposed to just operating the system.
Pilot Testing
Testing the methodology in multiple States or regions could provide FHWA valuable insights into its strengths and weaknesses so that it can evolve and improve the methodology for greater acceptance across the United States. The pilot sites could also serve as examples that can draw the interest of other States or regions in using the methodology.
