2.0 A Regional Concept for Transportation Operations - At a Glance
A Regional Concept for Transportation Operations is derived through sustained collaboration among stakeholders. It contains the shared regional objective for transportation operations and what is needed to achieve that objective – specifically physical improvements, relationships and procedures, and resource arrangements. An RCTO is created out of ongoing collaboration primarily between managers responsible for operating the transportation system on a day-to-day basis. The following key questions and answers on an RCTO provide a sense of its scope and nature:
What is the purpose of an RCTO?
An RCTO serves three important purposes. First, it presents a mutual operations vision and direction for the future of transportation systems management and operations based on a holistic view of the region. It guides the collaborative effort by bringing together varied transportation operations perspectives from different agencies and jurisdictions to provide a common approach for a common objective. Through this effort, an RCTC assists participants in coordinating priorities, leveraging resources, and alleviating duplicative efforts. Second, it can garner commitment from agencies and jurisdictions for a common regional approach to transportation management and operations. Third, an RCTO provides an opportunity to strengthen the linkage between regional planners and managers responsible for transportation operations by providing a coherent operations strategy for consideration in the planning process.
Who is involved in creating an RCTO?
An RCTO is a product of regional transportation operations collaboration and coordination - a deliberate, continuous, and sustained activity that includes transportation practitioners from different agencies and jurisdictions who are responsible for day-to-day operations. These individuals are often at the manager or official level. The development process should also include those responsible for regional transportation planning in order to be consistent and supportive of regional goals, plans, and programs. The particular agencies that should be involved depend heavily on the functional scope of the collaborative activity. A sample of transportation-related participants that could be involved in developing an RCTO is given below:
- Traffic operations engineers and managers
- Transit operations managers
- Police officials
- Fire officials
- Emergency medical service ( EMS ) officials
- Emergency managers
- Port authority managers
- Transportation planners
- Bridge and toll facility operators
What is the scope of an RCTO?
The scope of an RCTO is shaped by the collaborative activity among transportation operators from multiple jurisdictions. An RCTO can address a single service (e.g., traffic incident management, traveler information services, or electronic fare payment), a collection of related services (e.g., congestion management for arterials and freeways), or capabilities that cut across several services (e.g., wireless communications network, surveillance and control systems, or vehicle detection and locator systems). The functional scope of an RCTO may change over time in response to changes in the collaboration between participants. For example, an RCTO can help collaboration on incident management expand to include emergency management.
Services that tend to be of regional significance and could benefit from an RCTO include:
- Congestion management
- Traffic incident management
- Traveler information
- Electronic payment services (e.g., transit, parking, tolls)
- Emergency response and homeland security
- Traffic signal coordination
- Road weather management
- Freight management
- Work zone traffic management
- Freeway management
Why does an RCTO have a three- to five-year timeframe?
Three to five years is the suggested horizon for an RCTO, although this is can vary depending on the individual needs of the participating jurisdictions and agencies. An RCTO focuses on an operations objective that can be achieved in the near-term because that is the prevailing perspective of most managers who have responsibility for improving day-to-day operations. Significant improvements to transportation operations can also be made beyond three to five years; however, the short timeframe keeps the interest of results-oriented, operations-minded stakeholder groups. Additionally, the three- to five-year timeline of an RCTO facilitates coordination with capital improvement programs (CIPs) in the region, such as the Transportation Improvement Program (TIP), which relates to this three- to five-year time period. .
Is an RCTO just for metropolitan areas?
No. An RCTO is useful in any geographic region or setting where collaborative thinking about transportation operations is taking place or is needed to identify and address the interests of multiple constituencies. Geographic settings include small urban areas, rural areas, freight corridors, national parks, tourist areas, as well as larger metropolitan areas. Many non-urban or rural areas may find significant benefit in creating an RCTO, as they often do not have a regional planning process or metropolitan planning organization to bring focus to the region.
How will an RCTO affect how a participating agency operates?
Agencies and jurisdictions will still control their own projects or actions. Through developing an RCTO, agencies and jurisdictions can see how some of their projects and actions can be coordinated and they can work together to achieve a mutually agreed-upon operations objective. An important feature of an RCTO is that it addresses services or functions of regional significance that are best addressed from a regional perspective. In some cases, an RCTO will lead to regional services operated by a regional entity; in other cases it will provide the overarching regional agreement that guides individual jurisdictions and agencies as they make capital investment decisions, procure equipment and services, and carry out their day-to-day operations responsibilities.
How does an RCTO relate to a regional intelligent transportation systems (ITS) architecture?
If a regional ITS architecture exists, it can be very useful in developing a regional concept for transportation operations. If a regional ITS architecture does not exist, its development can be enabled through an RCTO. The relationships and procedures of an RCTO are closely related to a regional ITS architecture. A regional ITS architecture maps out how critical relationships and information sharing are enabled by ITS. Key features contained in a regional ITS architecture that facilitate relationships and information sharing are:
- Operations concepts
- Agreements
- Inventories
- Architecture flow
- Standards
