U.S. Department of Transportation - Federal Highway Administration FHWA Homefeedback
Regional Transportation Operations Collaboration and Coordination banner
Note From the Director

Making the Case for Regional Transportation Operations Collaboration and Coordination

The Practice of Regional Transportation Operations Collaboration and Coordination:
     Overview
     Structure
     Process
     Products
     Resources
     Performance

Regional Transportation Operations Collaboration and Coordination and the Regional ITS Architecture Development Process

A Self-Assessment—Where Are You in Regional Collaboration and Coordination?

Applications of Regional Operations Collaboration and Coordination Planning for Transportation Operations

 The Practice of Regional Transportation Operations Collaboration and Coordination

Processes: Facilitating Collaboration

Process. Click image for text description.
Processes are formal and informal activities performed in accordance with written or unwritten policies agreed to in a collaborative fashion, involving multiple agencies and jurisdictions in a region (e.g., for information sharing, incident management, freeway management, emergency response).

The process aspect relates to the ways options are created and decisions are made to improve system performance. An effective approach ensures that investment decisions include full consideration of operations strategies along with capital improvements; operations activities are addressed from a multimodal corridor perspective; and operations thinking addresses other regional economic, environmental, and mobility objectives. The process for collaboration and coordination does not end when a project is completed or installed.
Figure 3. Click image for text description.
Figure 3. Aspects of information/data sharing on which regional collaboration primarily relies.
Information/Data Sharing—Critical to the Success of Collaboration

Information/data sharing is critical to effective regional operations collaboration and coordination. Information/data sharing is a collaborative effort to identify problems, coordinate activities, and make a case for investment needs that includes anecdotal evidence, historical data, current conditions, and supporting analysis. The shaded areas of figure 3 show aspects of information/data sharing on which regional collaboration primarily relies. The information needed to support collaboration is available only if stakeholders agree on ways to capture, archive, and share real-time performance data.

Regional collaboration and coordination relies on information about current transportation system operations and their projected performance under various potential scenarios. The strategic thinking associated with regional collaboration requires data accumulated over time that can be mined to discover relationships, trends, and opportunities, and that can then be acted upon.

Analyses depend on meaningful performance data and a reliable estimate of future requirements based on historical trends and knowledge of future needs. These analyses enable operators regionwide to evaluate options for achieving agreed-upon performance levels. The information generated by the analysis is used in outreach and education efforts to bring all stakeholders to a common plan or concept of operations. The regional concept of operations drives decision-making (e.g., roles and responsibilities, multilateral operating agreements, standards, and protocols) among jurisdictions and agencies that enables the operators to implement improved practices.

Action Steps for Regional Operations Collaboration and Coordination—Processes

spacerbox Make investments decisions based on the best combinations of capital investments and operations strategies (performance-based planning).
spacerbox Ensure that the solutions (project) selection process and criteria provide a level playing field for operational improvements and investments. Tools are available to show the benefits of operational improvements.
spacerbox Address operations activities (e.g., incident management, traveler information) in multimodal corridor planning.
spacerbox Use operations performance audits (e.g., corridor-wide) as a tool for guiding investment choices.
spacerbox Leverage operations to achieve regional goals (or meet other commonly sought outcomes).
Some specific examples of how metropolitan regions are collecting, sharing, and using information to improve regional transportation operations include:

  • The San Diego Association of Governments created an integrated data collection and dissemination system to be shared by all transportation agencies in the region to coordinate incident management and public safety activities.
  • CapWIN’s integrated wireless network allows transportation agencies to communicate directly with each other as well as receive real-time and historical information. (For more, click here.)
  • TRANSCOM’s operations depend on real-time and archived data shared among the involved agencies. The Operations Information Center collects and disseminates real-time incident and construction information to members and affiliated agencies, 24 hours a day, and maintains a database of construction projects. (For more, click here.)
  • The Southern California ITS Priority Corridor network provides a resource for traveler information by enabling the integration of traveler information from several sources. It also enables contingency control during emergencies by providing network links among the four Caltrans traffic management centers (TMCs), allowing one TMC to take control for another if needed. (For more, click here.)
Range of Process Interactions

Regional collaboration and coordination helps move regions along a spectrum from little to no information sharing and collaboration, to ad hoc relationships built around specific issues or events, to more formal collaborative relationships with mutually agreed-upon objectives and strategies, and finally, in some instances, to joint ownership and control of transportation facilities and services. This spectrum, illustrated in table 2, shows some of the ways that a region’s public and private sector entities may interact.

Table 2. Range of process interactions.

Table 2. Click here for text description.


Regional Transportation Operations Collaboration and Coordination
Previous Section                                         Next Section