| 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
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Products: Outputs to Chart the Course and Outcomes to Measure Progress
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In the regional
collaboration framework, products encompass the use of data, information,
plans, and outputs that result from structure and processes. These products
inform regional entities (public and private sector) about the operation
of the regional transportation system over time (including planned improvements).
This aspect also includes intermediate products such as studies, evaluations,
and pilot tests that support regional collaboration activities. Some products
may be the result of information-sharing processes (e.g., traffic monitoring,
travel time data, volume counts) discussed in the previous section.
Shared Regional Vision and Strategy
Developing a strategy is fundamental to regional collaboration, and strategy
begins with vision. A shared vision among operators and service providers
expresses how the region’s transportation system needs to operate. Since
this vision is the product of a collaborative process, it lays the groundwork
for a regional strategy that includes goals and objectives for the region.
The vision is the precursor to other regional products, including a regional
concept of operations, regional performance measures, and a variety of plans
and procedures that involve regional operating agencies and service providers.
The regional goals and objectives, which flow from the regional vision,
along with the appropriate performance metrics, articulate the strategy—the
what and the how of achieving the overall objectives of the regional community.
Action
Steps for Regional Operations Collaboration and Coordination—Products
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Provide
a current conditions baseline to calibrate long-range planning.
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Develop
a regional concept of operations that sets performance expectations
for regional operators (priorities, projects, improvements,
processes, performance, resources). |
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Get
buy-in for the regional operations implementation agenda from
public safety providers and agencies that operate elements of
the transportation systems. |
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Make
the regional operations implemen-tation agenda a necessary input
into the transportation improvement plan/long-range plan (TIP/LRP).
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Use
market research as the common link between operations (customer
feedback) and planning (planning input). |
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Regional Concept
of Operations
A regional concept of operations is a primary product of regional operations
collaboration and coordination. It is a regional strategy for achieving
the shared vision of operators and service providers. It defines regional
expectations (what is to be accomplished) over time, processes (how it will
be accomplished), and resources (investments in time, money, staff, and
equipment) for better operations and system performance. It also addresses
how agencies and jurisdictions work together to achieve better system performance
and operations. The regional concept of operations combines the range of
plans, processes, data, and analyses through which performance expectations
will be accomplished.
Performance
Benefits of a Regional Concept of Operations
- It
addresses the 24-hours-a-day, 7-days- a-week operating needs of
transportation systems, taking into account welfare-to-work and
access to jobs, sporting and other special events, the needs of
shippers and goods movement, periods of maintenance and reconstruction,
periods of adverse weather, natural disasters, public safety,
incidents and emergencies, shopping, recreation, and tourism.
- It
facilitates the collaboration and information sharing required
across agencies and jurisdictions to address crosscutting issues
such as incident management and emergency response, electronic
toll and fare collection systems, traveler information systems,
commercial vehicle operations, and traffic signal systems.
- It
creates faster, more coordinated responses to incidents and emergencies.
- It
allows for seamless, integrated transit fare payments throughout
a region—e.g., it allows the Metro Transit System running from
Virginia to Maryland to operate seamlessly across jurisdictions.
- It
facilitates the sharing of data and information.
- It
allows operating agencies to work toward system integration and
interoperability.
- It
anticipates and manages demand under a variety of conditions and
events.
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The regional concept
of operations contains the operators’ collective expectations for the following
matters:
- Regional Operations
- How do we want functions of mutual interest to be managed and
operated over the next 5-7 years?
- How will we achieve integration and interoperability for optimum
performance?
- How will we develop strategic policies, programs, procedures,
protocols, standards, and/or projects that have regional benefit
and significance?
- What are our performance expectations?
- How will better regional operations contribute to regionally defined
goals and vision?
- Regional Processes, Relationships, and Standards of Performance
- How is information obtained, managed, and shared?
- Does a regional intelligent transportations system (ITS) architecture
exist? If not, will one be required? When and how?
- Is regional operations collaboration and coordination consistent
with the process for developing the regional ITS architecture?
- Are there regional performance standards?
- What policies, projects, architecture, standards, protocols, and
measures will achieve performance expectations?
- How do agencies and systems work together when necessary?
- Investments for Evolution, Adaptability, and Agility
- How do systems evolve over time and what resources (staffing,
equipment, funding) are needed to sustain and meet performance expectations?
- How will we achieve a regional vision for operations in regard
to resources, investments, priorities, pathway, etc.?
- How does the system adapt to changes in external circumstances
that affect system performance or performance expectations (security,
natural disasters, special events)?
- How does the system respond to unanticipated conditions or demands?
Process
Benefits of a Regional Concept of Operations
- It develops, achieves consensus on, and puts
into practice the use of performance measures to support a customer
service mission.
- It looks to the future for resources to sustain
and meet those performance expectations.
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Examples of products
that have emerged from regional collaboration and coordination are:
- TRANSCOM’s
concept of operations is important to governing how the member agencies,
as well as other agencies involved, interact with each other and share
information. TRANSCOM maintains planning documents such as a multiyear
strategic plan, an annual business plan and budget, an information and
communication systems plan, and a technology programs development plan.
(For more, click here.)
- The Southern
California ITS Priority Corridor management concept of operations calls
for decentralized information sharing and an open system architecture
that supports technical information sharing and the integration of different
systems. This concept lies behind the strategy to “develop once, deploy
many times,” thus allowing for cost sharing among the agencies. (For
more, click here.)
- Maricopa
Association of Governments (Phoenix, AZ) developed a Regional Concept
of Transportation Operations to provide the “big picture” of the region’s
desired state of transportation operations and management and the institutional
commitment to get there.
- Metropolitan
Transportation Commission (MTC) in the San Francisco Bay Area’s Regional
Concept of Operation focuses on freeway management in this multijurisdictional
region where congestion and long daily commute trips through multiple
jurisdictions are common and freeway expansion is unlikely.
Investment
Benefits of a Regional Concept of Operations
- It helps decision-makers understand what resources
will be needed to sustain and evolve technologies so that operators
and planners can take advantage of their full range of capabilities.
- It creates the vision for operating the elements
of the transportation system so they work better and together.
The vision and the plan for achieving the vision are critical
to ensuring future funding to sustain and improve the system.
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Range of Products
The range of products that emerges from regional collaboration and coordination
activities mirrors the range of processes discussed previously. As relationships
(structure) and processes become more formalized, the resulting products
are more formal in content and structure, have greater standing among the
region’s operators and service providers, and guide the decisions and actions
of regional stakeholders. Note in table 3 that, as the products move from
“less formal” to “more formal,” the less formal products continue to be
produced and used by the region’s transportation stakeholders (providers
and users).
Table 3.
Range of services.
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