| 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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Performance Improvement: Monitoring and Improving Regional Operations
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Performance improvement addresses regional performance objectives and how they will be measured, including public safety, mobility, security, economic development, and environment. There may also be some intermediate performance objectives that address the success of regional cooperation.
Performance measures are a key to assessing the success of a region’s effort to collaborate and coordinate and to identifying areas where improvement is needed or possible. The first step related to performance improvement is finding a general consensus that performance measures are needed if regional transportation system performance is to improve. Given this consensus, performance measures relevant to system users must be developed and accepted as meaningful methods of assessing both the short-term and long-term operation of the regional transportation system. Because regional operations collaboration and coordination is a constantly evolving process, the performance measures themselves may change, resulting from changes in institutional relationships, technology applications, and policy and procedures. So that the region’s operators and service providers understand whether regional goals are being met, they should regularly report on and discuss whether performance measures accurately reflect a successful regional vision of transportation system operation as part of the process of collaboration and coordination.
Action
Steps for Regional Operations Collaboration and Coordination—
Performance Improvement
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Agree on expected levels of performance and the need for improvement.
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Develop and accept relevant regional performance measures.
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Provide regular status reports on regional transportation system operations performance. |
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Share, link, and provide system managers and system users with access to real-time and archived system performance data. |
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Several regional
operations entities have established performance standards, and routinely
monitor and report how well the system is operating. Some examples are given
below:
- AZTech established standards for interagency coordination, giving
the region a sense of expected levels of performance. Smart Corridor
components linked to the AZTech server allow information sharing among
agencies and jurisdictions. Traffic signal controllers, surveillance
equipment, and detection devices were installed or upgraded to allow
for the collection of information. Information is shared through workstations
installed at traffic operations centers (TOCs) in each jurisdiction.
(For more, click here.)
- Montgomery County, Maryland’s real-time and archived data are shared,
linked, and made accessible to local agencies and departments, and are
delivered to system users through the Advanced Traffic Information System
(ATIS). (For more, click here.)
- To maintain efficient system performance, the San Antonio Medical
Center Corridor Project restricts the use of the incident response traffic
signal plans and variable message signs to more severe incidents. (For
more, click here.)
The measures selected to assess operations performance depend upon the availability
of accurate, meaningful system data. Performance data can range from highly
subjective user opinion surveys to detailed collection and analysis of real-time
system data. No single type of data is adequate to judge end-to-end system
performance. Relying solely on user surveys to assess system performance,
for example, yields little insight into specific ways to improve system
performance. Conversely, detailed measurement of specific attributes of
individual system components (e.g., signal system reliability) may result
in a focus on inappropriate responses. Since no single metric is likely
to be sufficiently robust to convey all measures of interest to the region’s
operators, service providers, and system users, multiple approaches to performance
measurement are typically preferable over a single metric.
Range of Metrics and Measures of Performance
Performance improvement depends on reliable and meaningful performance metrics
(what parts of performance to track, e.g., delay) and related measures (how
to measure them, e.g., probing vehicles’ transit time). Performance measurement
and improvement are most readily accomplished at the component level (e.g.,
operational availability, failure rates, units deployed, personnel assigned).
Component level performance measures may not, however, be the most adequate
indicators of transportation system performance. Functional performance
measures provide a better indication of how well specific services are provided
from the customers’ perspectives (e.g., on-time arrival rates for transit
vehicles, average travel time between two points in a corridor). At the
system level, performance measures (e.g., total average delay/day, customer
satisfaction surveys) should relate to the region’s transportation system
overall performance. Table 5 illustrates the range of metrics and measures
of performance.
Table 5.
Range of metrics and measures of performance.
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