Document Library

This project initially entailed a review of current literature on federal agency, DOT, and other transportation agency practices in performance-based budgeting, planning, and management of highway transportation programs, particularly with regard to lessons for highway-program budgeting, planning, and management. The research team worked with AASHTO leadership to develop and refine descriptions of the current state of practice in performance-based budgeting, planning, and management of highway transportation programs and to assess the impact of alternate federal-aid program mixes and apportionment formulas on transportation agencies’ ability to achieve specific performance goals. Working with AASHTO leadership, the research team undertook to develop alternatives for federal-aid program management to improve agencies’ ability to achieve specific performance goals

Objective: To develop a handbook that can be used as a reference by transportation agencies when implementing network performance measures across modes or jurisdictions, including methods for integrating performance measures from individual modes and jurisdictions and developing new measures, if needed, for transportation network performance.

The objective of this research is to develop a guidebook that reflects current practice in designing, implementing, and sustaining transportation performance management programs in state DOTs. The guidebook will include effective performance management frameworks and related tools and will particularly focus on how performance management programs are being integrated into decision making.

Development of an implementation guide for asset management including processes and tools that can be used to implement TAM, strategies for enhancing communication about TAM and ways ERP systems can effectively support TAM.

"The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT), Transportation Northwest (TransNow) at the University of Washington, and the Washington Trucking Associations have partnered on a research effort to collect and analyze global positioning system (GPS) truck data from commercial, in-vehicle, truck fleet management systems used in the central Puget Sound region. The research project is collecting commercially available GPS data and evaluating their feasibility to support a state truck freight network performance monitoring program. WSDOT is interested in using this program to monitor truck travel times and system reliability, and to guide freight investment decisions.
The researchers reviewed truck freight performance measures that could be extracted from the data and that focused on travel times and speeds, which, analyzed over time, determine a roadway system's reliability. The utility of spot speeds and the GPS data in general was evaluated in a case study of a three-week construction project on the Interstate-90 bridge. The researchers also explored methods for capturing regional truck travel performance."

First, it examines asset management as a framework for demonstrating accountability - both in the short- term management of current transportation programs but also for the long-term sustainability of a state highway network. Second, this report examines successful organizational structures and leadership strategies for instilling Asset Management into transportation agencies. Third, this report examines case studies of successful Asset Management programs across the United States and internationally.

The Guidebook produced by this research will provide step-by-step guidance to transportation agencies, e.g. DOTs, on how to select superior performance targets to achieve objectives for the highway and other modal systems; criteria to evaluate the effectiveness of performance measurement systems, and documentation on the best practices, analytical tools and data available for setting effective performance targets. The product will help agencies to systematically review existing performance targets that have been set by historical practice in order to determine whether superior targets can be adopted to increase customer satisfaction while reducing costs.

The purpose of these efforts is to identify states that have achieved exemplary performance, find out what practices have contributed to their success, and document these practices for the benefit of other states. This effort focuses on bridge condition.

This report provides a comparison of urban transportation performance in 51 major metropolitan areas throughout the United States. The authors compare their data on travel time, trip distance, and overall congestion with the findings presented in the 2010 Urban Mobility Report published by the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI). This report describes the limitations of the travel time index and TTI’s overall methodology for evaluating congestion in urban areas. It goes on to illustrate the state of congestion in metro areas, comparing cities using different measures (e.g. total hours of delay and total hours of peak travel time) and creating a series of charts and graphs that demonstrate their findings.

This report describes methods that managers of state departments of transportation (DOTs) and other agencies can use for setting performance targets to achieve multiple objectives and interact with multiple decision-makers and stakeholder groups, and how data management systems within a DOT can support performance-based decision-making. Transportation agencies at all levels of government are embracing performance measurement to improve agency efficiency and accountability. Setting performance targets, a crucial step in the management process, generally entails balancing among competing objectives and dealing with political implications. Unless the bases for setting those targets are sound and defensible and key decision makers and stakeholders concur, the effectiveness of performance-based management is likely to be compromised. This report presents a framework and specific guidance for target-setting and for ensuring that appropriate data are available to support performance management. The report draws on a range of private- and public-sector examples to explore issues of data management and stewardship as well as organizational factors likely to influence an agency's performance measurement and management experience. Supplementing the report, NCHRP Web-Only Document 154, available on the TRB website, presents case studies of organizations investigated in the research. The information will be useful to senior agency managers seeking to develop and improve their performance-management practices.

Case Study: Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) 2010

Case study of DART's transit asset management program