Document Library

The objective of this project is to identify measures to gauge the performance of the freight transportation system. The measures should support investment, operations, and policy decisions by a range of stakeholders, both public and private, and reflect local, regional, national, and global perspectives. Areas of emphasis should include, but not be limited to, efficiency, effectiveness, capacity, safety, security, infrastructure condition, congestion, energy, and environmen

In 2010, NCHRP Project 20-24(37)F was initiated to consider establishment of a consistent, central infrastructure to store, manage and provide access to the data collected under the CPM series of projects. The scope of this project was to develop a conceptual framework and functional description of such an infrastructure, and develop a strategy for implementing and ongoing stewardship and management. This report presents the results of this project.

"The initial premise behind the project was to use available state Departments of Transportation (DOT) data on traffic incident response performance to provide a time series / cross section- sectional analysis of incident response performance, which could be measured based on average, median, or maximum incident response time, total incident duration or incident clearance time. The idea was that a cross-state comparison and examination of changes in performance over time might identify best practices that could be instrumental in reducing incident duration with associated benefits to travelers.
For reasons explained in this research report, the primary emphasis of this project shifted to one of developing specific recommendations that could improve Traffic Incident Management (TIM) performance measurement. While this research did result in a cross-state comparison for some of the participating agencies, the lack of standardization in collection and use of nationally adopted TIM performance measures made it difficult to draw definitive conclusions as to how the agencies are performing with respect to one another. What the research did yield is a set of recommendations that will be useful in enhancing existing agency TIM data collection and reporting efforts and the possible development of a standard approach to TIM performance data collection that will allow future efforts at cross-comparison to yield results that are consistent and more readily comparable."

Improving travel time reliability is an emerging business activity for transportation agencies in the United States. To improve the reliability of travel times on their roadway networks, transportation agencies must advance on a number of fronts. These include collecting and analyzing data; integrating travel time reliability considerations into planning, programming, and project delivery; adopting innovative operational strategies and technologies; and modifying their institutional structures and business practices surrounding traffic operations. This report addresses various ways that transportation agencies can reengineer their day-to-day business practices to improve traffic operations, address nonrecurring traffic congestion, and improve the reliability of travel times delivered to roadway system users. The report is based on a series of case studies, mainly from the United States, that describe successful business processes.

The objectives of this research were to (1) recommend precise definitions for selected performance measures identified as potentially feasible and practical for early deployment nationwide, (2) recommend methodology and standards for collection and use of data to support reporting of performance using these measures for at least a state’s National Highway System (NHS) roads, (3) articulate the issues to be resolved to enable nationwide deployment of these initial performance measures and suggest a deployment plan, and (4) consider how usable measures may be developed to address all nationally-important aspects of performance.

This webpage provides information about Colorado DOT's full incorporation of Lean principles into its Department of Regulatory Agencies.

"This report summarizes the proceedings of the Asset Management and Safety Peer Exchange hosted by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO). The peer exchange was held in Cheyenne, WY on August 2, 2011.
The peer exchange addressed various aspects of asset management and safety – How can one improve safety performance through better asset management? What are effective ways to manage safety assets? How do agencies plan, prioritize, and budget safety asset needs? Managers from state DOTs and FHWA gathered to dialogue on best practices, challenges, and sharing of experiences."

Overview of Rail & Bus SGR Program Framework, Presented at the Third State of Good Repair Roundtable.

The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) Capital Investment Strategy, presented at the Third State of Good Repair Roundtable in 2011.

Developed to assist asset intensive entities plan and manage asset management responsibilities.

The purpose of this synthesis was to examine and document the current state of the practice in transit asset condition management. Transit asset management is defined here as a strategic planning process that supports informed capital investment planning and programming. It is said that "good" transit asset management can provide critical support in two key areas—establishing the level of need for infrastructure investment and programming the cost of effective investment. The report's objective is to provide transit agencies and their federal, state, and local funding partners with a review of current practices in hopes of encouraging industry-wide discussion on standards and the data needed to measure conditions and use the information in making effective investment decisions. The report contains information derived from a literature review and the results of an industrial survey of the 50 largest multi-modal transit agencies in terms of operations size, which yielded an 82% response rate. Further, detailed case studies of innovative practices at the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority and the New York City Transit Authority describe the origin of each agency's asset management system, how it is used, and how it evolved over time. Then two agencies were chosen to represent two distinct State of Good Repair systems that represent different approaches and that would likely have the most advanced asset management systems because of the complexity of their operations. These examples might help others identify opportunities and challenges for upgrading and increasing the consistency of their own transit asset condition reporting.

This Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP) digest summarizes the results of a mission performed from June 11 through 25, 2010, under TCRP Project J-03, International Transit Studies Program. This digest examines how bus and rail agencies and operators in several European cities develop community support for public transportation and how those communities implement sustainable funding strategies for transit assets, operations, and maintenance. The cities visited include London and Nottingham, United Kingdom; Strasbourg, France; Karlsruhe and Berlin, Germany; and Oslo, Norway.