Current Efforts in Measuring Operations Performance

1. Current Efforts in Measuring Operations Performance Transportation leadership you can trust. A National Overview presented toITS Georgia 2005 Annual Meeting presented byKenny Voorhies Cambridge Systematics, Inc. August 29, 2005

2. Current Performance Measurement Activities • Two national efforts • NCHRP 3-68 – “Guide to Effective Freeway Performance Measurement” • NTOC Performance Measures Task Force • FHWA national activities • Urban Congestion Reporting • Mobility monitoring • State DOT efforts

3. NCHRP 3-68 - “Guide to Effective Freeway Performance Measurement” • Project Tasks • Benchmarking interviews – 11 regions • Information development • Six Regional workshops (probably September) • Final Guide production • Focus on measures related to congestion/mobility • Estimated completion date: October 2005

4. NCHRP 3-68 Findings: Performance Measures Used • Outcome measures • Derivations of travel time, speed, delay • LOS still used but not as much • Reliability measures in early stages • Output measures • Incident management efficiency • Operation of field equipment • Minimal use of customer satisfaction measures

5. NCHRP 3-68 Findings: Data is an Major Issue • In some cases ITS provides data for operations agencies • Data quality has reduced use of ITS data • Primarily model-derived data for planning agencies

6. NCHRP 3-68 Findings: Desired Uses of Performance Measures • “Now that we have measures, what do we do with the results?” • Weekly, monthly, quarterly, annual reports • Statewide reporting, Regional reporting • Linking measures to investment decisions not well established

7. NCHRP 3-68 – Basic Principles • Measures based on travel time • Multiple measures are good • Traditional HCM measures (LOS, V/C) not primary measures • Use person-based measures when necessary • Use mobility (outcome) and efficiency (output) measures

8. NCHRP 3-68 – Basic Principles (continued) • Include customer satisfaction • Three dimensions of congestion: source (cause), temporal aspects, spatial detail • Include reliability measures (may require continuous data) • Use graphics and methods to communicate with both technical and non-technical audiences

9. NTOC Performance Measures • National Transportation Operations Coalition (NTOC) • ITE, AASHTO, TRB, ITS America, ICMA, AMPO, plus other associations and the FHWA • One of several task forces is focusing on operations performance measurement • Led by ICMA with assistance from University of Maryland Center for Advanced Transportation

10. NTOC Performance Measure Effort • Literature Review • Initial List of 14 Candidate Measures • Development of Survey • Sent to association members • 333 responses (261 from State and local agencies) • Candidate measures and survey results reviewed by oversight committee at the ITE Technical Conference in March • “Final” list of 10 performance measures has been developed – four defined here

11. Some NTOC Performance Measure Definitions • Travel Time Reliability (Buffer Index) - The buffer index is the additional time that must be added to a trip, to ensure that travelers making the trip will arrive at their destination at, or before, the intended time, 95% of the time. • Extent of Congestion – Spatial (also measurable by time) - Miles of roadway within a predefined area and time period, for which average travel times are 30% longer than unconstrained travel times.

12. Some NTOC Performance Measure Definitions • Incident Duration - The time elapsed from the notification of an incident until all evidence of the incident has been removed from the incident scene. • Customer Satisfaction – A qualitative measure of customers’ opinions related to the roadway management and operations services provided in a specified region.

13. Customer Satisfaction Extent of Congestion – Spatial and Temporal Incident Duration Recurring Delay Speed Throughput – Person Throughput – Vehicle Travel Time – Link Travel Time Reliability (Buffer Index) Travel Time - Trip Top Ten NTOC Performance Measures

14. NTOC Performance Measures Next Steps • A report documenting these initial measures was distributed to the operations community in late July to encourage their use • NTOC Performance Measure Initiative – Final Report • Potential next steps still under consideration - may include having states/locals actually “test drive” the performance measures to determine their usefulness and whether or not the data is available to reliably compute the measures

15. Use of Performance Measures by FHWA • Key Outcome Measures • Travel time index • Extent of congestion • Buffer index • Uses • Tracking national trends • Educating state and local governments on use of performance measures

16. Key FHWA Performance Measures Efforts • Urban Congestion Reporting (monthly) • Mobility monitoring (annually) • Monthly reporting under development

17. Urban Congestion Reporting • Uses “web-scraping” from 10 traveler information web sites to develop a monthly report on the following measures: • Percent congested travel (time-based) • Travel Time Index • Buffer Index

18. Mobility Monitoring Program • Use of archived Traffic Management Center/ITS Data to develop annual performance measures • Using 33 cities for 2004 data analysis • Mobility Measures: Travel Time Index, Percent of Congested Travel • Reliability Measures: Buffer Time Index, Planning Time Index

19. State DOT Efforts • Examples of Performance Measurement Activities • Washington State DOT • Minnesota DOT • Maryland SHA (CHART)

20. Washington State DOT • Performance measures vital tool for : • Program Delivery • Where are we now? • How are we doing? • Are there gaps? • Where do we want to take this? • Budget • Sustainability of Maintenance and Operations

21. Measuring WSDOT’s Incident Response Program (from Grey Notebook) - Joint Operations agreement with State Patrol (2002) - Zero over-90 minute incident performance target - Doubled IRT units (July 2002) - Incident Response Database (WITS)

22. Ramp Metering Improvements

24. Minnesota DOT • Mn/DOT uses ITS technologies to measure system performance for reports to the public and policy makers • Mn/DOT uses before/after studies and market research to measure the performance of ITS technologies • Two system measures are congestion and incident clearance

25. Incident Management – Clearance Time

26. Maryland State Highway Administration - CHART • Developed business processes • Maintains Business Plan annually • Analysis conducted by University of Maryland • Performance measures documented annually in DOT Performance Report

27. CHART Business Process • Performance measurement and traffic flow analysis — CHART archives data related to traffic flow, weather, and the activities managed by the program to establish and maintain a data set by which statistical and operational performance measurements can be calculated and evaluated, and reenactments of activities may be simulated and evaluated for best practices.

28. Objective from CHART Business Plan • Objective 2.1Provide effective incident management that reduces annual incident congestion delay by at least 30 million vehicle-hours to achieve related cost savings of $570M for the traveling public, including $150M for commercial traffic, by June 30, 2008

29. UMD Analysis

30. UMD Analysis