Delivering resources to save time, lives, and money

What’s New At NOCoE

IN THIS REPORT YOU WILL LEARN:

1

NOCoE's plans to advance the TSMO workforce.

2

How NOCoE peer exchanges, webinars, & case studies accelerate the deployment of TSMO practices.

3

About four TSMO projects chosen as 2023 award winners.

ADVANCING THE TSMO WORKFORCE

TSMO Moment Video Series

In 2023 NOCoE launched its TSMO Moment Video Series to capture the career snapshots of TSMO leaders. You can view all the TSMO Moment videos below. All TSMO videos are available on the NOCoE YouTube page.

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TSMO Moment - Beverly Kuhn

In this TSMO Moment feature, Beverly Kuhn, a Senior Research Engineer at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, shares insights into her professional life as a TSMO professional, delving into her background, ongoing projects, and more!

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2022 TSMO Champion - Jennifer Portanova

Jennifer Portanova has served NCDOT for nearly 20 years in a variety of roles. Her efforts have shaped North Carolina’s implementation and deployment of solutions that enhance transportation management. She provides leadership and support for the planning, execution, operations, and maintenance of North Carolina’s 80,000 miles of freeway and arterial corridors.

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TSMO Moment - Gummada Murthy

 

In this TSMO Moment feature, Gummada Murthy, Ph.D,, P.E. and the Program Director of Operations Programs at the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), discusses his career, gives insight into important skills he utilizes to do his job well, and a normal day as a TSMO professional, and more.

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TSMO Moment - Laurie Matkowski, PMP

In this TMSO Moment feature, Laurie Matkowski, PMP, Director of Connected and Automated Vehicle Services at Gannett Fleming discusses TSMO, her professional background, current projects and more!

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TSMO Moment - Joey Sagal

Joey Sagal made an indelible mark on the transportation community, including more than two decades of public service improving the transportation system of Maryland and the nation as a whole. His leadership and ideas will guide the work we do at NOCoE for many years to come.

Workforce Resources

Model TSMO Position Descriptions

LEARN MORE

Workforce Training Database

LEARN MORE

TSMO Workforce Development Portal

LEARN MORE

Pipeline Program Case Studies

READ THE CASE STUDY

Attracting and Retaining Younger Workers in Transportation Systems Management and Operations (TSMO)

READ THE CASE STUDY

Potential Federal Funding Sources for Advancing Transportation Systems Management and Operations (TSMO) Workforce Development Activities

READ THE CASE STUDY

Innovative Practices in Transportation Organizations to Support Transportation Systems Management and Operations (TSMO) Workforce Development

READ THE CASE STUDY

Transportation Systems Management and Operations (TSMO) Training Best Practices

READ THE CASE STUDY

Transportation Systems Management and Operations (TSMO) Workforce Pipeline - Expanding Opportunities

READ THE CASE STUDY

The 2023 Transportation Technology Tournament

In its sixth year, the 2023 Transportation Technology Tournament (TTT) featured students teams working with transportation agencies to develop solutions to real-world challenge problems. After undergoing TSMO and ITS training, teams worked together to develop a real-world solutions concept of operations. The teams of the top three ranks solutions were then flown to ITE's Annual Meeting in Portland, Oregon to compete in-person, giving a 10 minute presentation to a panel of industry leaders, serving as judge.

Each year, NOCoE and the ITS Joint Program Office Professional Capacity Building program hosts the TTT to advance the knowledge, skills, and abilities of students in applying ITS and TSMO solutions to real-world transportation problems. Visit the Tournament Homepage for information on previous winners and the 2024 tournament.

In 2024 NOCoE and the ITS JPO are improving the trainings and challenge problem process for teams. Click here to learn more.

2023 Winner: Florida International University & Florida Atlantic University – the “Intelligent Transportation Titans”

                  2023 TTT Finalists

Florida International University & Florida Atlantic University "Intelligent Transport Titans"

Decision support tool for pattern recognition to support signal control

 

University of Michigan "The Wolverines"

Management and infrastructure-based technology solutions for special event traffic management

 

UMass & Smith College "Pioneer Safety Solutions"

Pedestrian hit and run collisions in Nashville, TN

2023 Transportation Technology Tournament participants

Impact on Our Industry

The Transportation Technology Tournament introduces future TSMO leaders to the challenges of solving real-world transportation problems by teaching them teamwork, collaboration, and communication skills. But also, the solutions these teams develop influence agencies in how they think about applying TSMO strategies to solve their transportation system needs.

ACCELERATING THE DEPLOYMENT OF TSMO PRACTICES

Webinars on Emerging TSMO Practices

NOCoE held 36 webinars in 2023, continuing to maintain a busy monthly webinar schedule to accommodate the increased demand for online training and knowledge transfer needs. NOCoE webinars are often developed by key partners, such as the Federal Highway Administration, and are conducted by industry leaders and NOCoE staff. Webinar series, such as Talking TIM and Adventures in Crowdsourcing, have delivered high quality TSMO knowledge every month.

Webinars recordings are made available for free and serve as trainings and workforce development for many organizations. 

All NOCoE webinars are free, and recordings are available on the NOCoE website and NOCoE YouTube Channel.

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Crowdsourced Data to Advance Transportation Operations

The webinar features rapid-fire information from up to 10 State or local agencies, each highlighting their use of various crowdsourced data to advance transportation operations.

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Cooperative Driving Automation for Port Operations

This webinar begins with an overview about the FHWA CDA Program and discusses port operations and the challenges in the port drayage process. It then dive into the application of CDA for port drayage as a promising way to overcome congestion, reduce delays at ports, and support drayage truck drivers to overcome challenges associated with the hours-of-service regulations while increasing productivity for ports.

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Roadway Automated Driving Systems Integration Concept of Operations for Transportation Agencies

This webinar includes a high-level overview of the ConOps document, including descriptions of how transportation professionals can use the ConOps to develop and evolve their organizational and system plans for ADS integration.

Remote video URL

NCHRP 20-44(39) Implementation of Guidebook for Managing Data from Emerging Technologies

In this webinar, transportation agencies participating in the NCHRP 20-44(39) project share details of their implementation projects, including successes, challenges, and lessons learned for peer agencies.

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Data for Operations and Planning

The webinar series shares best practices, lessons learned, challenges and opportunities, and emerging practices for data sharing, integration, and management; opportunities and information on partnering with private sector data providers; and the needs/approaches to prepare for big data.

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Crash Responder Safety Week: National Kickoff Webinar 2023

The National Kickoff webinar for CRSW is hosted by the Federal Highway Administration Traffic Incident Management (TIM) Program. The webinar honors TIM responders, feature messages from national leaders and on-the-ground responder, and spotlight responder safety efforts taking place during Crash Responder Safety Week.

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Shared Mobility Data

This webinar is part of the Data for Planning and Operations webinar series and covers shared use mobility.

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Equity in Transportation Operations

This webinar provides foundational elements of equity in transportation, equity in operations perspectives from a State Department of Transportation, and an overview and next steps for an Equity in Transportation Operations Toolbox.

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Coffee Break TSMO: 2026 World Cup Planning

In this February, 2024 edition of Coffee Break TSMO, we discuss the 2026 World Cup in the United States, Mexico, and Canada.

NOCoE Offers Free PDH Credits

NOCoE’s free webinars are now also available for professional development hour credits (PDHs). Each month, NOCoE provides a PDH tracking sheet to assist webinar attendees with keeping track of their professional development activities. The PDH credits are available for those attendees who register and attend the live webinar.

PDH Tracking Sheet

Impact on Our Industry

NOCoE webinars reach all 50 states and the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico and 100s of TSMO practitioners each year. Hosted by NOCoE, many of these webinars are planned and organized by FHWA and NCHRP projects, the ITE TSMO Council, the AASHTO Committee on Transportation System Operations and other partner organizations. The webinars become resources unto themselves, as most presentations and discussions are published as short videos, searchable on the NOCoE knowledge center and at the NOCoE YouTube channel.

Peer Exchange Reports

Funding for TSMO New Opportunities Peer Exchange Report

NOCoE’s Funding for TSMO: New Opportunities Virtual Peer Exchange hosted transportation agency professionals with experience in developing, implementing, and justifying to decision-makers funding requests for TSMO projects and programs to support policy makers and agency leadership.

The peer exchange was hosted virtually using the NOCoE’s Zoom software and developed as a short one afternoon exposure to concise aspects of the topic. Staff from specific programs with experience in the topic were invited to speak and attend.  The peer exchange was also open to state, regional, and local TSMO stakeholders.

READ THE REPORT

Planning for TSMO Peer Exchange Report

Planning for Transportation Systems Management and Operations (TSMO) integrates management and operations strategies into the planning process for the purpose of improving transportation system safety, effectiveness, reliability, and travel options. TSMO strategies aim to maximize the performance of existing and planning infrastructure through multi-modal, multiagency, and inter-modal systems, services, and projects.

NOCoE’s Planning for TSMO Peer Exchange hosted transportation professionals from city/county, regional, and state agencies with experience and interest in creating proactive and collaborative solutions for planning for transportation system management and operations.

READ THE REPORT

Public Communications and TSMO Peer Exchange Report

NOCoE’s Public Communications and TSMO Peer Exchange was intended to exchange information on best practices, learn about regular challenges, and identify resources needs around public communications and transportation systems management and operations (TSMO).

Public sector practitioners from the TSMO and public communications disciplines play a key role in advancing traveler information strategies and services: timely information sharing with the traveling public improves their mobility, reduces stress, and enhances safety for commuters and transportation agency field workers. Additionally, the collaboration between these functions also supports the sharing of benefits of TSMO to the traveler and in soliciting public feedback on TSMO strategies. The peer exchange addressed these two topics while also hosting a roundtable on additional transportation issues that intersect with TSMO and public communications.

READ THE REPORT

Benefit-Cost and TSMO Peer Exchange Report

NOCoE’s Benefit-Cost and TSMO Virtual Peer Exchange hosted transportation agency professionals with experience in developing, implementing, and justifying to decision-makers benefit-cost and/or return on investment analyses for TSMO projects and programs to support policy makers and agency leadership.

The peer exchange was held virtually using the NOCoE’s Zoom software and developed as a two-day exposure to various aspects of the topic. Staff from specific programs with experience in the topic were invited to speak and attend. The peer exchange was also open to state, regional, and local TSMO stakeholders.

READ THE REPORT

Regional Collaborations Peer Exchange Report

The Regional Collaborations peer exchange was conducted in-person over two days at the American Association of State Transportation officials (AASHTO) offices in Washington, DC. The peer exchange included representatives of local agencies, metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), state departments of transportation (DOTs), and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). The meeting had an introductory session followed by 11 content sessions organized around the topic of collaboration in a regional context. Each session had a short period for the participants to discuss challenges in the topic area and various resolution(s) they have found.

READ THE REPORT

Impact on Our Industry

NOCoE held six peer exchanges in 2023, in both virtual and in-person formats to allow for a wide range of attendees who could both share and receive knowledge. Attendees in this year's peer exchanges included human resources professionals, TSMO practitioners, local and regional agency representatives, younger TSMO professionals, and members of the Federal Highway Administration.

NOCoE peer exchange reports will continue to inform NOCoE and its partners on potential areas of resource development going forward.

Mainstreaming TSMO

Crash Responder Safety Week

Crash Responder Safety Week (CRSW), formerly known as NTIRAW, is a chance for all traffic incident response communities to make a difference individually and jointly. It allows for teaching your community and the motoring public about our shared responsibility for safe roadway incident clearance – whether a crash, stalled vehicle, debris on road, or something else.

It also allows for collaboration with your leadership, public information officers, and fellow responders to amplify the visibility and message of this important week. The CRSW calendar and tools can be used to align messaging with others across the nation: bitly.com/CRSW2021

Whether or not your organization participated, you can be a CRSW champion. Take the free National Traffic Incident Management Responder Training, and encourage your fellow responders to do the same. It may save your life. Visit: bitly.com/TIMtrain

 

2023 TSMO Virtual Summit

Read the overview and highlights from the 2023 TSMO Virtual Summit.

At the end of the Summit, NOCoE aspires that:

  • Thought leaders have shared learnings to establish an understanding of the problem.
  • Examples of current and emerging technologies/practices to frame what works and what is on the horizon. 
  • A set of priorities and action items that will help and enable TSMO initiatives. 
  • Communications and outreach goals to elevate the successes of TSMO practices.
     

VIEW NOW

 

2023 TSMO Trends Survey

The 2023 TSMO Trends Survey provides information in 3 parts:

Part 1: Attract, develop, sustain, and expand the TSMO workforce

Part 2: Accelerate deployment of current and emerging TSMO practices (technology and strategies)

Part 3: Mainstream TSMO as a core function of providing transportation system solutions for all

VIEW NOW

2023 TSMO AWARDS

Overall Winner

Co-Winner:

Texas DOT for their "TxDOT TSMO Program - From Planning to Implementation"

The NOCoE TSMO Awards celebrate the TSMO strategies and tools that leverage existing infrastructure to increase safety and reliability.

Each year, NOCoE awards winners in four award categories. For 2023, the categories are:

  • Best TSMO Project
  • Agency Improvement
  • TSMO and Safety
  • Emerging Practices and Technologies

A TSMO Award Overall Winner is then chosen from the four category winners. 

Each year NOCoE also awards a TSMO Champion, an individual who has made significant contributions to advancing TSMO both inside their organization and within the industry at-large. 

Winners are celebrated at the 2023 CTSO Annual Meeting and their work is featured via NOCoE's partners and other industry leaders. 

Many award submissions are also turned into NOCoE Case Studies, which form a library of TSMO strategies, tactics, and best practices that can be shared with other TSMO practitioners and organizations.

NOCoE Case Studies capture the strategies and practices currently being deployed to advance the TSMO industry and enable TSMO practitioners to save lives, time, and money.

Case studies are developed in partnership with the authoring organization or individual to succinctly transfer knowledge for the effective use by others in the industry. Many of the case studies come from TSMO Award Submissions.

VISIT OUR CASE STUDY LIBRARY

Overall Winner

Co-Winner:

Virginia DOT for their "Interstate 95 Variable Speed Limit System"

TSMO Champion

Winner:

Gummada Murthy, PhD, P.E.

Program Director, Operations | AASHTO

Best TSMO Project

Winner:

Maryland DOT for their "I-270 Innovative Congestion Management (ICM) Ramp Metering"

Agency Improvement

Winner:

Texas DOT for their "TxDOT TSMO Program - From Planning to Implementation"

Emerging Trends and Technologies

Winner:

Arizona DOT for their "Applying Emerging Technologies to the Arizona DOT Traveler Information Program"

TSMO and Safety

Winner:

Virginia DOT for their "Interstate 95 Variable Speed Limit System"

NOCoE News

Nicholas Ramfos is named as NOCoE Director

In late 2023, AASHTO named Nicholas Ramfos as the next NOCoE Director. Nick started in January 2024.

Scott Marler, Director of the Iowa Department of Transportation and Chair of the NOCoE Strategic Advisory Committee (SAC) stated, “Nick has dedicated his career to advancing transportation solutions to improve safety, mobility, and efficiency. For the past 27 years, Nick was the Director of Transportation Operations Programs at WASHCOG, the MPO in Washington, DC. Nick was responsible for regional programs such as Commuter Connections to assist commuters with mobility options, the region’s Section 5310 program, Enhanced Mobility, that assists the disabled, senior citizens, and low-income residents in the DMV with mobility options, and being the lead on creating and standing up the Washington Metrorail Safety Commission.”

As the new NOCoE Director, Nick is already advancing the mission of NOCoE: to provide centralized services to the transportation industry through workforce development, advancing the deployment of technology and practices, and the mainstreaming of TSMO across the industry.

Nick brings extensive experience working with both the traveling public as well as public agencies, including federal, state, local, transit, and metropolitan planning organizations. His experience and knowledge is helping to build NOCoE’s knowledge transfer activities and promote TSMO to a broad constituency.

Nick is working closely with NOCoE’s founding partners (AASHTO, ITE, and ITS America) and the Federal Highway Administration, who supports NOCoE, to advance emerging Operations practices while also supporting proven TSMO strategies with a robust technical service program.

Nick is leading a NOCOE team experienced in transferring knowledge to advance the TSMO industry. Adam Hopps will continue leading the technical service program and communications for NOCoE, while Doug Noble and Ahnaf Morshed of ITE, will lead peer exchanges and webinars, and you’ll continue to see extensive support from the staff at AASHTO, ITE, and ITS America to deliver NOCoE’s technical program and help build NOCoE to deliver its mission.

Thank you, Joey

Remembering Joseph “Joey” Sagal II, Executive Director of Maryland Transportation Authority and Chair NOCoE Technical Advisory Committee

Joey Sagal, the Chair of the NOCoE TAC and a leader of all things TSMO, died in October 2023. Joey was integral to NOCoE’s development and success and missed greatly by all who knew him.

After Joey’s death, Adam Hopps of NOCoE wrote:

As Joey would say before sharing a more personal thought: “We’re all friends here, so I think I can say this . . ."

This has been an incredibly difficult week for us at NOCoE as we learned of the sudden and tragic death of Joey Sagal. We mourn with the Maryland Department of Transportation, Pikesville Volunteer Fire Company, Hampstead Volunteer Fire Company, and of course Joey’s family and all those who loved and cherished him. 

Joey was one of the most generous people I know. He always had time to help produce an idea, to lend his expertise, to talk you through a difficult decision. While running a large public agency, he also regularly served as a volunteer firefighter, and he volunteered for NOCoE to help guide our technical services. 

It is his nature - he made himself available for the greater good, always.

NOCOE EXISTS BECAUSE OF: