On Monday, April 18, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) released on its website a copy of the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to propose national performance management measure regulations to assess the performance of the National Highway System, Freight Movement on the Interstate System, and the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program, as required by the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21^st Century Act (MAP-21) and the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (“FAST Act”). The NPRM is scheduled for publication in the Federal Register on Friday, April 22.

Registration is now open for a webinar on Thursday, April 21, providing an overview of the NPRM. Additional webinars will be announced shortly.

MAP-21 transformed the Federal-aid highway program by establishing new requirements for performance management to ensure the most efficient investment of Federal transportation funds. The FAST Act continued the performance management requirements of MAP-21. Performance management increases the accountability and transparency of the Federal-aid highway program and provides for a framework to support improved investment decision making through a focus on performance outcomes for key national transportation goals.

This NPRM proposes regulations that would make progress towards the following national goals:

• Congestion reduction – To achieve a significant reduction in congestion on the NHS.
• System reliability – To improve the efficiency of the surface transportation system.
• Freight movement and economic vitality – To improve the national freight network, strengthen the ability of rural communities to access national and international trade markets, and support regional economic development.
• Environmental sustainability – To enhance the performance of the transportation system while protecting and enhancing the natural environment.

In addition, this NPRM:

• Provides for greater consistency in the reporting of condition/performance;
• Proposes requirements for the establishment of targets that can be aggregated at the national level;
• Proposes reporting in a consistent manner on progress achievement; and
• Proposes a process for determining a State DOT’s significant progress.

State DOTs would be expected to use the information and data generated as a result of the new regulations to make better informed transportation planning and programming decisions. The new performance aspects of the Federal-aid program would allow FHWA to better communicate a national performance story and more reliably assess the impacts of Federal funding investments.

This NPRM is the last of several aimed at establishing the performance management framework introduced by MAP-21 and continued by the FAST Act. In March 2014, FHWA published NPRMs to propose safety performance measures, and integrate performance management into the Highway Safety Improvement Program (HISP). Final rules were published on March 15, 2016. In January 2015, FHWA published an NPRM to propose performance measures to assess condition of bridges on the National Highway System (NHS), pavements on the Interstate, and pavements on the non-Interstate NHS.  In February 2015, FHWA published an NPRM proposing a process for the development of State Asset Management Plans. In addition, in June 2014, FHWA and FTA published an NPRM to propose a performance-based transportation planning process.