Overview
Many transportation agencies explicitly recognize the idea that we can’t build our way out of congestion. However, few state departments of transportation (DOTs) or local government transportation entities have focused effectively on how to continue to fulfill their mobility mission in an environment of capacity and financial constraints. If the full-service potential of an investment in an existing network (especially the freeway network) is to be realized, then state DOTs and local and regional transportation entities, together with their partner public safety agencies (PSAs), must move beyond capacity provision and maintenance to engage in active systems operations and management (SO&M) of the network’s available capacity, including aggressive minimization of disruptions.
The SHRP 2 Reliability focus area addresses the root causes of unreliable travel and identifies the role of performance measures, strategies, planning integration, and institutional issues related to supporting improved reliability. The L06 project focuses on nonrecurring congestion (NRC) as the principal source of delay and unreliability on the nation’s roads. SO&M is defined by a set of conventional strategies that focus on responding to various causes of the unpredictable but highly disruptive losses of service associated with NRC.
The project includes both research and guidance relating to the institutional preconditions for effective management of NRC. The objective of the project is to identify the preconditions to institutionalizing SO&M as a continuously improving formal agency program. The key features of this project include the following:
- Evaluation of the current range of SO&M program effectiveness among state DOTs and the key process and institutional features that are associated with the more effective programs;
- Analysis of the apparent relationships and interactions among three dimensions: program effectiveness, required technical and business processes, and supportive institutional and organizational arrangements;
- Development of a capability maturity model to systematically relate increasing levels of technical and business process maturity and the key institutional changes that support those levels; and
- Provision of self-evaluation–based guidance for agencies to guide managed changes within their institutional architecture that will support more effective SO&M programs.
The purpose of the project is to identify strategies by which existing transportation agencies can adjust their institutional architecture—including culture, organization and staffing, resource allocation, and partnerships—to support more effective SO&M. The report identifies new models that can be applied in the future.
The report develops and provides the basis for the Guide to Improving Capability for Systems Operations and Management (Parsons Brinckerhoff et al., 2011), including an examination of current state DOT practice and insights from other sectors with strong operational orientations. It establishes a systematic guidance framework based on the traceable relationships between the technical and business process features most supportive of effective SO&M and the institutional architecture that supports such processes.