Overview
In the current environment of constrained budgets, State, regional, and local transportation agencies are looking for more efficient ways to reach their transportation mobility and safety goals, objectives, and performance targets. Greater inclusion of TSMO strategies within the planning process results in a mix of improvements that facilitate progress toward targets while improving communities. Most transportation agencies realize they cannot build their way out of congestion, especially in densely populated urban areas. TSMO strategies help planners address reliability issues and improve upon reliability performance measures without increasing capacity. Construction and rehabilitation projects remain important for transportation planning, but planning for the effective operation of transportation facilities is critical to making good use of limited transportation resources.1 TSMO investments can complement capacity expansion or rehabilitation projects and, in some cases, provide more timely and less costly alternatives for achieving desired improvements in mobility and safety.