TSMO Basics
What is TSMO?
Historically, transportation agencies were organized to deliver infrastructure capacity as the core mission. State and local departments of transportation (DOT) traditionally focused on capital project planning, design, construction, and maintenance, with limited emphasis and resources applied to managing and operating the transportation systems.1 With this realization, we must transform our culture and mindset to manage and operate the transportation system and embrace the concept of Transportation Systems, Management and Operations (TSMO). TSMO is a fundamental concept and approach that provides solutions to improve the transportation industry and utilize the full potential of the built infrastructure.
Ask yourself "Why?" Why did you get into Transportation? Why are you a transportation (TSMO) practitioner? The answers you provide are undoubtedly aligned with the concept, strategies and goals that TSMO establishes for you and your organization. Answers like "I want to reduce congestion, make school zones safer, improve traffic flow". These are common if not the foundational answers to the question of why? Transportation is one of society's great enablers and all we want to do as an individual is to contribute to the greater good which is possible when we all have a TSMO mindset.
Iowa DOT has made a great video that gives a good explanation to the general public about what TSMO is. Please watch the video below.
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TSMO is the next evolution of all of the knowledge, tools and techniques we have developed to build the transportation infrastructure. Realizing that after you build something, we need to be able to manage and operate the system in an approach that allows us to constantly improve our system, one mile at a time.
2 Fundamental Concepts - Manage and Operate
Managing builds off of the knowledge that has been gained and is still being learned of how to build and maintain the current surface transportation infrastructure. Within TSMO, the mindset is
Operations and TSMO is more than simply a strategy or ad hoc set of activities, it is a cohesive program that is vital to the mission of the agency1.