# Presentation: 767500

## Transportation Operations Goals and Accomplishments

- Institute of Transportation Engineers
- 2001 Spring Conference and Exhibit
- Dr. Christine JohnsonDirector, ITS Joint Program OfficeProgram Manager, FHWA OperationsMarch 28, 2001

## Congestion has reached a boiling point

**Congestion is the No 1 political priority**
**         ****- Rep Young**

**...****and people want more information to help them cope**

**Notes:**
“Congestion is the No. 1 priority in this country,” says Representative Donald Young (R. Ak.) Young has taken over as Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure) 

Washington area drivers say that aggressive driving (49%) and the congestion (28%) that encourages it are the two greatest threats to their highway safety, according to AAA Mid-Atlantic’s Transportation Poll 2001. The poll marks the first time that congestion has exceeded drunk driving as a threat to motorists.

"The ascension of congestion to the number two spot shows just how severely overcrowding on our roadways impacts area motorists," said Lon Anderson, Director of Public Affairs for AAA Mid-Atlantic.

"Motorists worry about the congestion-induced frenzy that they see everyday on many area roads. In fact, more than twice as many motorists cited congestion in this year’s poll as in last year’s."

“Gridlock on America’s teeming roadways is worse than ever.” is the headline oh an ABC News.com article appearing December 16. In this article, Tim Lomax, a transportation researcher based at Texas A&M University, says there’s just “not enough money, social acceptance, and environmental opportunity to build enough road capacity to allow everyone to drive 60 mph to work everyday.”

## In this past year....

**Dimensions of the problem**
**What is required for “peak operating performance”**
**Legislative Options**

## Dimensioning the Problem:  Congestion

**1980-1998**
**Vehicle travel ****up 72%****Road Miles**** up 1%**

**Notes:**
From 1980 to 1998, vehicle travel increased 72 percent while miles of public roads increased only 1 percent.    And this is no longer a phenomenon of the big city.  The largest increase in travel time delay in the last 15 years (between 1982 and 1997) occurred in small urban areas, with 400 percent growth.

## Dimensioning the Problem:  Congestion

**46% of peak period travel is congested**
**4.3 billion hours wasted**
**No longer a big city problem**
- Congestion in small areas grew 400%

**Notes:**
From 1980 to 1998, vehicle travel increased 72 percent while miles of public roads increased only 1 percent.    And this is no longer a phenomenon of the big city.  The largest increase in travel time delay in the last 15 years (between 1982 and 1997) occurred in small urban areas, with 400 percent growth.

## Take Back The Road

**Incidents**

**Disasters**

**Weather**

**Work Zones**

**Take Back The Road**

**4 Lanes of Highway**

**Demand Management**

- Operations

## Dimensioning the Problem:Incident Management

**60% of the Peak?**
**1:4 clearance to traffic back up**
**Cost of wrong response?**
**Benchmarks?**** **

**Notes:**
As a rule of thumb for every minute it takes to clear a scene, it takes 4 minutes to clear the traffic.  Thus a 15 minute accident removal can take on the average of an hour for the traffic backup to clear. 

## Dimensioning the Problem:  Work Zones

- Top of American’s traffic frustration list!

- American’s top three traffic improvements are work zone related.

**1 of every 5 state miles in California  is under construction!**

**Notes:**
Work zones will likely occur where pavements or bridges are in need of repair.  18.2 percent of all pavements are in mediocre to poor condition, and 24.2 percent of the more heavily traveled urban pavements are in mediocre to poor condition.  (1999 C&P Report, p. 3-6)  16.0 percent of all bridges are structurally deficient, and another 16.6 percent are functionally obsolete.

## Its not the money for Maintenance

**It’s the time!**

## Dimensioning the Problem:  Weather

-  **50% of U.S population run **** ****	****5% risk of  hurricanes**
** ****69% of Americans  in      ****	****snow belt**
** ****74% of NHS in snow belt**
**A day long weather ****	****shutdown - $15-$93 ****	****million**

## What is it going to take to achieve Peak Performance?

**1.  Raise the bar of  individual activities**
**2.  Integrate **
**3.  Tools and data**
**4.  Performance Measure**
**5.  Communicate with the public**
**6.   Spend the money**

## Peak Performance Raising the Bar

**Operations Self Assessment **
**Signal Timing Video**
**Incident Management Guidance**
**Public Safety Initiative **

**1**

**2**

**3**

**4**

**5**

**6**

**7**

**8**

**9**

**10**

- 0-100 d(i)

- 100-500 d(i)

- 500-1000 d(i)

- 1000-5,000 d(i)

- 5,000-10,000 d(i)

- 10,000-
- 100,000 d(i)

- 500,000-
- 1 Million d(i)

- 1 Million-
- 5 Million d(i)

- 100,000-
- 500,000 d(i)

- 5+ Million d(i)

**SMALL **
**IMPACT**

**BIG**
**IMPACT**

- d(i) = degree of impact

- 36

**Peak Performance ****Raising the Bar**

-  **Work Zone Hassle ****	****Index**
- Divides delay by life of improvement
**Integrating weather information with traffic signal timing**

## Peak Performance  Integration

**Architecture Rule **
- The Long Range Plan for Operations
- Required in 4 years
- Brings right players to table
**511**
- Public will demand seamless information

## Peak Performance  Tools

**Turbo Architecture**
**IDAS**
**Quick Zone**
**NGSIM**
**Decision Support Tools**

## Peak Performance  Measures

**Peak Performance  ****Measures**

## Peak Performance  Communicate with Customer

-   **511 – ****DOT a ****	****phone call ****	****away**
**Quality**
**Accuracy**
**Capacity**

**At least I called ahead and delayed the meeting**

**Peak Performance  ****Communicate with Customer**

**Consider an award for the best traffic web site?**

**Notes:**
Better operations cannot return our roads to free flow.  But there is solid evidence that integrated, aggressive, real time, full time operations can reduce traffic delays, can improve reliability and can reduce the number of injuries and fatalities.  Perhaps more importantly to the customers we serve, it can restore the feeling of “control” back to citizens as they try to cope with crowded roads 

## Peak Performance Spend the Money

**Baseline data**
- States relatively flat 5-6%
- Cities have grown from 3% to
-  nearly 7%
**Launched Survey**
- Are we spending enough?
- Does operations compete well?

## Legislative Options

**Data** – **Minimum data collecting capability on NHS**
**Institutional Development**
**Policy -  ****Provide for three distinct missions**
**Money**

## Transportation is  the Circulation System of our Communities