1

Special Events / Other

(5%)

Inadequate

Capacity

(40%)

Trac Incidents

(25%)

Work Zones

(10%)

Bad Weather

(15%)

Poor Signal Timing

(5%)

November

 2010

Background

MetroPlan is the MPO for the tri-county Orlando Urban 

Area in the I-4 Corridor. The MPO board comprises 19 

voting representatives from member agencies including 

Orange, Osceola, and Seminole counties, the five largest 

cities in the area, and operating agencies. MetroPlan serves 

approximately 1.8 million residents in an area with a 

projected population increase of 74 percent by 2030.1

Reducing congestion is an important issue for MetroPlan 

board members and a significant concern for the region’s 

residents. Initially the MPO focused on addressing 

congestion through capacity expansion (e.g., road building 

projects) but through its work with intelligent transportation 

systems (ITS), however, it began to look more closely at 

addressing non-recurring congestion with M&O strategies. 

MetroPlan discussed with its board members the potential 

for M&O to address the causes of over 60% of congestion in 

the region. It emphasized that less than half of congestion is 

caused by lack of capacity even though much of the MPO’s 

approach to congestion was increasing capacity. A graph 

showing sources of congestion, similar to Figure 2, was used 

to motivate discussions with the MPO board members on 

the need for M&O. This helped to successfully make the case 

for M&O.

It is not by accident that transportation systems management and operations (M&O) has strong support among MetroPlan 

Orlando’s 19 voting board members. MetroPlan Orlando (MetroPlan) has worked hard over the past 7 years to gain backing for 

M&O strategies in the region. The MPO’s involvement in M&O began around 2003 with a traffic incident management campaign 

and steadily gained momentum after the MPO board witnessed early successes. Currently, M&O has been institutionalized at the 

MPO with dedicated annual funding, an M&O subcommittee, and a MetroPlan System Management & Operations Department. 

Developing Decisionmaker Support for Management 

and Operations at MetroPlan Orlando

1 MetroPlan Orlando, Final Adopted 2030 Long Range Transportation Plan: Overview, 2010. Available at:

http://www.metroplanorlando.com/site/upload/documents/2030LRTPOverview_FinalAdopted.pdf.

Figure 1. Map of the MetroPlan planning area. 

Source: MetroPlan Orlando.

Figure 2. Sources of congestion. 

Source: Federal Highway Administration.
2

Leverage National Campaigns 

and Self-Assessments

In 2005, the National Transportation Operations Coalition 

(NTOC) released the National Traffic Signal Report Card 

revealing that overall the U.S. received a D- when it came 

to traffic signal management, operation, and maintenance. 

MetroPlan presented the results of the national report 

card as well as the results from the Orlando region to 

the MPO board to highlight this opportunity to make a 

significant improvement to transportation operations. It 

demonstrated the potential that traffic signal management 

could have on performance measures such as levels of 

service, vehicle travel time, and overall cost savings, which 

attracted the attention of board members and citizens alike. 

This caused the region’s committee of mayors to approve 

an action that made traffic signal retiming the top priority 

for the transportation improvement program (TIP). The 

committee of mayors helped to obtain half of the funding 

for the traffic signal program through a Florida Department 

of Transportation Incentive Program (TRIP).

Showcase Measureable Results

MetroPlan conducts before and after studies on all of the traffic 

signal retiming projects and collects data on measures such as 

travel time, speed, and fuel consumption. It also monetizes the 

value of the improvements to clearly demonstrate the impact 

that signal management has on the travelers’ costs and to show 

that dollars spent on traffic signal management are dollars well 

spent. For example, it estimated a savings of $21,091 for each 

AM peak hour and $40,110 for each PM peak hour over 14 

corridors following signal timing projects totally approximately 

$816,000.2

 Monetary savings are based on the number of 

hours of saved and the average wage per hour in the region. 

Focus First on “Easy Wins”

At the same time that MetroPlan was focusing on M&O to 

address non-recurring congestion, the MPO board chair and 

Orange County Commissioner was introduced to the benefits 

of traffic incident management (TIM). The Commissioner 

and the MPO held a Traffic Incident Management Forum 

in July 2003 with over 150 participants from local law 

enforcement, fire and rescue, transportation agencies, towing 

and recovery companies, the media, and others. This forum 

brought together TIM stakeholders to explore ways to 

clear incident scenes more quickly and motivated greater 

interagency collaboration. This multi-agency forum led to a 

major public education campaign, “Move it – Yes You Can” to 

promote awareness of the quick clearance law in Florida. This 

included billboards and public service announcements.

Building on the recent success of the traffic incident 

management campaign, the next MetroPlan board chair 

led a multi-agency, multimodal campaign in 2005 called 

Worst First that focused on addressing the 10 worst behaviors 

leading to incidents and the 10 worst locations for safety. 

The campaign took a three-prong approach to addressing the 

safety issues: engineering, enforcement, and education.

2 Hill, Eric, “Integrating Operations into a Metropolitan Transportation Plan.” Presentation at the National Transportation Operations Coalition’s Talking Operations 

Webinar, January 25, 2010. Available at: http://www.ntoctalks.com/web_casts_archive.php. 

Figure 3. MOVE IT billboard showcasing Commissioner and 

law enforcement support for TIM. Source: MetroPlan Orlando
3

References

Telephone interview with Eric Hill, Director of Systems 

Management & Operations, MetroPlan Orlando, 

September 1, 2010.

Hill, Eric, “Integrating Operations into a Metropolitan 

Transportation Plan.” Presentation at the National 

Transportation Operations Coalition’s Talking Operations 

Webinar, January 25, 2010. Available at: 

http://www.ntoctalks.com/web_casts_archive.php. 

MetroPlan Orlando, Final Adopted 2030 Long Range 

Transportation Plan: Overview, 2010. Available at: 

http://www.metroplanorlando.com/site/upload/

documents/2030LRTPOverview_FinalAdopted.pdf.

MetroPlan Orlando, Tracking the Trends 2008: 

A Report on Transportation System Performance and 

Related Indicators in the Orlando Metropolitan Area, 

April 2009. Available at: http://www.metroplanorlando.

com/site/upload/documents/TrackingTrends_2008.pdf. 

It highlighted that after 27 peak hours, the benefits of the 

signal timing projects exceeded the costs. The monetary 

benefits of recent traffic signal retiming projects are presented 

annually to the MPO board.

Institutionalize M&O 

at the MPO

As a result of successfully elevating the role of M&O 

in addressing mobility and safety concerns, MetroPlan 

Orlando moved to institutionalize M&O through the 

formation of an M&O subcommittee and a Systems 

Management & Operations Department with dedicated 

staff in approximately 2006. Prior to gaining widespread 

support for M&O, the MetroPlan board had developed 

a dedicated pool of funds for ITS projects (including 

M&O). It was difficult to compare ITS and M&O projects 

with other projects so the board established a separate 

program to fund ITS and M&O projects at $2 million a 

year. Following 2005, the funding level was doubled to $4 

million per year. The MPO board has continued to fully 

support this use of funds and views it as money well spent.

Lessons Learned

MetroPlan emphasizes the importance of obtaining one 

or two champions on the MPO board that either have 

an interest in technology or engineering and have a 

desire to demonstrate leadership. MetroPlan’s success in 

championing M&O has been a direct result of educating 

leaders on the benefits of M&O. Additionally, collaboration 

with a variety of stakeholders and the public has been an 

important means for making significant improvement in 

operations and increasing the visibility of the successes. 

Lastly, MetroPlan has learned that demonstrating the 

monetary value of implemented M&O strategies is 

important in maintaining and increasing support for a 

strong, results-oriented program in its region.

FHWA-HOP-10-056