I n t e r n at i onal T echnology Scann i ng Program

Sponsored by

In cooperation with

American Association of State Highway 

and Transportation Officials

National Cooperative Highway 

Research Program

Australia Great Britain New Zealand  Sweden

Linking Transportation

Performance

and Accountability

Executive Summary

January 2010
LINKING TRANSPORTATION PERFORMANCE AND ACCOUNTABILITY 1

For 2 weeks in July and August 2009, a scan team 

from the United States visited international 

transportation agencies with mature performance 

management systems to study how these organizations demonstrate accountability to elected officials and the 

public. In addition, the team examined how these transportation agencies use goal setting and performance measures to 

manage, explain, deliver, and adjust their transportation 

budgets and internal activities. The elements the scan sought 

to examine were the following: 

`Examples of how national, State, or provincial strategic 

goals are translated into meaningful performance 

measures for the transportation agency

`Ways to establish effective and achievable performance 

levels based on input from the public, elected officials, and 

the business community

`Examples of linking performance and transparency to 

national, State, regional, and metropolitan plans and budgets 

`Ways transportation agencies can demonstrate good 

governance and accountability in meeting or exceeding 

performance expectations

`Advice on what works and what does not when performance measures are applied to Federal or multiregional 

transportation programs

The scan team visited the following agencies:

`Swedish Road Administration in Stockholm, Sweden

`United Kingdom (U.K.) Department for Transport and 

Highways Agency in London, England

`New South Wales Roads and Traffic Authority and 

Austroads in Sydney, Australia

`Victoria Department of Transport and VicRoads in 

Melbourne, Australia

`Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads 

in Brisbane, Australia

`New Zealand Transport Agency in Wellington, 

New Zealand

The scan occurred under the auspices of the International 

Technology Scanning Program, which is conducted by the 

Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) in cooperation 

with the American Association of State Highway and 

Transportation Officials (AASHTO) and the National 

Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP.) 

The scan team was co-chaired by Carlos Braceras, Deputy 

Director of the Utah Department of Transportation 

(DOT), and Robert Tally, Indiana Division Administrator 

for FHWA. They were accompanied by a diverse and 

multidisciplinary scan team: 

`Daniela Bremmer, Director of Strategic Assessment, 

Washington State DOT 

`Leon E. Hank, Chief Administrative Officer, Michigan 

DOT 

`Jane Hayse, Chief, Transportation Planning Division, 

Atlanta Regional Commission 

`Dr. Anthony (Tony) R. Kane, Director of Engineering 

and Technical Services, AASHTO

`Dr. Kristine L. Leiphart, Deputy Associate Administrator 

for Budget and Policy, Federal Transit Administration

Figure 1. Scan cochair Robert Tally presents in Stockholm, 

Sweden.

Introduction 
2 INTRODUCTION

`James (Jim) March, Team Leader, Office of Policy and 

Governmental Affairs, FHWA 

`Steven M. Pickrell, Senior Vice President, Cambridge 

Systematics, Inc. 

`Dr. J. Woody Stanley, Team Leader, Strategic Initiatives 

Team, Office of Policy and Governmental Affairs, FHWA

`Jenne Van der Velde, Strategic Advisor, Dutch Ministry 

of Transport, Public Works, and Water Management 

(Rijkswaterstaat)

`Connie P. Yew, Team Leader, Stewardship/Oversight 

Team, Office of Infrastructure, FHWA

`Gordon Proctor, Gordon Proctor & Associates, Inc., 

Report Facilitator

The scanning study was conducted against a backdrop of three 

major U.S. transportation needs: 

`Reauthorizing the Federal legislation for transportation 

programs 

`Stabilizing the financially drained Highway Trust Fund 

that supports highway and transit programs

`Ensuring greater accountability from State, regional, and 

local recipients of Federal transportation aid

Those issues made the scan particularly timely and important.

The countries and transportation agencies were chosen 

because they have mature performance management systems 

that they use to manage large, complex, industrialized transportation networks. All were parliamentary democracies, 

which may influence the degree to which their governments 

can rapidly change policy for the central transportation 

agencies. Otherwise, the visited agencies had many similarities 

to U.S. transportation agencies. One strong similarity was that 

many of the agencies visited not only needed to carry out 

direct goals set by the central government, but they also 

needed to cascade those goals to many local agencies. As in 

the United States, many transportation services were provided 

by local governments or private contractors. 

The following describes major characteristics of the agencies:

Swedish Road Administration—The Swedish Road 

Administration is the highway agency for the Swedish 

national government. Sweden has the world’s 15thlargest 

highway network. Of that, the Swedish Road Administration 

is responsible for 94,000 kilometers (km) (58,400 miles (mi)) 

of State roads. Municipalities manage 41,000 km (25,300 mi) 

of local routes, and private companies manage 76,100 km 

(47,000 mi) of private roads, mainly logging routes. The 

highway network spans a country the size of California, but 

Sweden has 9 million people compared to California’s 36 

million. It stretches from the Baltic Sea on the south to well 

above the Arctic Circle to the north. In addition to managing 

highways, the Swedish Road Administration interacts 

frequently with bus and rail passenger services offered in 

major cities such as metropolitan Stockholm.

U.K. Department for Transport and Highways Agency—

The main British transportation agency is the Department for 

Transport, which oversees the Highways Agency and monitors 

the private contractors that operate the country’s rail passenger 

system. The agency manages transportation policy for the 51 

million people in England, who live in a 50,000-square-mile 

(129,499-square-kilometer) country about the size of Alabama. The Department for Transport manages policy and 

funding for a transportation system that includes 80,000 buses, 

17 train operators, and about 4,500 mi (7,242 km) of the 

country’s 245,000 mi (394,289 km) of roads. 

New South Wales Roads and Traffic Authority— 

The Australian State of New South Wales has more than 

7 million people in a sprawling landscape 15 percent larger 

than Texas. Its major city is Sydney, with its iconic bridge 

and opera house and a rapidly growing population of 4.1 

million. The Roads and Traffic Authority manages 17,932 

km (11,069 mi) of roads, while local governments manage 

another 2,946 km (1,818 mi).

Victoria Department of Transport and VicRoads— 

Victoria is Australia’s smallest State geographically, but it is 

the most densely populated with 5.2 million people. Despite 

its size in relation to other Australian States, it is nearly as 

large as Montana and includes the city of Melbourne with 

3.4 million people. VicRoads manages 22,250 km (13,734 

mi) of public roads, or about 14 percent of the State’s total, 

but those routes carry 82 percent of the State’s highway 

travel. The Department of Transport is a policy and funding 

agency that not only manages VicRoads, but also sets policy, 

planning, and funding direction for the privately provided 

transit and rail services.

Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads—

This newly consolidated agency combined the former 

Department of Transport and Queensland Department of 

Main Roads. Both the former agencies and the combined 

new one displayed a well-articulated strategic management 

framework. Queensland is Australia’s fastest growing State, 

with a population of 4.2 million spread across a huge 

landmass twice the size of Texas. Queensland is a diverse 

State that includes the upscale Miami Beach-like Gold 
LINKING TRANSPORTATION PERFORMANCE AND ACCOUNTABILITY 3

Coast, the Great Barrier Reef, and thousands of square miles 

of sparsely populated interior. The agency has 34,000 km 

(21,000 mi) of highways under its control out of 188,000 

km (116,000 mi) in the State. It also coordinates, sets policy 

for, and funds several transit agencies. 

New Zealand Ministry of Transport and New Zealand 

Transport Agency—New Zealand is a country of only 4.2 

million spread over two major islands that combined are the 

size of Great Britain. With its diverse terrain and relatively 

small population, New Zealand faces significant transportation challenges, both in sustaining its internal transportation 

network and shipping exports to international markets. 

The New Zealand Transport Agency, the main transportation 

agency, was created in 2008 by merging the predecessor 

highway and transit agencies. Despite its small size, the 

country has been cited frequently in international studies 

of best practices in asset management and safety. It has 

93,576 km (57,762 mi) of roads, of which the New Zealand 

Transport Agency manages 10,895 km (6,725 miles).

Definitions

For the purpose of the scan, the following definitions 

were used:

Performance measurement. The U.S. Government 

Accountability Office (U.S. GAO) definition of 

performance measurement is “the ongoing monitoring 

and reporting of program accomplishments, particularly 

progress toward preestablished goals.” U.S. GAO defines a 

program as “any activity, project, function, or policy that has 

an identifiable purpose or set of objectives.” FHWA defines 

a performance measure as “a qualitative or quantitative 

measure of outcomes, outputs, efficiency, or cost-effectiveness. In general, measures should be related to an organization’s mission and programs, and should not merely measure 

one-time or short-term activities.”

Performance management. AASHTO defines performance 

management as an ongoing process that translates strategic 

goals into relevant and detailed measures and targets which, 

along with resources, are continuously monitored to ensure 

achievement of published institutional goals. Comprehensive 

performance management uses that definition in all key 

functions of a transport agency, including policy development 

and long-range planning; programming and budgeting; 

program, project, and service delivery; system operation; 

and monitoring and reporting of results in a variety of 

forms and to a variety of audiences.

Annual Road Fatalities in Victoria 1970–2004

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Figure 2. A long-term focus on safety has dramatically reduced fatalities in Victoria, Australia. This type 

of ongoing and transparent reporting of trends and performance was found throughout the scan of 

international best practices in linking transportation performance to budget expenditures. 

Annual Road Fatalities in Victoria, 1970-2004
4
LINKING TRANSPORTATION PERFORMANCE AND ACCOUNTABILITY 5

At a time when the United States is working to 

define a Federal-State-regional-local framework 

for transportation performance management, 

the international examples examined in this 

scan hold many lessons. The performance management 

systems of the studied agencies demonstrated clear linkage 

between government expenditures and transportation 

agency results. Long-term government goals were 

incorporated into transportation agency actions—and the 

results of those actions could be clearly documented to 

demonstrate what the public received for its transportation 

investment. 

The officials visited offered the scan team invaluable advice 

from their past decade—in some cases more—of performance 

management. The systems they developed applied to diverse 

settings, from the complex and densely populated Great 

Britain to the rural and isolated New Zealand islands. Despite 

the diversity of their applications, the performance management systems included five universal concepts. From Sweden 

to New Zealand, the scan team found the following concepts 

being deployed:

1. Articulate a limited number of high-level national 

transportation policy goals that are linked to a clear set 

of measures and targets. 

2. Negotiate intergovernmental agreements on how State, 

regional, and local agencies will achieve the national goals 

while translating them into local context and priorities. 

3. Evaluate performance by tracking the measures and 

reporting them in clear language appropriate for the 

audience.

4. Collaborate with State, regional, and local agencies to 

achieve the targets by emphasizing incentives, training, 

and support—instead of penalties—as the preferred 

way to advance performance.

5. Perpetuate long-term improvement by understanding 

that the real value of performance management is the 

development of an improved decisionmaking and 

investment process, not the achievement of many 

short-term targets.

The Federal-State relationships found abroad were more akin 

to coach-player relationships than to umpire-player relationships. It was common to find different levels of government 

jointly setting a target, then collaborating on ways to achieve 

it. It was not common to find one level of government setting 

a target, then penalizing another for missing it. 

The scan team found that the true value of performance 

management was in achieving steady, long-term progress, as 

shown in figure 3 (see next page). It emphasizes that, over 

time, impressive improvement in core performance such as 

crash reduction is possible. Many officials stressed that 

another important benefit of their performance management 

systems was the transparency they created. The transparency 

improved understanding about transportation issues and led 

to greater degrees of trust. Striving for long-term accomplishment created collaboration among levels of government, not 

contention. 

Broad Policy Goals and Collaboration

Despite the greater linkage of national goals to agency 

activities found in the visited countries, the central governments set few explicit and quantitative national transportation 

targets for the transportation agencies. The two exceptions 

were in the areas of safety and climate change in the two 

European countries. The central government articulated 

broad policy goals, and the transportation agency translated 

those goals into specific performance measures or targets in 

collaboration with the Federal or State government. This 

collaborative target-setting practice appeared to exist between 

both national and State governments and State and regional/

local governments.

The scanning team seldom found that one level of government mandated the performance of another. Rather, service 

level agreements or other negotiated documents between 

the central government and the transportation agency were 

used to define performance measures and targets for which 

the transportation agency was held accountable. The service 

Executive Summary 
6 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

level agreements communicated priorities and clarified 

outcomes while allowing each State or region to negotiate 

measures and priorities important to its unique circumstances. These negotiations were supported by extensive data 

collection that showed trends in systemwide performance. 

Negotiations between the agencies and their central governments were fluid and continuous. Flexibility was particularly 

evident with major cities, where unique transportation 

needs and solutions were recognized.

The combination of national goals cascading into State or 

regional performance measures appeared to create a strong 

focus on outcomes instead of process. Not evident abroad 

were the highly detailed and procedural, fiscally constrained, 

long-range plans and short-term transportation improvement 

programs found in the United States. Instead, the negotiated 

service agreements served to clarify desired outcomes over 

the next 1- to 5-year period.

Performance-Driven Funding 

Allocations: A Difficult Goal

The agencies the scan team visited clearly documented 

system and organizational performance, often in detailed 

trends over a number of years. The richness of reporting was 

usually quite sophisticated. The agencies demonstrated 

improved customer satisfaction, higher reliability in transit 

and highway travel times, reduced environmental impacts, 

and greater efficiencies. Their performance management 

systems naturally dovetailed with asset management systems. 

The agencies demonstrated a keen knowledge of system 

conditions and trends and a finely calibrated understanding 

of system investment needs, often by asset type and region. 

Clearly, the agencies benefitted from managing their 

performance to maximize their resources, optimize assets, 

and earn credibility from legislators and budgeting agencies.

Despite those benefits to legislatures and agencies, budget 

appropriations were for the most part not driven by the 

resources required to achieve the performance targets. In 

short, performance management appeared to be less of an 

influence on budgeting than other factors. Performance 

management demonstrated how funds were spent and to 

what end, but the systems did not appear to include a feedback loop that triggered legislative appropriation decisions. 

The team saw little evidence that legislatures or executive 

branch financial agencies established asset investment levels 

based on data from performance management systems. 

Victorian Fatalities

Rolling 12 Month Totals—January 2002 to December 2007

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Arrive Alive! target

Figure 3. Continuous tracking of performance occurs with safety and other key performance measures in the Victoria, 

Australia, performance management sytem. Although performance metrics are tracked monthly, the biggest benefit 

of performance management comes from evaluating long-term trends, said officials from the visited agencies.

Victorian Fatalities

Rolling 12-Month Totals—January 2002 to December 2007
LINKING TRANSPORTATION PERFORMANCE AND ACCOUNTABILITY 7

One British official noted there was no easy linkage between 

transportation program goals and the budget set by legislators 

or treasury officials.

Performance results, however, were considered important in 

budget discussions. The performance results demonstrated 

how effectively the agency spent its budget, but the performance targets did not strongly influence the budget level. 

Discussions indicated that this was because of overall 

funding constraints in competing public sectors, such as 

education and health care. It was not because of an ineffective 

performance management program or agency performance. 

Most agencies did not have a dedicated road user fund; 

agencies competed for funding with all other government 

programs. One agency stated that while its performance 

management did not garner a budget increase, elected officials 

viewed it as so effective that it was able to sustain its budget 

when others were cut. 

In three of the six cases, agencies reported discouragement 

that they could not convince legislators to invest more in 

system preservation despite their sophisticated documentation. Further discussion noted that identifying large maintenance funding gaps was a longstanding concern. Similar to 

the United States, the countries had difficulty expressing the 

impact of changes in pavement and bridge condition at the 

political level.

Central government decisions on agency operating budgets 

tend to remain incremental. System preservation increases 

were modest and based on increases from past budgets. 

Budget increases depended on whether the government had 

any residual revenue left once other priorities were met.

Ambitious Goals and Visions 

Drive Investment 

Ambitious new national visions and broad goals, as opposed 

to a need to meet specific performance targets, tended to 

generate new investments in transportation. When the 

governments articulated a new transportation vision, adopted 

new transportation goals, or sought to use transportation 

investment to achieve other ends (e.g., economic stimulus), 

the likelihood of new investment increased. 

The following are examples of recent budget increases that 

were provided to expand the transportation system or carry 

out new economic stimulus programs: 

`In 2009, the Australian “Nation Building” program funded 

a record $22.1 billion road and rail construction program. 

`Sweden has been undertaking significant investments for 

nationally important corridors and bridges. A cordon 

pricing system will be used to pay for a new outer belt 

for Stockholm.

`New Zealand’s new government has been pursuing 

a national road network similar to the U.S. National 

Highway System.

`Great Britain has been using tolling and long-term 

design-build-finance-and-operate contracts for a $10.2 

billion upgrade and long-term maintenance of the 

M25 highway.

Demonstrating Return on Investment: 

Value for Money

“Value for money” was a common theme observed during 

the scanning study. The agencies frequently used benefit-cost 

analyses to evaluate projects and programs and demonstrate 

the effectiveness of their investments.

`In several of the agencies visited, every project received 

a benefit-cost analysis. The benefit-cost ratio was a 

common measure for discussing project selection within 

the agency and with the public, other ministries, and 

legislatures. 

`The use of benefit-cost analysis and a value-for-money 

approach appeared to give the agencies a common 

language to demonstrate the value of their projects 

and programs.

`Many major projects were selected based on political 

and broader policy priorities, not just benefit-cost ratios. 

`One agency official cautioned that the use of a benefitcost analysis may erroneously exclude an investment that 

may yield a greater unexpected benefit in the future. 

`Some agencies indicated that they evaluate impacts 

of some major projects after they are completed 

(e.g., before-and-after analysis) to assess whether benefits 

included in the original benefit-cost analysis were 

actually realized. 

`Another way to demonstrate value for money was by 

using risk management. Several agencies appeared to 

make tradeoffs based on formal risk management. 

Risk was used to differentiate between types of bridge 

investments, set appropriate speed limits, and support 

safety improvements. 

`Queensland developed a sophisticated means of 

demonstrating long-term financial risk by calculating 

the unfunded liabilities caused by underinvestment in 

maintenance. It uses asset inventories, management 

systems, and overall asset management approaches to 
8 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

convert asset maintenance needs into a balance-sheet 

calculation. The process was similar to the Governmental 

Accounting Standards Board 34 (GASB 34) process 

required in the United States. Sweden, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand used variations of this approach to 

summarize all asset management financial need into one 

comprehensive calculation that documented the future 

infrastructure liability the government faces.

Accountability Is Transparent 

The agencies the scan team visited clearly embraced 

performance management as the system for delivering 

results and documenting accountability.

`The agencies produced detailed, ongoing measures 

illustrating their achievement of agency goals and 

management of public resources. 

`It was common for the agencies to regularly review 

performance with agency managers and to produce 

monthly, quarterly, and annual performance summaries. 

`Continual two-way dialogue occurred at the ministerial 

and executive levels, as well as with the parliamentary 

committees in most of the agencies visited.

`Polished, high-level annual reports detailing goals, 

outcomes, and expenditures were common, and at least 

one was also used for recruiting purposes.

`Dashboards and extensive reporting, mostly internal and 

between governments, clearly expressed what the agencies 

achieved, at what cost, and for whom. 

`Regular reporting was viewed as a key mechanism for 

achieving accountability.

`In general, performance measures were used to support 

budget requests and to demonstrate the agencies’ use 

of resources.

Limited Number of High-Level Measures 

The scan team found that in general, national governments 

have steadily reduced the number of measures and targets 

required of transportation agencies and moved toward 

fewer, broader, more policy-oriented goals.

`The most dramatic example was in Great Britain. 

Since 1998, the number of central government-imposed 

measures on the transportation agency has shrunk 

from 600 to 30. 

`Likewise in 1998, local governments were required to 

report more than 2,000 performance measures covering all 

aspects of local governance, including transportation. The 

Policy Delivery: Trajectories

Figure 4. Helping regional and local governments track and meet targets was recommended in lieu of penalties.
LINKING TRANSPORTATION PERFORMANCE AND ACCOUNTABILITY 9

large number of measures was rescinded in the face of 

broad criticism and replaced with 188 measures. Of those, 

local governments must set targets for only 35, which they 

chose based on local priorities. They report the remaining 

measures as long-term indicators for trend line analysis.

`The United Kingdom has different performance 

standards for local governments than for the central 

Department for Transport or its Highways Agency. 

The local performance standards are articulated 

through Local Agency Agreements. 

“Do It With People, Not To Them”

“Do it with people, not to them” was both a direct quote 

and a common sentiment heard from transportation officials 

during the scan. From Sweden to New Zealand, transportation officials advised that carrots versus sticks, incentives 

versus penalties, and dialogue versus dictates were preferred 

in the intergovernmental management of performance. 

`In most of the agencies examined, officials at one level 

of government required performance reporting of lower 

levels of government. 

`Universally, State and national officials said they did not 

impose penalties on local or State agencies that failed to 

meet performance targets. In fact, few actual targets had 

to be achieved. 

`Goals and measures were used to track performance and 

identify areas for improvement. When improvement was 

needed, it was achieved through training, benchmarking, 

peer exchanges, and local agency staff development. 

Typical was the Swedish example, in which the central government expressed several broad goals for the transportation 

department. From those, the Swedish Road Administration 

negotiated a comprehensive set of about 300 performance 

measures it developed for both internal and external reporting. 

Hard targets for those measures were negotiated between the 

agency and the ministry. For instance, its target to reduce traffic 

fatalities by another 20 in 2009 was a short-term milestone 

toward a national vision of zero fatalities. It also targeted a 

department reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of 70,000 

tons in 2009 as a short-term milestone toward reducing 

national carbon emissions. If the agency fails to achieve the 

targets, the performance is noted and a determination is made 

on what different tactics need to be used to achieve the goal.

In short, the measures are benchmarks for continuous 

improvement and dialogue, rather than milestones 

for penalty.

Outcomes Relate to the Public in 

Personal Terms

The transportation agencies tended to speak to the public 

in broad, outcome-based terms, such as “the journey 

home” or “support for the journey,” instead of technical 

terms. 

`Transportation was translated into the topics important 

to people, instead of technical engineering, financial, 

or operational terms. 

`Agencies produced voluminous technical support data, 

but they were often summarized in general categories 

important to stakeholders.

`Concern about moving people rather than vehicles was a 

significant manifestation of this focus on person-centric 

outcomes. The agencies appeared to focus on reducing 

personal travel time and vehicle delay and offering more 

choice in transportation modes.

`The personal focus appeared to increase the emphasis on 

bicycling, walking, and other forms of active travel.

`The Swedish Road Administration spoke of its mission 

as evolving from being highway builders to community 

builders. 

In many cases, the data are packaged for a lay reader. Rather 

than providing extensive technical and financial data, public 

reporting focuses on outcomes of more immediate relevance 

and clarity to the typical user. 

Performance Management Takes Time 

and Resources

Many officials in the countries visited noted that successful 

performance management systems are long-term, iterative 

processes that require a commitment of funding and staff 

resources. All of the agencies had dedicated staff to collect 

and report performance data. All reported that measures 

evolve and often take significant effort to develop. The 

British spent two years refining their reliability measure and 

already are exploring a next generation of measure that is 

more understandable to the public.

Outcomes Are Difficult to Measure

Important outcomes that are difficult to measure in the 

United States were equally elusive in the agencies studied. 

Such measures as transportation’s effect on the economy, 

travel time reliability, or transportation’s effect on the 

environment were not easily captured by the visited agencies. All of the agencies expressed a desire for continued 

evaluation of ways to measure transportation’s effects in 

these areas, particularly the economy.
10 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Short-Term Results Can Be 

Overemphasized

All of the agencies support performance management, but 

they also spoke of a tendency of elected officials to emphasize 

short-term accomplishments in lieu of long-term trends. Several 

agency officials cautioned that while frequent budget reporting 

of results achieved short-term transparency, they feared that 

emphasis on “bean counting” skewed performance toward 

easily measured, short-term accomplishments. They advised 

that a better system would be one that tracked accomplishment 

of long-term goals, which may be more ambiguous to measure 

but more important overall. Important issues such as the 

public’s satisfaction with the journey, transportation’s support of 

economic development, or transportation’s link to environmental sustainability may be vitally important but difficult to 

measure in monthly increments. 

Candid, Confidential Reporting 

Has Its Place

Several agencies cited examples in which their performance 

reporting was used to criticize the agency, either in the 

media or in political debates. Several acknowledged that 

such criticism creates a desire to set easily achievable targets, 

hide or downplay problems, or play “metric games,” which 

undermine the transparency and accountability of 

performance management.

Although they had public reporting processes, all of the 

agencies also had some form of candid, confidential reporting of results to central ministries. Britain used the Prime 

Minister’s Delivery Unit delivery assessment, an uncompromising, truthful assessment conducted every 6 months as a 

confidential tool. It drove the agency’s actions for the next 6 

months. These confidential reporting processes allowed for 

candid discussions with central governments about agency 

performance. 

Reorganization and Refocus: From 

Building Highways to Moving People

The six agencies visited were in a state of transition—

both organizationally and in terms of their basic mission. 

They were in the process of reorganizing to merge the 

highway with State or regional transit agencies. The merger 

was driven by a national government desire to move away 

from a traditional highway-centric focus to a broader, more 

inclusive approach to surface transportation planning in 

highly congested urban areas. 

“We are moving people, we are serving business, and we are 

moving freight. We are no longer in the business of moving 

cars,” said a New South Wales official. “We are no longer in 

the business of counting cars. It is about allocating road space.”

“We are a travel agency. That is what we are involved with. 

It is not just the road,” said a Swedish Road Administration 

official. “We are community builders.”

“(We) had to do a cultural realignment to recognize that 

we are part of the solution for public transport,” said a 

New South Wales highway official.

“The most important message was that we are the road 

authority, but we manage the transport network as one 

network that includes roads, buses, and trains. More and 

more, we are doing integration,” said a VicRoads official in 

Melbourne. “From a road authority perspective, we can’t build 

enough roads. If we did, it would not be a city anyone wants 

to live in. We need to manage the demand in travel.”

The cause and effect of the agencies’ performance management systems and their shift to holistic transportation 

agencies were not entirely clear. It appeared that the agencies’ 

forecast of continuing degradation in travel time reliability 

pushed them beyond strategies of only expanding highways. 

The examined agencies placed great emphasis on transit 

service, rail passenger service, land use integration, and 

moving people and freight as well as vehicles. 

Highway Corridors Remain Important

While the agencies displayed a strong commitment to 

transit, passenger rail, and urban land use integration, they 

also had ambitious highway corridor programs. All of the 

agencies retained a strong commitment to rural connectivity 

that relied heavily on highways. The Swedish and New 

Zealand governments emphasized their environmental 

commitments, but they also had programs to improve 

national highway corridors. The Australian States all maintained rural connectivity as a basic goal of their transportation programs. Although the urban systems emphasized 

ambitious transit and rail programs, the agencies also 

retained a strong highway component, particularly as it 

relates to national corridors and rural access.

Sustainability With Mobility

The agencies displayed a strong commitment to addressing 

climate change and sustainability. However, none of the 
LINKING TRANSPORTATION PERFORMANCE AND ACCOUNTABILITY 11

agencies visited had adopted, nor had imposed on them, 

requirements to reduce vehicle miles of travel.

`Their transportation-related climate change strategies relied 

on other tactics, such as improving vehicular fuel efficiency, 

reducing the use of electricity in lighting and buildings, 

and encouraging nonautomobile passenger travel.

`The agencies were developing refined methods for 

calculating their greenhouse gas emissions.

`All of the agencies examined acknowledged that they 

lack the strategies to achieve the ambitious long-term 

carbon-reduction goals their nations have established.

`As governments adopted goals related to new environmental issues, agencies were exploring how to reflect 

these emerging priorities in their programs and in the 

measures and targets in their performance management 

systems.

`Transportation agencies appeared to work more frequently 

with other cabinet agencies on cross-cutting issues such as 

economic development, public health, or climate change. 

In part, this appeared to be the result of multiple agencies 

sharing responsibility for cross-cutting policy goals, such 

as climate change or economic development.

Safety Focus Is Emphatic

The agencies were emphatic about documenting safety results.

`The Swedish and Australian agencies, in particular, 

achieved significant safety reductions by applying 

performance management tactics to reduce the number 

of crashes. 

`In addition to targeting “black spot,” or high-crash, 

locations, they applied programmatic treatments such as 

extensive cable barriers and skid-resistant pavements. 

`They also relied heavily on increased police surveillance, 

using automated speed enforcement and random alcohol 

breath tests to reduce speed and crashes. 

`The New Zealand agency conducted a benefit-cost 

analysis and calculated that adding 138,000 additional 

police hours at areas of consistent speeding would produce 

a crash-reduction result with a 28-to-1 benefit-cost ratio. 

`The New South Wales Roads and Traffic Authority 

broke its black spot areas down into great detail. In the 

process, it learned that roadway departure crashes were 

most common on curves where the radius was sufficiently tight to cause handling maneuvering difficulty, 

but not tight enough to cause drivers to slow down 

Figure 5. Sweden’s strong environmental focus was evident in this public monument seen 

on a Stockholm street that illustrates traffic growth trends and air emissions.
appreciably. By homing in on curves with this specific 

problem, they targeted limited safety funds and 

effectively reduced roadway departure crashes. 

Measures Drive Operations Innovation 

Several agencies displayed a progressive attitude toward 

highway operations, spurred by their efforts to meet reliability 

goals. The British, in particular, had invested considerable 

effort in measuring reliability on high-volume national routes. 

All of the agencies reported that their reliability measures 

were still evolving and they were not entirely satisfied with 

their measurement tools. However, it was clear that the more 

urbanized agencies in the United Kingdom, Australia, and 

Sweden were investing considerable effort in measuring 

real-time highway, transit, and rail operations to improve 

travel time reliability, enhance transportation choices, and 

reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 

`In Great Britain, Department for Transport officials said 

they changed their entire approach to relieving congestion 

on major national routes when tight revenues prevented 

the widening of highways while national performance 

goals required improvement in travel reliability. The 

department had been downsizing for three decades, but 

reversed that policy by hiring 1,500 additional traffic 

officers as a strategy to improve highway operations by 

preventing crashes and clearing them quickly. The department fundamentally shifted to operations-based strategies 

in which it significantly increased the number of traffic 

cameras, automated speed enforcement, and incident 

response efforts, as well as adopted widespread use of hard 

shoulder running. Regions were allocated funds specifically for intelligent transportation systems deployment 

and operation in addition to preservation and maintenance funds. As a result, the department documented 

small increases in travel time reliability after years of 

steady decreases. 

`In Melbourne, Australia, the Victoria Department 

of Transport fundamentally altered its approach to 

integrating land use and transportation when forecasts 

showed it could not meet its long-term reliability goals in 

the face of rising population growth. It identified five 

regional central business districts in which land use 

development will be encouraged to capitalize on excess 

transportation capacity.

`In Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane, the States integrated management of local traffic signals and provided 

signal priority for bus fleets, which all have Global 

Positioning System and geographic information system 

real-time monitoring. In addition, transport officials 

targeted efforts to increase low-cost walking and cycling 

in highly congested urban corridors.

A consistent finding throughout the study was that although 

hard-and-fast performance targets were waning, the steady, 

long-term practice of benchmarking to broad government 

goals tended to spur innovative solutions to major transportation issues, such as improving operations and travel time 

reliability.

Figure 6. Britain’s use of hard shoulder running resulted from its focus on 

using low-cost strategies to improve travel times.

12 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
LINKING TRANSPORTATION PERFORMANCE AND ACCOUNTABILITY 13

The scan provided considerable insight into 

the evolution of performance management 

in nations that have practiced it for at least a 

decade. Their systems have matured and evolved 

in ways that provide lessons for the United States. The scan 

also validated the use of performance management as an 

effective means to translate broad government goals into 

meaningful agency practice. The performance management 

systems observed abroad provided transparency and 

accountability to transportation programs, while also 

allowing flexibility to meet local needs. 

The officials offered the scan team advice in several key areas 

of performance management. The following outlines their 

advice and the scan team’s conclusions: 

1. Articulate a limited number of high-level national 

transportation policy goals that are linked to a clear 

set of measures and targets. 

2. Negotiate intergovernmental agreements on how State, 

regional, and local agencies will achieve the national 

goals while translating them into State, regional, or 

local context and priorities. 

3. Evaluate performance by tracking the measures and 

reporting them in clear language appropriate for the 

audience.

4. Collaborate with State, regional, and local agencies to 

achieve the targets by emphasizing incentives, training, 

and support—instead of penalties—as the preferred 

way to advance performance.

5. Perpetuate long-term improvement by understanding 

that the real value of performance management is the 

development of an improved decisionmaking and 

investment process, not the achievement of many 

short-term targets.

6. Improve the use of benefit-cost analysis and risk 

management practices to demonstrate value for money. 

Consider major project postconstruction evaluations 

to assess whether benefits included in the original 

benefit-cost assessments were realized. 

7. Recognize that major national visions, not achievement 

of narrow targets, tend to generate new investment.

8. Convert long-term deferred maintenance needs into a 

long-term future liability calculation. This clearly links 

the budget to long-term system sustainability.

9. Demonstrate accountability by producing annual 

performance reports on agency achievements.

10. Instead of using technical jargon, report results with 

language that is meaningful to the public, such as “the 

journey home” or “support for the journey.” Detailed, 

technical terms should be used for internal reporting, 

but translated into understandable language for the 

public. 

11. Collaborate frequently with other cabinet agencies, 

including conducting periodic meetings with top 

leadership on cross-cutting issues such as economic 

development, public health, highway safety, and 

climate change.

12. Have a strong safety focus and document the results 

of safety measures, in addition to the usual measures 

of infrastructure condition, internal operations, transit, 

and ontime rail performance. 

13. Focus on desired outcomes for travel time reliability 

that lead to expanded strategies for highway operations. 

14. Learn from international examples of addressing 

climate change that rely on improving vehicles, fuels, 

and modal choice, but do not mandate reductions in 

travel or mobility.

15. Provide resources to enable high-quality data tracking, 

analysis, and reporting capabilities that allow for the 

use of performance data in decisionmaking.

16. Recognize that performance management is not a black 

box or simplistic solution; it is a culture to grow within 

the agency as an important consideration in the 

decisionmaking and investment process.

Key Lessons Learned

Implications for U.S. Performance Management
Office of International Programs

FHWA/US DOT (HPIP)

1200 New Jersey Ave., SE • Washington, DC 20590

Tel: (202) 366-9636 • Fax: (202) 366-9626

international@fhwa.dot.gov • www.international.fhwa.dot.gov

Publication No. FHWA-PL-10-009

HPIP/1-10(3.5)EW