Operations and Planning

The NTOC action team on operations and planning was convened to discuss strategies for incorporating transportation system management and operations into the transportation planning process. The action team initially focused on clearly identifying a few key issues that need to be addressed that set operations apart from the typical transportation infrastructure investments that routinely included in trasportation planning processes. The team developed two matrices, one for metropolitan and one for statewide planning, which identify these issues and the barriers to achieving better integration.

• Metropolitan Transportation Planning
• Statewide Transportation Planning Matrix

The action team worked through the member associations to foster dialog at each association's venues. The issue was discussed during a salon at the AMPO annual meeting; it was introduced at the TRB Regional Transportation System Management and Operation subcommittee; a roundtable discussion was held at the ITE Technical Conference: and AASHTO sponsored a joint meeting between the SSOM and SCOP committees where this issue was the topic of a day long session. As a result of these NTOC efforts, the topic of operations within trasportation planning has received considerable attention.

The action team has also been active in working with FHWA staff to review documents and provide comments on various FHWA sponsored activities, such as training materials, analysis of gaps in technical tools and others.

The NTOC action team is now embarking on the development of a guide document for practitioners that will focus on practical ideas and examples of how to include transportation system management and operations considerations within the transportation planning processes. This work builds from language in SAFETEA-LU that requires "Operational and Management Strategies: to be included in metropolitan transportation plans.