TAM Research Management System beta


Getting Started with the TAM Research Management System

The TAM Research Management System (RMS) helps AASHTO and TRB TAM Committees plan and track research from concept through completion.


The RMS includes tools to help meet the information needs at each step of the research development process – establishing roles and responsibilities, defining milestones and recommended sequencing, and supporting collaboration and prioritization. Select one of the options below to get started.

What’s in the RMS

The RMS includes three main areas for organizing TAM research information. The project pipeline organizes current active and programmed projects. The candidate pool contains all the concepts for potential future research ideas. And the management platform is used to manage the development of formal research statements.

How the RMS Works

The RMS is updated on an ongoing basis. New candidate research statements can be submitted at any time. Candidate statements are developed and prioritized using the RMS’s collaborative rating and editing tools.

If you are a new user or would like a brief explanation of the site, check out this video introducing the basic views and operations.

How the RMS is Organized

The RMS is designed around an annual research development process. Once a year, candidate projects are selected from the candidate pool to be developed into research statements and prioritized for advancement. To help focus this process, the RMS is organized by the TAM Framework introduced in the AASHTO TAM Guide. Every candidate, statement, and active project in the RMS is indexed and searchable using the six TAM Framework elements.

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Research concepts in the Pool


Add a new concept to the Pool


View all the concepts in the Pool


Add a comment on a concept

To add a comment, simply navigate to the candidate pool, select a candidate, and click the comment button. You will then be prompted to log in or register.

12

Prioritized statements being developed for potential submission this year


View the current set of research statements


Add a comment on a candidate statement

To add a comment, simply navigate to the current set of statements, select a statement, and click the comment button. You will then be prompted to log in or register.

Volunteer to help develop a statement


Log in to edit a statement


If you are already logged in as an admin, please proceed to the current set of statements. From there, select a statement to edit and click the “Edit Statement” button.

Log in to assign an author


If you are already logged in as an admin, please proceed to the current set of statements. From there, select a statement to edit and click the “Edit Statement” button and find the form to add an author

Log in to run a prioritization session


If you are already logged in as an admin, please proceed to the current set of statements.

12

Proposed projects from CY23




View the current project pipeline


Log in to update project information

If you are already logged in as an admin, please proceed to the project pipeline. From there, select a project to edit and click the “Edit Project” button.


Log in to add a new project


If you are already logged in as an admin, please proceed to the Add New Project page.

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Roadmap Snapshot

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Candidates that have been submitted as Projects are outlined in blue.

Research Candidate Statement
Funding: $0
Funding Source:
Timeframe:
Objectives

please add clarifying details and topic title suggestions)
More cross-modal (other than vehicle) data; specifically: pedestrian, bicycle and certain transit data is needed for various applications and needs including Complete Streets, We need more and better quality, verified data for transit, bikes, peds, and non-car users.
Includes examining options for data availability, quality, validity, analytics.
Stephanie Dock, Daniel Hulker, and Daniela Bremmer were interested in further defining/developing this research concept and invited other CPBM and subcommittee members to join.
Potential partnership with Eastern Corridor Coalition's-data group (working on methodologies for assessing and standardizing cross-modal non-vehicular data)?

Champions
This candidate currently has no champions

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Research Candidate Statement
Funding: $0
Funding Source:
Timeframe:
Objectives

(please add clarifying details and topic title suggestions)
Many states and local jurisdictions have deployed some level of automated technologies , such as low speed shuttles, and or have partnered with private agencies or research institutions to do so
Little performance or other information is available in a consolidated and organized fashion about the results of these pilots, test cases and or deployments
Policy makers have become guarded about investing in pilots and similar deployments, especially given the recent disillusionment with technology potentials such as AVs, CVs and CAVs and want to understand what benefits and results have been achieved.
Challenges may include the availability of data, data agreements (which often preclude external data sharing) and or lack of sufficient data in cases of short term pilots.
What kind of data is available, can be analyzed and summarized into a consolidated report to understand 1. what pilot shave been conducted (over past x/3 years? ) and 2. What is the performance of these pilots and or deployments in terms of safety and system efficiency and operation? (Similar interest exists in understanding equity impacts but those would be even harder to quantify and are not included , unless data is available).
Potential partnership with Eastern Corridor Coalition

Champions
This candidate currently has no champions

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Research Candidate Statement
Funding: $0
Funding Source:
Timeframe:
Objectives

Incorporating uncertainty into forecasting, target-setting, and monitoring - low /high matrix - inflation, funding,
performance, modeling uncertainty envelope (synthesis/peer exchange in lieu of research project?) (Risk as a
band of uncertainty v. a number) - Charles Pilson
There was a recent research idea on how to visualize/communicate uncertainty. Maybe a TAM conference
idea?

The RMS also has "ERM - Improving Risk Visualization and Communication Internally and Externally"
in the candidate pool. Not sure if that's related to the idea of communicating uncertainty? - Matt Haubrich

Champions
This candidate currently has no champions

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Research Candidate Statement
Funding: $0
Funding Source:
Timeframe:
Objectives

Potential benefit if you can align political and departmental alignment
Always need to balance top-down and bottom-up, operationalization of it
**Involvement of those doing the work is critical to long-term success - what are the contributing factors to make large-scale efforts successful?
https://sites.google.com/state.co.us/process-improvement/tools-resources/cascades-how-to-create-a-movement-that-drives-transformational-change
How do you build a movement in transportation
Customer-, Environment- centric momentum for organizational change - What are the key components needed to make process?
Related organizational changes needed to make it happen?
Dave - Brene Brown - “Clarity is Kindness” in all that we do, find tools that help break down barriers.
Ties in with KM, OM, Risk, etc.

Champions
This candidate currently has no champions

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Research Candidate Statement
Funding: $0
Funding Source:
Timeframe:
Objectives

- Organizational strategies for improvement
- Innovation challenges
- Thinking outside the LSS, Lean methodologies
- Office of competition at the federal level - mechanism exists at the - - - federal level
- Crowdsourcing improvement efforts

Champions
This candidate currently has no champions

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Research Candidate Statement
Funding: $450,000
Funding Source:
Timeframe: 24-30 months
Background/Description

As the United States moves toward a fleet comprised of more EV and hybrid vehicles, important questions impacting the design and management of critical assets must be considered in future practice and policy making. For instance:

  • Are heavier EV’s and hybrid vehicles deteriorating our bridges, pavements, and other assets before the end of their design/service lives due to their heavy loads?
  • Will the live load increases to bridges and axle weight distribution from heavier EVs and hybrids impact asset lifecycle needs and level of service performance?
  • Are new design standards needed for the engineering design of transit and freight roadways and bridges to reflect the increased live load changes?
  • How is the accelerated rate of deterioration impacting asset lifecycle needs?

Answering these questions is critical as the types of vehicles using state and local transportation facilities transition to the next generation of vehicles.

Since asset management (AM) is a business process and decision-making framework using economic and engineering modeling over an extended time horizon, it can help inform many aspects of designing and planning for and implementing the expected service levels of roadways and structures to support adoption of next-generation vehicles. Developing guidance that reflects changes associated with EV and hybrid vehicles will lead to updated design models, more reflective deterioration rates, and improved planning for the preservation, improvement, and operation of road and bridge assets while protecting them from shorter lifecycles.

Single occupancy vehicles, while a major cause for congestion, do not appear to provide measurable impacts to load weighting. Therefore, the next-generation vehicles considered under this study will include a comprehensive mix, including transit, garbage trucks, and freight. For bridge analysis, this research would evaluate existing data and account for the battery weight to develop a design load model for gross vehicle weight. Pavement analysis utilizes equivalent single axle load (ESAL) ratings.

The figure linked below, provided by the City of Seattle, illustrates the tremendous load impacts that buses and trucks have on pavements and bridges:

https://www.tam-portal.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2023/10/Picture1.jpg

The City estimated that it would take about:

  • 1,500 cars to equal the damage of the typical 18-wheeler on a Washington State Highway
  • 2,500 cars to equal the damage of the average empty bus
  • 5,000 cars to equal the damage of the average full bus
  • 8,000 cars to equal the damage of an average full 60’ Articulated Hybrid

WSDOT, in its pavement design guide, advises that the average 18-wheel, double unit truck on a state highway has a total ESAL factor of 1.00 to 1.35 on average, a figure reached through their different studies of truck weights (at weigh stations, etc.). As the picture shows, the design loading is significantly lower than those being applied by buses, especially those with heavy batteries.

Transit buses have a federal exemption from axle weight limits that dates to the ISTEA transportation legislation in the early 1990s. Buses have gotten increasingly heavy over the last two decades with new equipment like hybrid powertrains, yet the number of axles remains the same because of the exemption. Furthermore, transit agencies are often not the owners of the roadways and bridges so they may not consider infrastructure conditions and design into their decision making.

The average bus empty is more damaging than the typical truck on a state highway. Add passengers, the exponential relationship between axle weight and fatigue, and the damage factor per bus increases to almost six times for the heavy articulated hybrids.

The figure hints at why agencies are struggling to maintain roads and bridges. As the transportation system is expected to carry heavier vehicles than they were designed for, it is critical to update design models and develop new deterioration factors to be used in asset lifecycle planning.

In addition to design and maintenance issues, the study will also consider environmental and social impacts and potential risks associated with next-generation vehicles. The inclusion of these factors enables asset management cross-asset trade-offs to be evaluated in terms of both positive and negative impacts. A comprehensive, triple bottom line study will pull from existing sustainability and economic lifecycle cost analyses on EVs and infrastructure construction along with societal factors such as increases in travel time from driving on deteriorated infrastructure assets.

Objectives

The objective of this study is to develop a guidebook with suggestions for updating asset management models used in pavement and bridge design and preservation. The guide will be developed from research to determine:

  • The impacts of EVs and hybrid vehicles on typical pavement and bridge (component and element) deterioration rates and their potential impact on lifecycle planning strategies.
  • Environmental and societal impacts associated with the use of EVs and hybrid vehicles to support a triple-bottom line analysis and cross-asset tradeoff assessments.
  • Suggested modifications to pavement and bridge load models used in design activities.
  • The feasibility of establishing battery weight limits, increased road user fees, or other strategies for addressing asset management impacts.

The guidebook will be supported by case studies from a variety of agencies (state and local, urban, and rural) illustrating the potential impact the resulting deterioration rates would have on pavement and bridge designs, maintenance strategies, and lifecycle costs.

Champions
Ping Lu | FHWA
E-mail
Emily Burns | Seattle Office of the Waterfront
E-mail
Matt Versdahl | WSDOT
E-mail

Email Champions

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Research Candidate Statement
Funding: $225,000
Funding Source:
Timeframe: 12 months
Objectives

- Looking at current practice and examples from states like NM. Utah looking beyond engineering disciplines. Multidisciplinary teams. What do agencies need from TAM professionals? Competencies for asset management. Mapping needs (TAM Guide may have needs) to core skills.
- (Not sure if we limit to just Univ - we talked about other options)

Champion
Shannon McGrath
Team
Susan Lime (Culvery Asset Management Program - CAMP), NM DOT
Chris Whipple, UDOT
Baris Salman
Alma Mujanovic
Basak Bektas

Champions
Matthew Hardy | Spy Pond Partners
E-mail
Cristina Torres-Machi | University of Colorado Boulder
E-mail
Baris Salman | Syracuse University
E-mail

Email Champions

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Research Candidate Statement
Funding: $45,000
Funding Source:
Timeframe: 9 months
Background/Description

One of the key inputs to transportation asset management systems is the unit cost of each treatment. Costs associated with improving an asset consist of three components:
• Direct treatment costs: Cost of the treatment itself. This component includes just the pay items required to complete the treatment, such as the hot-mix asphalt (HMA) in a HMA overlay, or the concrete and reinforcement needed to construct a replacement concrete pavement.
• Direct project costs: Costs incurred as part of the construction project. These costs include traffic control, mobilization, ancillary features such as traffic signals and guardrail, etc.
• Indirect costs: Costs in advance of the project. This component includes Phase I studies, Phase II plan development, as well as any environmental investigations that may be needed. Also included in this component are utility relocations and land acquisition, and possibly costs associated with railroads.
The accuracy of the unit cost data is imperative to accurately managing a transportation system. If the costs are underestimated, the agency will program more work than can be accomplished. Anticipated conditions over time will be overstated as a result. This synthesis seeks to determine how transportation agencies are quantifying the direct and indirect treatment costs associated with improving assets, and the corresponding impact on their capital program as a whole.

Objectives

The objective of this research is to determine how transportation agencies are quantifying the direct and indirect treatment costs associated with improving assets as an input to their asset management systems, and the corresponding impact on their capital program as a whole.

Information to be gathered includes (but is not limited to):
• The components of an asset improvement project included in the budgets used in the asset management system, such as the construction project itself, preliminary engineering, land acquisition, etc.
• The source of treatment cost data, such as contract lettings, final design estimates, programming estimates, etc.
• The frequency of updating the treatment costs in the asset management system.

Proposed Research Activities: Information will be collected through a review of the 52 state agencies’ 2022/2023 Transportation Asset Management Plans, a survey of DOTs and other transportation agencies, and follow-up interviews with selected agencies for more detailed information. Information gaps and suggestions for research to address those gaps will be identified.
Susan Lime

Champions
Matt Versdahl | Washington State Department of Transportation
E-mail

Email Champions

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Research Candidate Statement
Funding: $0
Funding Source:
Timeframe:
Objectives

Brief Description
Maybe an implementation project for Report 985 (Integrating Effective Transportation Performance, Risk, and Asset Management Practices)
Champion
Chris Whipple (UDOT)
Team
Spencer Wagner (DCDOT)

Champions
Matt Versdahl | Washington State Department of Transportation
E-mail

Email Champions

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Research Candidate Statement
Funding: $300,000
Funding Source:
Timeframe: 24 months
Background/Description

State DOTs have access to a growing number of tools that may allow them to evaluate GHG emissions impacts. However, research is needed to understand how such tools can best be incorporated into transportation decision making processes and what additional tools may be necessary.

Existing tools for transportation GHG strategy analysis have not been developed with transportation programming and project prioritization in mind. The available tools are either designed for strategic level evaluation of policies (e.g., EERPAT, VisionEval) or project-level evaluation using data more detailed than is typically available during planning and programming (e.g., FHWA CMAQ Emissions Calculator Toolkit, California Life-Cycle Benefit/Cost Analysis Model or Cal-B/C). Other common tools for transportation evaluation, including statewide and regional travel demand models and emission factor models such as MOVES, are limited in their ability to evaluate GHG reduction strategies and typically require substantial modification and/or combination with other tools and methods.

Objectives

The objective of this research is to advance the practice of incorporating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions evaluation into transportation decision making and performance management. In particular, this will be accomplished by identifying and building upon the state of the practice for state departments of transportation (DOTs) with regard to accounting for transportation related GHG emissions during planning, project prioritization, and performance management. State DOTs have access to certain tools that allow for estimation and evaluation of transportation emissions, but additional tools and methods are needed to inform decision making and align with state and federal GHG emission-reduction goals.

The following research tasks will support the main objective:
Task 1: Review literature and conduct targeted outreach to state DOTs to identify existing methods and tools used to evaluate potential GHG outcomes during transportation decision making processes. For each specific policy making process, describe how available tools, data and information support decision making within that context.
Task 2: Analyze the results of the review/survey to identify gaps where existing tools are not adequate to inform transportation decision making.
Task 3: Develop an analytical basis to fill identified gaps and propose specific additional tools, analytical methods and other information that would be needed to meet the needs of state DOT more fully, aiming to account for the GHG performance of transportation projects during planning, project prioritization and performance management activities

Champions

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Research Candidate Statement
Funding: $300,000
Funding Source:
Timeframe: 24 months
Background/Description

The perennial question remains: what is an effective performance measure for transportation resilience in a community, state, or other jurisdiction? Progress toward good answers has been underway for several years, though desultory and usually off-target. The need for this research was further reinforced during the December 2022 AASHTO conference in Providence and the January 2023 TRB annual meeting, which included a handful of workshops and sessions that broached this subject. From the perspective of high-quality performance management practice, effective measures of resilience have been elusive. Our colleagues are very good at measuring resilience for specific infrastructure, an organization, or a supply chain, but not for community mobility. This research will tease out how best to really measure it, from a state-of-the-art performance management perspective, not just the easy but low-value event or activity tallies. Consider an agency or community investing in preparedness work, infrastructure hardening, or implementing a policy shift – what is the most effective, objective, outcome-based evidence for whether the jurisdiction is now more resilient than it was a year ago? There are some seeds of ideas, but the same questions are shared by multiple agencies, PIARC, AASHTO committees, TRB committees, and surely others.

Objectives

This research seeks to disentangle attempts to date and clarify what it means to have an effective, outcome-based, high-level performance management approach to resilience. Toward this end there are three essential parts:
1. Confirming definitions. For example, is resilience an inverse of vulnerability? Or an inverse of just sensitivity and adaptive capacity (e.g., per the Vulnerability Assessment Scoring Tool [VAST])? If resilience is infinite, is exposure irrelevant? Consistent with the VAAF, is there consensus on the definitions for risk, criticality, consequence, and other essential terms?
2. Community mobility, or mobility and destination access across a jurisdiction of any size, for all users and modes. This is distinct from infrastructure-focused resilience for a specific asset, e.g., a bridge. For a community subject to natural or human-caused disasters, how can they know whether they are more or less resilient? Is there a role for the broader 4R concept of Robustness – Redundancy – Resourcefulness – Rapidity?
3. Effective performance measures. Pin down for the resilience community what that means. Agency leaders need the most relevant, feasible, and quantifiable evidence of improved resilience that is outcome-based and trackable over time. These are not the abundance of output or activity metrics already in play, nor project-specific evaluations.
In addition to developed guidance, this project will pilot the implementation of a high-quality resilience performance measure into existing performance management frameworks for up to five agencies. Not only states, but MPOs, e.g. Los Angeles and San Diego have promising initiatives already developed.

Champions
Deanna Belden | Minnesota DOT
E-mail
Louis Feagans | Indiana DOT
E-mail
Lori Richter | Spy Pond Partners
E-mail
Peter Rafferty | Cambridge Systematics
E-mail

Email Champions

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Research Candidate Statement
Funding: $300,000
Funding Source: Full NCHRP
Timeframe: 24 months
Background/Description

In contrast to business providing shareholder value through a monetary exchange of products and services to individual clients or customers for their individual consumption, the public sector operates from a monetary public entrustment to provide goods and services for collective consumption.  This public investment obligates the public sector to understand the values and aspirations of the served community and be efficient and effective in managing their resources and create public value.

 

In 1995, Mark Moore developed a public value strategic triangle[1]:

  • Legitimacy and Support (e.g., law, regulation, policy, resource allocation, community attitude)
  • Operational Capacity (e.g., legal authority, people, funding, knowledge/skills, culture, partnership)
  • Public Value (e.g., trust, legitimacy, service quality, equity, accessibility).

 

The term “public value” describes the value of contribution to served communities and broader society.  In other words, transportation services provide benefit to the direct recipients (i.e., users of the system) and adds value to the public sphere.  It represents agency-public consensus of principles and benefits and pertains to both the content of service and how it is delivered.  When instituted as an organizing principle, public value creation guides administrative policy and management decisions with an aim to increase the value of societal and community benefit.  Transportation administration and managers define and solve problems from a value perspective when deploying public assets.  Evaluating management decisions through a public value lens promotes a deeper understanding and action to achieve traditional outcomes and value-based performance expectations. 

 

A 2023 World Road Association (PIARC) technical reported titled Measuring Customer Experience and Public Value Creation for Transport Administrators is an important work focused on understanding how transportation administrations are measuring efficiency and effectiveness of customer experience and public valuation creation with greater emphasis on the customer experience component.   There remains an essential need to further develop a framework for the creation and measurement of the public value that considers and emphasizes societal contribution in decision-making.    The PIARC research was constrained to the evaluation of existing work by transport administrations and agencies.  There are non-transportation public sectors with mature frameworks for creating and measuring public value for which transportation administrations can learn from, adapt and adopt as best practice.

[1] Moore, Michael. Creating Public Value, Strategic Management in Government. Harvard University Press, 1995.

Objectives

To further understand, create and measure the public value of transportation services and contributions to community and societal goals, there are two proposed objectives for this research project.

  1. Identify non-transportation public agencies that have demonstrated proficiency in capturing and measuring public value data and are using it for policy decision-making.
  2. Using both transportation agencies identified in previous research (reference Sections 4 and 5) as well as non-transportation public agencies identified in Objective 1, review, synthesize, and document public value creation programs, frameworks and noteworthy practices in the following areas that are scalable and can be applied at transportation public agencies. The areas represent the dimensions of public value as describe in Faulkner’s and Kaufman’s research on Avoiding Theoretical Stagnation: A Systematic Review and Framework for Measuring Public Value.[1]
    • Outcome achievement--The extent to which the public body is improving publicly valued outcomes across a wide variety of areas. This can include social, economic, environmental and cultural outcomes.
    • Trust and legitimacy--The extent to which the organization and its activities are trusted and perceived to be legitimate by the public and key stakeholders.
    • Service delivery quality--The extent to which services are delivered in a high‐quality manner that is considerate of users’ needs. These will be maximized when service users are satisfied, and when they perceive the services to be accessible, convenient and responsive to their needs.
    • Efficiency--The extent to which the organization is achieving maximal public value benefit with minimal resources. (It is expected to be high when the benefits provided by an organization are perceived to outweigh the costs, when unnecessary bureaucracy is avoided, and when an organization is perceived to offer value for money.)

[1] Nicholas Faulkner and Stefan Kaufman. Avoiding Theoretical Stagnation: A System Review and Framework for Measuring Public Value, Australian Journal of Public Administration, 2017.

Champions
Kelly Travelbee | Michigan DOT
E-mail
Susanna Reck | FHWA
E-mail
Deanna Belden | Minnesota DOT
E-mail

Email Champions

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Title Background and Problem Statements Objectives Proposed Research Activities Desired Products Notes and Considerations Funding Estimated Timeframe Category of Funding Status
SMET - Accessing, assessing, analyzing and applying quality, non-motorized (pedestrian and bike) and transit data for planning and operational needs

please add clarifying details and topic title suggestions)
More cross-modal (other than vehicle) data; specifically: pedestrian, bicycle and certain transit data is needed for various applications and needs including Complete Streets, We need more and better quality, verified data for transit, bikes, peds, and non-car users.
Includes examining options for data availability, quality, validity, analytics.
Stephanie Dock, Daniel Hulker, and Daniela Bremmer were interested in further defining/developing this research concept and invited other CPBM and subcommittee members to join.
Potential partnership with Eastern Corridor Coalition's-data group (working on methodologies for assessing and standardizing cross-modal non-vehicular data)?

SMET - Assessing the impacts of technology deployments and pilots on system performance, including operational efficiency and safety

(please add clarifying details and topic title suggestions)
Many states and local jurisdictions have deployed some level of automated technologies , such as low speed shuttles, and or have partnered with private agencies or research institutions to do so
Little performance or other information is available in a consolidated and organized fashion about the results of these pilots, test cases and or deployments
Policy makers have become guarded about investing in pilots and similar deployments, especially given the recent disillusionment with technology potentials such as AVs, CVs and CAVs and want to understand what benefits and results have been achieved.
Challenges may include the availability of data, data agreements (which often preclude external data sharing) and or lack of sufficient data in cases of short term pilots.
What kind of data is available, can be analyzed and summarized into a consolidated report to understand 1. what pilot shave been conducted (over past x/3 years? ) and 2. What is the performance of these pilots and or deployments in terms of safety and system efficiency and operation? (Similar interest exists in understanding equity impacts but those would be even harder to quantify and are not included , unless data is available).
Potential partnership with Eastern Corridor Coalition

ERM - Incorporating uncertainty into forecasting, target-setting, and monitoring

Incorporating uncertainty into forecasting, target-setting, and monitoring - low /high matrix - inflation, funding,
performance, modeling uncertainty envelope (synthesis/peer exchange in lieu of research project?) (Risk as a
band of uncertainty v. a number) - Charles Pilson
There was a recent research idea on how to visualize/communicate uncertainty. Maybe a TAM conference
idea?

The RMS also has "ERM - Improving Risk Visualization and Communication Internally and Externally"
in the candidate pool. Not sure if that's related to the idea of communicating uncertainty? - Matt Haubrich

OM - Vision for transportation/Moonshots

Potential benefit if you can align political and departmental alignment
Always need to balance top-down and bottom-up, operationalization of it
**Involvement of those doing the work is critical to long-term success - what are the contributing factors to make large-scale efforts successful?
https://sites.google.com/state.co.us/process-improvement/tools-resources/cascades-how-to-create-a-movement-that-drives-transformational-change
How do you build a movement in transportation
Customer-, Environment- centric momentum for organizational change - What are the key components needed to make process?
Related organizational changes needed to make it happen?
Dave - Brene Brown - “Clarity is Kindness” in all that we do, find tools that help break down barriers.
Ties in with KM, OM, Risk, etc.

OM - Evaluation of process improvement techniques

- Organizational strategies for improvement
- Innovation challenges
- Thinking outside the LSS, Lean methodologies
- Office of competition at the federal level - mechanism exists at the - - - federal level
- Crowdsourcing improvement efforts

TAM - Impacts of Heavy EVs and Hybrid Vehicles on Transportation Asset Management

As the United States moves toward a fleet comprised of more EV and hybrid vehicles, important questions impacting the design and management of critical assets must be considered in future practice and policy making. For instance:

  • Are heavier EV’s and hybrid vehicles deteriorating our bridges, pavements, and other assets before the end of their design/service lives due to their heavy loads?
  • Will the live load increases to bridges and axle weight distribution from heavier EVs and hybrids impact asset lifecycle needs and level of service performance?
  • Are new design standards needed for the engineering design of transit and freight roadways and bridges to reflect the increased live load changes?
  • How is the accelerated rate of deterioration impacting asset lifecycle needs?

Answering these questions is critical as the types of vehicles using state and local transportation facilities transition to the next generation of vehicles.

Since asset management (AM) is a business process and decision-making framework using economic and engineering modeling over an extended time horizon, it can help inform many aspects of designing and planning for and implementing the expected service levels of roadways and structures to support adoption of next-generation vehicles. Developing guidance that reflects changes associated with EV and hybrid vehicles will lead to updated design models, more reflective deterioration rates, and improved planning for the preservation, improvement, and operation of road and bridge assets while protecting them from shorter lifecycles.

Single occupancy vehicles, while a major cause for congestion, do not appear to provide measurable impacts to load weighting. Therefore, the next-generation vehicles considered under this study will include a comprehensive mix, including transit, garbage trucks, and freight. For bridge analysis, this research would evaluate existing data and account for the battery weight to develop a design load model for gross vehicle weight. Pavement analysis utilizes equivalent single axle load (ESAL) ratings.

The figure linked below, provided by the City of Seattle, illustrates the tremendous load impacts that buses and trucks have on pavements and bridges:

https://www.tam-portal.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2023/10/Picture1.jpg

The City estimated that it would take about:

  • 1,500 cars to equal the damage of the typical 18-wheeler on a Washington State Highway
  • 2,500 cars to equal the damage of the average empty bus
  • 5,000 cars to equal the damage of the average full bus
  • 8,000 cars to equal the damage of an average full 60’ Articulated Hybrid

WSDOT, in its pavement design guide, advises that the average 18-wheel, double unit truck on a state highway has a total ESAL factor of 1.00 to 1.35 on average, a figure reached through their different studies of truck weights (at weigh stations, etc.). As the picture shows, the design loading is significantly lower than those being applied by buses, especially those with heavy batteries.

Transit buses have a federal exemption from axle weight limits that dates to the ISTEA transportation legislation in the early 1990s. Buses have gotten increasingly heavy over the last two decades with new equipment like hybrid powertrains, yet the number of axles remains the same because of the exemption. Furthermore, transit agencies are often not the owners of the roadways and bridges so they may not consider infrastructure conditions and design into their decision making.

The average bus empty is more damaging than the typical truck on a state highway. Add passengers, the exponential relationship between axle weight and fatigue, and the damage factor per bus increases to almost six times for the heavy articulated hybrids.

The figure hints at why agencies are struggling to maintain roads and bridges. As the transportation system is expected to carry heavier vehicles than they were designed for, it is critical to update design models and develop new deterioration factors to be used in asset lifecycle planning.

In addition to design and maintenance issues, the study will also consider environmental and social impacts and potential risks associated with next-generation vehicles. The inclusion of these factors enables asset management cross-asset trade-offs to be evaluated in terms of both positive and negative impacts. A comprehensive, triple bottom line study will pull from existing sustainability and economic lifecycle cost analyses on EVs and infrastructure construction along with societal factors such as increases in travel time from driving on deteriorated infrastructure assets.

The objective of this study is to develop a guidebook with suggestions for updating asset management models used in pavement and bridge design and preservation. The guide will be developed from research to determine:

  • The impacts of EVs and hybrid vehicles on typical pavement and bridge (component and element) deterioration rates and their potential impact on lifecycle planning strategies.
  • Environmental and societal impacts associated with the use of EVs and hybrid vehicles to support a triple-bottom line analysis and cross-asset tradeoff assessments.
  • Suggested modifications to pavement and bridge load models used in design activities.
  • The feasibility of establishing battery weight limits, increased road user fees, or other strategies for addressing asset management impacts.

The guidebook will be supported by case studies from a variety of agencies (state and local, urban, and rural) illustrating the potential impact the resulting deterioration rates would have on pavement and bridge designs, maintenance strategies, and lifecycle costs.

27 months
TAM - Scoping Study to Identify Curriculum Development Needs for Workforce Development in Transportation Asset Management (for NCHRP 20-123)

- Looking at current practice and examples from states like NM. Utah looking beyond engineering disciplines. Multidisciplinary teams. What do agencies need from TAM professionals? Competencies for asset management. Mapping needs (TAM Guide may have needs) to core skills.
- (Not sure if we limit to just Univ - we talked about other options)

Champion
Shannon McGrath
Team
Susan Lime (Culvery Asset Management Program - CAMP), NM DOT
Chris Whipple, UDOT
Baris Salman
Alma Mujanovic
Basak Bektas

TAM - Synthesis of the Development and Use of Treatment Unit Costs in Asset Management Systems

One of the key inputs to transportation asset management systems is the unit cost of each treatment. Costs associated with improving an asset consist of three components:
• Direct treatment costs: Cost of the treatment itself. This component includes just the pay items required to complete the treatment, such as the hot-mix asphalt (HMA) in a HMA overlay, or the concrete and reinforcement needed to construct a replacement concrete pavement.
• Direct project costs: Costs incurred as part of the construction project. These costs include traffic control, mobilization, ancillary features such as traffic signals and guardrail, etc.
• Indirect costs: Costs in advance of the project. This component includes Phase I studies, Phase II plan development, as well as any environmental investigations that may be needed. Also included in this component are utility relocations and land acquisition, and possibly costs associated with railroads.
The accuracy of the unit cost data is imperative to accurately managing a transportation system. If the costs are underestimated, the agency will program more work than can be accomplished. Anticipated conditions over time will be overstated as a result. This synthesis seeks to determine how transportation agencies are quantifying the direct and indirect treatment costs associated with improving assets, and the corresponding impact on their capital program as a whole.

The objective of this research is to determine how transportation agencies are quantifying the direct and indirect treatment costs associated with improving assets as an input to their asset management systems, and the corresponding impact on their capital program as a whole.

Information to be gathered includes (but is not limited to):
• The components of an asset improvement project included in the budgets used in the asset management system, such as the construction project itself, preliminary engineering, land acquisition, etc.
• The source of treatment cost data, such as contract lettings, final design estimates, programming estimates, etc.
• The frequency of updating the treatment costs in the asset management system.

Proposed Research Activities: Information will be collected through a review of the 52 state agencies’ 2022/2023 Transportation Asset Management Plans, a survey of DOTs and other transportation agencies, and follow-up interviews with selected agencies for more detailed information. Information gaps and suggestions for research to address those gaps will be identified.
Susan Lime

KEYWORDS/TERMS – treatment unit costs, asset management systems, direct costs, indirect costs, program costs

TAM - (Synthesis) Examples of the integration of TAM/TPM/ERM

Brief Description
Maybe an implementation project for Report 985 (Integrating Effective Transportation Performance, Risk, and Asset Management Practices)
Champion
Chris Whipple (UDOT)
Team
Spencer Wagner (DCDOT)

EM - Advancing Methods to Evaluate Greenhouse Gas Emissions During Transportation Decision Making and Performance Management

State DOTs have access to a growing number of tools that may allow them to evaluate GHG emissions impacts. However, research is needed to understand how such tools can best be incorporated into transportation decision making processes and what additional tools may be necessary.

Existing tools for transportation GHG strategy analysis have not been developed with transportation programming and project prioritization in mind. The available tools are either designed for strategic level evaluation of policies (e.g., EERPAT, VisionEval) or project-level evaluation using data more detailed than is typically available during planning and programming (e.g., FHWA CMAQ Emissions Calculator Toolkit, California Life-Cycle Benefit/Cost Analysis Model or Cal-B/C). Other common tools for transportation evaluation, including statewide and regional travel demand models and emission factor models such as MOVES, are limited in their ability to evaluate GHG reduction strategies and typically require substantial modification and/or combination with other tools and methods.

The objective of this research is to advance the practice of incorporating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions evaluation into transportation decision making and performance management. In particular, this will be accomplished by identifying and building upon the state of the practice for state departments of transportation (DOTs) with regard to accounting for transportation related GHG emissions during planning, project prioritization, and performance management. State DOTs have access to certain tools that allow for estimation and evaluation of transportation emissions, but additional tools and methods are needed to inform decision making and align with state and federal GHG emission-reduction goals.

The following research tasks will support the main objective:
Task 1: Review literature and conduct targeted outreach to state DOTs to identify existing methods and tools used to evaluate potential GHG outcomes during transportation decision making processes. For each specific policy making process, describe how available tools, data and information support decision making within that context.
Task 2: Analyze the results of the review/survey to identify gaps where existing tools are not adequate to inform transportation decision making.
Task 3: Develop an analytical basis to fill identified gaps and propose specific additional tools, analytical methods and other information that would be needed to meet the needs of state DOT more fully, aiming to account for the GHG performance of transportation projects during planning, project prioritization and performance management activities

10. PROBLEM STATEMENT AUTHOR(s): For each author, provide their name, affiliation, email address and phone.
James Bradbury, Georgetown Climate Center, [email protected], (202) 557-6267
Ryan Levandowski, Georgetown Climate Center, [email protected], (802) 558-3566
Kelly Travelbee, Michigan DOT, [email protected], (517) 898-4875
Deanna Belden, Minnesota DOT, [email protected], (651) 366-3734

300000 24 months
EM - Implementing Effective Resilience Performance Management

The perennial question remains: what is an effective performance measure for transportation resilience in a community, state, or other jurisdiction? Progress toward good answers has been underway for several years, though desultory and usually off-target. The need for this research was further reinforced during the December 2022 AASHTO conference in Providence and the January 2023 TRB annual meeting, which included a handful of workshops and sessions that broached this subject. From the perspective of high-quality performance management practice, effective measures of resilience have been elusive. Our colleagues are very good at measuring resilience for specific infrastructure, an organization, or a supply chain, but not for community mobility. This research will tease out how best to really measure it, from a state-of-the-art performance management perspective, not just the easy but low-value event or activity tallies. Consider an agency or community investing in preparedness work, infrastructure hardening, or implementing a policy shift – what is the most effective, objective, outcome-based evidence for whether the jurisdiction is now more resilient than it was a year ago? There are some seeds of ideas, but the same questions are shared by multiple agencies, PIARC, AASHTO committees, TRB committees, and surely others.

This research seeks to disentangle attempts to date and clarify what it means to have an effective, outcome-based, high-level performance management approach to resilience. Toward this end there are three essential parts:
1. Confirming definitions. For example, is resilience an inverse of vulnerability? Or an inverse of just sensitivity and adaptive capacity (e.g., per the Vulnerability Assessment Scoring Tool [VAST])? If resilience is infinite, is exposure irrelevant? Consistent with the VAAF, is there consensus on the definitions for risk, criticality, consequence, and other essential terms?
2. Community mobility, or mobility and destination access across a jurisdiction of any size, for all users and modes. This is distinct from infrastructure-focused resilience for a specific asset, e.g., a bridge. For a community subject to natural or human-caused disasters, how can they know whether they are more or less resilient? Is there a role for the broader 4R concept of Robustness – Redundancy – Resourcefulness – Rapidity?
3. Effective performance measures. Pin down for the resilience community what that means. Agency leaders need the most relevant, feasible, and quantifiable evidence of improved resilience that is outcome-based and trackable over time. These are not the abundance of output or activity metrics already in play, nor project-specific evaluations.
In addition to developed guidance, this project will pilot the implementation of a high-quality resilience performance measure into existing performance management frameworks for up to five agencies. Not only states, but MPOs, e.g. Los Angeles and San Diego have promising initiatives already developed.

300000 24 months
EM - Understanding, Creating and Measuring Public Value; lessons learned from public agencies

In contrast to business providing shareholder value through a monetary exchange of products and services to individual clients or customers for their individual consumption, the public sector operates from a monetary public entrustment to provide goods and services for collective consumption.  This public investment obligates the public sector to understand the values and aspirations of the served community and be efficient and effective in managing their resources and create public value.

 

In 1995, Mark Moore developed a public value strategic triangle[1]:

  • Legitimacy and Support (e.g., law, regulation, policy, resource allocation, community attitude)
  • Operational Capacity (e.g., legal authority, people, funding, knowledge/skills, culture, partnership)
  • Public Value (e.g., trust, legitimacy, service quality, equity, accessibility).

 

The term “public value” describes the value of contribution to served communities and broader society.  In other words, transportation services provide benefit to the direct recipients (i.e., users of the system) and adds value to the public sphere.  It represents agency-public consensus of principles and benefits and pertains to both the content of service and how it is delivered.  When instituted as an organizing principle, public value creation guides administrative policy and management decisions with an aim to increase the value of societal and community benefit.  Transportation administration and managers define and solve problems from a value perspective when deploying public assets.  Evaluating management decisions through a public value lens promotes a deeper understanding and action to achieve traditional outcomes and value-based performance expectations. 

 

A 2023 World Road Association (PIARC) technical reported titled Measuring Customer Experience and Public Value Creation for Transport Administrators is an important work focused on understanding how transportation administrations are measuring efficiency and effectiveness of customer experience and public valuation creation with greater emphasis on the customer experience component.   There remains an essential need to further develop a framework for the creation and measurement of the public value that considers and emphasizes societal contribution in decision-making.    The PIARC research was constrained to the evaluation of existing work by transport administrations and agencies.  There are non-transportation public sectors with mature frameworks for creating and measuring public value for which transportation administrations can learn from, adapt and adopt as best practice.

[1] Moore, Michael. Creating Public Value, Strategic Management in Government. Harvard University Press, 1995.

To further understand, create and measure the public value of transportation services and contributions to community and societal goals, there are two proposed objectives for this research project.

  1. Identify non-transportation public agencies that have demonstrated proficiency in capturing and measuring public value data and are using it for policy decision-making.
  2. Using both transportation agencies identified in previous research (reference Sections 4 and 5) as well as non-transportation public agencies identified in Objective 1, review, synthesize, and document public value creation programs, frameworks and noteworthy practices in the following areas that are scalable and can be applied at transportation public agencies. The areas represent the dimensions of public value as describe in Faulkner’s and Kaufman’s research on Avoiding Theoretical Stagnation: A Systematic Review and Framework for Measuring Public Value.[1]
    • Outcome achievement--The extent to which the public body is improving publicly valued outcomes across a wide variety of areas. This can include social, economic, environmental and cultural outcomes.
    • Trust and legitimacy--The extent to which the organization and its activities are trusted and perceived to be legitimate by the public and key stakeholders.
    • Service delivery quality--The extent to which services are delivered in a high‐quality manner that is considerate of users’ needs. These will be maximized when service users are satisfied, and when they perceive the services to be accessible, convenient and responsive to their needs.
    • Efficiency--The extent to which the organization is achieving maximal public value benefit with minimal resources. (It is expected to be high when the benefits provided by an organization are perceived to outweigh the costs, when unnecessary bureaucracy is avoided, and when an organization is perceived to offer value for money.)

[1] Nicholas Faulkner and Stefan Kaufman. Avoiding Theoretical Stagnation: A System Review and Framework for Measuring Public Value, Australian Journal of Public Administration, 2017.

Full NCHRP

Programmed

 
Objectives


Project
Funding: $400,000
Funding Source: Full NCHRP
Objectives


Objectives


Project
Funding: $500,000
Funding Source: Full NCHRP
Objectives


Objectives



Active

 
Project
Funding: $375,000
Funding Source: Full NCHRP
Objectives

The object of this research is to develop an easy-to-use guide for evaluating the effectiveness of transportation visualizations that state DOTs can use to improve communication and decision-making. With this guide, state DOTs will have the tools to hone their message, manage the data overload that occurs in visualizations and impact travel behavior with effective visual data increasing safety, security and mobility.
The suggested tasks for this research are:
1) Research the essential components of what makes a visualization effective. Build off NCHRP 226 and 20-24(93)B(02). Evaluate the visualization techniques and practices documented in NCHRP Synthesis 52-16.
2) Create a guidebook that clearly communicates how to approach a new visualization and guide its creation.
3) Evaluate how to gain feedback on the effectiveness of a visualization in communicating information and influencing behavior, and also facilitates decision making. This could build off practices currently used for public service announcements (PSA).
4) Identify or develop noteworthy practices for evaluating the effectiveness of a visualization.
5) Create a Guidebook that provides state DOTs with options for evaluating the effectiveness of a visualization.
6) Integrate the two elements – creation and evaluation – into a guide that demonstrates the feedback loop of continuous improvement enabled by joining these two functions.
7) Establish an online case study website that showcases exceptional and innovative visualizations. This could include a category for the use of emerging data and emerging analytic capacity so state DOTs could maintain currency in innovative practices. The website would be updated by the TRB AED80 Visualization in Transportation Committee yearly by acknowledging award winning entries.


Project
Funding: $550,000
Funding Source: Full NCHRP
Objectives

The objective of this research is to prepare an authoritative analysis and assessment of the national performance management data and, based upon the analysis and assessment, to provide recommendations on future capacity building activities and possible new performance measures. There are three sub-objectives focused on:

  1. Analysis of the national performance management data for the three performance measurement areas (safety, assets, and system performance) will be conducted to better understand trends, target setting approaches, and target achievement by state DOTs; and
  2. Assessment of the performance management data that provides a comprehensive and compelling story on the results of the performance management provisions.
  3. Identification of future capacity building needs and performance measures.


Project
Funding: $500,000
Funding Source: Full NCHRP
Objectives

The objective of this research is to produce guidance on how DOTs can improve the use of DEI and other related indicators in TAM investment decision making processes.

Tasks will include:
• Compile DEI and other related indicators for use in TAM decision-making
• Develop a framework for applying DEI and other related indicators in TAM decision-making processes, including:
o analysis activities to forecast impact
o scenario planning including identifying alternate investment options with an equity lens
o investment tradeoff decision-making
o community engagement activities including increasing the involvement of underserved communities.
• Develop additional quantitative and qualitative performance measures for asset management and planning that consider DEI and other factors in transportation investment decisions
• Produce a summary of challenges, inherent inequities, and obstacles in asset management and planning activities in order to help transportation add value to underserved communities
• Develop guidance for transportation agencies to use the DEI and other related indicators to balance competing strategic objectives related to asset performance, safety, mobility, and DEI.


Project
Funding: $3,500,000
Funding Source: FHWA/ NCHRP
Objectives

Transportation owners and operators are responsible for the transportation system and the delivery of a range of services and functions through the management of that system. There are inherent risks involved with the management of these systems, notwithstanding aging infrastructure, and fiscally constrained resources. Many agencies are moving toward performance-based resource allocation while simultaneously recognizing risks that may undermine their strategic goals. As these risks affect every component of a highway system to a greater or lesser extent, accurately accounting for and addressing these risks within a highway agency’s enterprise-wide management program is the goal which currently lacks analysis tools.
Investing in risk and resilience strategies and enhanced recovery to reduce or eliminate the impact of external events is also paramount to ensure a thriving, viable transportation system. Risk management requires the identification and assessment of potential threats and hazards, asset vulnerabilities from applicable threats, an evaluation of potential mitigation actions to reduce risk, a clear and easy to implement process to prioritize mitigation activities, and investment that aligns with agency strategic and performance goals. Asset management and more recently performance management, has been an ongoing focus of many research efforts. However, guidance for analytical risk assessment methods to support risk-based asset management processes is lagging. Risk assessment processes, methods, and tools are needed to integrate risk management into asset and performance management systems. In addition, an understanding of the relationship between risks and system resilience is lacking.
Basics needed:
• Adopted definitions
• Standard framework for quantitative risk based on expected financial losses to agency and traveling public
• Establishment of performance metrics for risk and resilience
• Suggested risk tolerance and resilience performance targets that agencies can customize
• Methods to incorporate climate projections into decision making
• Methods to analyze both deterministic and probabilistic input data (500-yr flood versus climate scenarios)
Future research can expand threats analyzed; assets analyzed; climate projections; life cycle cost; remaining life consideration of assets; environmental impacts, etc.


Project
Funding: $450,000
Funding Source: Full NCHRP
Start date: June 2019
End date: July 2022
Objectives

The objectives of this research are to (1) estimate the current and future effect of dynamic CAV technologies on roadway and TSMO asset maintenance programs; (2) develop guidance on existing and proposed measureable standards associated with roadway and TSMO asset maintenance for preventive, reactive, and emerging maintenance needs; and (3) identify the associated resource and workforce development needs.


Project
Funding: $300,000
Funding Source: Other CRP
Start date: August 2021
End date: February 2023
Objectives

The objective of this research is to develop a “playbook” with standards, specifications, and process flows to help airport operators with the accurate and timely delivery of new and replacement asset information/meta data to key airport stakeholders responsible for tracking and maintaining airport assets.


Project
Funding: $450,000
Funding Source: Full NCHRP
Start date: April 2022
End date: January 2024
Objectives

With the original project being completed in early 2020, the project panel has focused on both implementation of TAM Guide III and determining additional needs to make the TAM Guide III better based on the original literature research and review. An extensive literature search was conducted as a part of the original NCHRP project phase one work and the results generally incorporated and addressed in the new TAM Guide III; however, because of funding limitations, not all of the desired changes, updates, and enhancements could be addressed. Based on those limitations, the objective of this research is to provide further enhancements and content to the TAM Guide III.


Project
Funding: $500,000
Funding Source: Full NCHRP
Start date: June 2022
End date: June 2024
Objectives

Based on these changing conditions, the objective of this research is to investigate the needs and benefits from incorporating TSMO assets in TAMPs. The study will develop a guide for state DOTs to facilitate the inclusion of TSMO in TAMP without disrupting the established and on-going planning process.


Project
Funding: $500,000
Funding Source: Full NCHRP
Start date: July 2022
End date: July 2024
Objectives

The objectives of this research are to develop guidance promoting the use of performance-based management strategies in maintenance and to present the resulting information in a format that is easily accessible to the maintenance community.



Recent

 
Project
Funding: $350,000
Funding Source: Full NCHRP
Start date: September 2020
End date: February 2022
Objectives

The objective of this research is to develop a guide for state DOTs and other transportation agencies on incorporating maintenance costs in a risk-based TAMP, including but not limited to the following:

1. A detailed presentation of procedures for identifying, collecting, and managing required data;

2. Using life-cycle planning tools and techniques to demonstrate financial requirements and cost-effectiveness of maintenance activities and preservation programs and the potential change in costs and liabilities associated with deferring these actions;

3. Formulating strategies that identify how to invest available funds over the next 10 years (as required by the TAMP) using life-cycle and benefit-cost analyses (and other applicable tools and techniques) to measure tradeoffs between capital and maintenance activities in alternative investment scenarios; and

4. Designing components of a financial plan showing anticipated revenues and planned investments in capital and maintenance costs for the next 10 years.


Background

The Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21) established a performance-based Federal-Aid Highway Program that includes a requirement for state departments of transportation (DOTs) and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), and other transportation planning agencies to develop and regularly update a risk-based Transportation Asset Management Plan (TAMP). The TAMP is designed to identify investment and management strategies to improve or preserve asset conditions as well as the performance of the National Highway System (NHS). Although only pavements and bridges on the NHS are required to be included in the TAMP, states are encouraged to include additional assets. At a minimum, the TAMP should include the following:

A summary of NHS pavement and bridge assets, including a description of conditions;
Asset management objectives and performance measures;
Identification of any performance gaps;
A life-cycle cost and risk management analysis; and
A 10-year financial plan and corresponding investment strategies.
While most states are able to capture past and planned expenditures on capital projects, states are finding it challenging to incorporate maintenance costs into their TAMP.

The absence of maintenance cost data in a TAMP must be addressed to capture the full amount of investments being made by states in the transportation system. This issue is especially important as state transportation agencies increase their attention to system preservation, placing greater emphasis on preventive maintenance.


Project
Funding: $250,000
Funding Source: Full NCHRP
Start date: October 2020
End date: April 2022
Objectives

The objective of this research is to provide a scoping study for a transportation framework for all-hazards risk and resilience analysis of transportation assets. The scoping study must accomplish the following objectives:

1. Develop a comprehensive and consistent set of risk- and resilience-related terminology for transportation agency use; and
2. Provide a research roadmap for developing a framework for a quantitative all-hazards risk and resilience analysis of transportation assets, with its associated tools, and guidance on its application.

Accomplishment of the project objective(s) will require at least the following four tasks.


Background

Risk-informed asset management and an understanding of system resilience are two relatively new concepts within the transportation industry. Transportation agencies often use all-hazards risk and resilience analyses to make decisions about enhancing system resilience. The Federal Emergency Management Administration defines "all-hazards" as “Natural, technological, or human-caused incidents that warrant action to protect life, property, environment, and public health or safety…” (https://training.fema.gov/programs/emischool/el361toolkit/glossary.htm). To conduct all-hazards risk and resiliency analyses for transportation assets, a transportation agency must:
• Know assets’ locations and their criticality for service delivery;
• Understand potential natural and man-made threats and associated likelihoods affecting assets;
• Be able to quantify the potential consequences from applicable threats to assets while adequately addressing the considerable uncertainty in those consequences; and
• Understand the link between risk and resilience.

In 2006, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers published Risk Analysis and Management for Critical Infrastructure Protection (RAMCAP), an all-hazards approach to critical infrastructure risk assessment. The initial document focused on terrorist activities but has since expanded into analysis of natural hazards such as extreme weather, seismic events, and changing environmental conditions, given the increased activity from such threats in recent years. RAMCAP identifies transportation as a critical sector, along with industries such as banking, oil/gas, electricity, water/wastewater, and nuclear energy. To date, several industries, including the water/wastewater sector, have developed an industry-specific standard for risk assessment. By demonstrating an active approach to risk assessment and management developed and approved by professionals within the water/wastewater sector, those agencies have seen improvements in bond ratings and reductions in insurance premiums. While RAMCAP provides a generic approach to critical infrastructure risk assessment, it does not provide specific information on asset performance under applicable threats for any one critical sector.

Through pilot studies, state departments of transportation (DOTs) have applied RAMCAP and similar guidance to risk and resilience analysis in their states. FHWA’s Vulnerability Assessment and Adaptation Framework (FHWA-HEP-18-020), for example, is guidance based on significant pilot studies in a large number of states. Four key lessons from the state DOT pilot studies include:

1. Though some research studies have been published on transportation asset performance under physical threats, this information is scattered across many published articles dating back to the 1960s and has not been compiled in a user-friendly format.
2. State agencies see the need for a common language for risk and resilience practitioners to facilitate adoption and implementation of consistent and effective risk management and resilience practices.
3. A simple industry framework is needed to support compilation of information for risk-based analysis of transportation assets, to reduce the burden on state DOTs and metropolitan planning organizations by clarifying the bases for quantifying annual risk and ensuring system resilience:
• Threat probabilities by type of hazard and by geographic location;
• Asset vulnerability to each applicable threat, appropriately considering asset resilience; and
• Quantitative anticipated consequences from each applicable threat to each asset, appropriately considering the significant uncertainties in those consequences.
4. Agencies prefer not to be constrained by proprietary solutions for all-hazards risk and resilience analyses but have the flexibility to implement open-source, repeatable methodologies. Inputs for these analyses should be derived from data readily available to agencies or other users.

The AASHTO Committee on Transportation System Security and Resilience and the Subcommittees on Risk Management and Asset Management have, collectively, identified the need for a transportation-specific framework that responsible agencies can use in conducting their own all-hazards risk and resilience analyses to facilitate enterprise-wide transportation decision-making. Research is needed to develop this framework and provide guidance on its use.


Project
Funding: $349,618
Funding Source: Full NCHRP
Start date: December 2020
End date: December 2022
Objectives

The objective of this research is to develop resources for state DOTs and other transportation organizations to help them explain the value of investing in resilience throughout the life cycle of planning, engineering, design, operations, construction, and maintenance activities.

The resources should provide tools for state DOTs to (1) build the business case for investing in resilience strategies and (2) develop communication strategies to make the public and stakeholders aware of the importance of resilience as part of the state DOT's overall mission. This project should consider the diversity of resiliency issues among state DOTs and agencies.

Accomplishment of the project objective will require at least the following tasks.


Background

Significant research has been conducted on many different aspects of system resilience and security, but research is lacking on the topics of (1) how state transportation officials can make a business case for investing in resilience strategies and (2) resilience-oriented communications strategies. Communications strategies are central to successful balloting of state and local funding initiatives. This project is focused on both the "hard" technical business cases and the arguably "harder" communications strategies applicable to the general public as well as governors, legislators, staff and leadership at state departments of transportation (DOTs), and regional transportation planning organizations.

The 2015 Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act (Pub. L. No. 114-94) included several requirements for transportation agencies that reflected an increasing concern for system and operational resilience and security. For example, statewide and metropolitan transportation planning processes were to consider projects/strategies to improve the resilience and reliability of the transportation system. It continued all prior National Highway Performance Program (NHPP) eligibilities and added (among four new eligible categories) one for projects to reduce the risk of failure of critical NHS infrastructure (defined to mean a facility, the incapacity or failure of which would have a debilitating impact in certain specified areas). The FAST Act keeps in place a resilience provision introduced in the 2012 Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21), which required state DOTs to develop risk-based asset management plans.

State DOTs are addressing resilience issues in concert with local and regional organizations, including governments, planning organizations, non-profits, and the business community. In order to identify effective business case and communications strategies for state DOT resilience efforts, it is key to acknowledge the different demographics, infrastructure, and resource capabilities of each state DOT and agency, as well as the differing resilience opportunities and challenges they face. In addition, some state DOTs and local and regional transportation agencies have begun and achieved robust resilience activities. It is apparent that system resilience is becoming an ever more important concern for transportation officials at all levels of government.


Project
Funding: $45,000
Funding Source: Full NCHRP
Start date: November 2020
End date: August 2021
Objectives

The objective of this synthesis is to document the various technologies used by DOTs to inspect highway infrastructure during construction and maintenance of assets.

Information to be gathered includes (but is not limited to):
• The technologies used for inspection of new and existing highway infrastructure assets (e.g., geospatial technologies, mobile software applications, nondestructive evaluation, remote sensing and monitoring);
• The different methods used to assess the viability, efficiencies, and return on investment (ROI) of inspection technologies;
• How information from these assessments is being used (e.g., for construction project management, to allocate resources, to determine condition of the asset).


Background

Highway infrastructure inspection is critical in any transportation system because it ensures conformance with plans, specifications, and material requirements over the lifecycle of the asset. Historically, state departments of transportation (DOTs) have employed on-site workforces to execute infrastructure inspection using traditional inspection methods. With the latest technological advancements, the inspection landscape has been rapidly changing through incorporation of technologies such as Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), embedded and remote sensors, intelligent machines, mobile devices, and new software applications. These technologies can potentially satisfy the need for cost-effective and efficient inspection and monitoring of highway infrastructure (e.g. roadways, bridges, drainage systems, signage).


Project
Funding: $45,000
Funding Source: Synthesis
Start date: October 2020
End date: July 2021
Objectives

The objective of this synthesis is to document current state DOT practice and experience regarding collecting and ensuring the accuracy of element level data. The synthesis will also examine how DOTs are using the data from inspection reports.

Information to be gathered includes (but is not limited to):
• Practices for collecting element level data (e.g., collection software, nondestructive evaluation methods);
• Practices and methods for ensuring the accuracy of the data collected;
• DOT business processes that use element level data (e.g., project scoping, maintenance, bridge asset management modeling and analyses, performance measurement and reporting); and
• Aspects of DOT bridge management systems that use element level data (e.g., deterioration models, action types, action costs, decision rules, performance indices).


Background

State departments of transportation (DOTs) have been transitioning to using element inspection data for documenting bridge conditions since 2014. This condition assessment methodology offers a significant opportunity to improve the timing, cost efficiency, and accuracy of bridge maintenance, rehabilitations, and replacement decisions. However, there is no standard guidance on achieving those benefits. Bridge management platforms such as AASHTOWare BrM can combine these data with other inputs to forecast future conditions and recommend optimal plans for a portfolio of bridges.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that state DOTs that receive the inspection reports are taking numerous approaches to using the data. Many DOTs rely on general condition ratings reported to the National Bridge Inventory for bridge maintenance and investment decisions. Still others have begun to incorporate the element level data into those decisions.


Project
Funding: $324,998
Funding Source: Full NCHRP
Start date: May 2020
End date: May 2022
Objectives

The objective of this research is to develop a guide for the formulation of long-range plans and budgets for replacement of highway operations equipment. The guide shall include processes and tools for consideration in making investment decisions. For the purpose of this research, long-range is defined as 20-25 years.


Background

State highway agency equipment fleet assets are vital to the delivery of agency programs, projects, and services. These fleets represent a significant capital investment and require recurring maintenance, operational expenditures, and timely replacement to achieve the desired level of performance, reliability, and economy. A variety of practices have been used by state departments of transportation (state DOTs) agencies for making investment decisions for highway operation equipment. However, there is no widely accepted process for determining the long-range needs and budgets.

There is a need to identify current practices, review relevant information, and develop rational processes that will provide state DOTs a realistic means for making investment decisions. A guide for formulating the long-range plans for replacement needs and budgets of highway operations equipment can then be prepared to facilitate use of these processes. Such a guide will help highway equipment managers and administrators in making decisions regarding replacement needs and budgets. NCHRP Research Report 879: Optimal Replacement Cycles of Highway Operations Equipment (http://www.trb.org/Publications/Blurbs/177263.aspx) contains guidance on the processes and tools that should be considered in making decisions regarding the optimal replacement cycles of on- and off-road highway operations equipment used by state DOTs; these can be useful for this research.

Recent work completed under NCHRP Project 13-06, “Guide for the Formulation of Long-Range Plans for Replacement Needs and Budget of Highway Operations Equipment” (http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/nchrp/docs/NCHRP13-06_RevisedInterimReport.pdf), provided a review of some of the issues related to the formulation of long-range plans and budgets for replacement of highway operations equipment and proposed a preliminary research plan for developing related guidance (see Special Note B). However, additional research is needed to further define and address the issues associated with the formulation of long-range plans and budgets for replacement of highway operations equipment and develop the needed guidance.


Project
Funding: $370,000
Funding Source: Full NCHRP
Start date: August 2020
End date: February 2023
Objectives

The objectives of this research are to (1) develop guidelines for the applications of RFID and wireless technologies for highway construction and infrastructure asset management and (2) plan and conduct a workshop to introduce the proposed guidelines to an audience of DOT staff and other stakeholders. At the minimum, the research shall include readiness assessment of RFID and wireless technologies for different applications and implementation requirements.


Background

Advancement in sensing and transmitting technologies such as radio-frequency identification (RFID), barcodes, e-ticketing, global positioning systems, and other associated technologies has significantly improved wireless transmission. Projects where such devices were used reported beneficial outcomes through improved resource and quality management. The wireless transmission technology enables sensing, counting, measuring, documenting, identifying, locating, tracking, and transmitting information in real time. These features can significantly improve construction project and infrastructure asset management. However, the beneficial outcomes have not attracted the highway construction industry to adopt it to its fullest potential

There are significant gaps between the capability of existing wireless transmission technologies and their implementation. Therefore, there is a need to provide guidelines for state departments of transportation (DOTs) to select the appropriate technology for a specific application for highway construction and infrastructure asset management


Project
Funding: $666,617
Funding Source: Full NCHRP
Start date: June 2018
End date: January 2021
Objectives

The objective of this research is to provide transportation agencies with practical guidance, recommendations, and successful implementation practices for

1. Integrating performance, risk, and asset management at transportation agencies;

2. Identifying, evaluating, and selecting appropriate management frameworks; and

3. Recruiting, training, and retaining human capital to support asset management and related functions.


Background

The AASHTO Subcommittee on Asset Management is seeking to implement the recently completed Transportation Asset Management Research Roadmap (TAM Research Roadmap), developed under the NCHRP 08-36 quick response research program. The TAM Research Roadmap was developed in cooperation with AASHTO, TRB, USDOT, and other industry partners. It includes a multi-year research agenda to improve the overall implementation of transportation asset management at state, regional, and local transportation agencies. The purpose of the TAM Research Roadmap is to enable the TAM community to identify, propose, and implement TAM research projects necessary to improve the understanding of TAM and allow projects to be funded through various research programs including NCHRP, USDOT funding sources, and other sources.

The practice of performance, risk, and asset management has evolved over many years. MAP-21 and the recently passed FAST Act, associated rules, and guidance have clarified the federal asset management requirements. Beyond federal requirements, broader research and practice in the areas of transportation performance, risk, and asset management initiated by state DOTs and other public and private entities have added to the availability of tools, methods, and strategies. Yet, practitioners continue to struggle with integration and implementation of research findings and regulatory requirements. This state of the practice, coupled with a detailed gap analysis, was the focus of the TAM Research Roadmap. To address identified gaps, additional research is needed to implement effective transportation management practices and identify human capital needs at state DOTs, regional organizations, and local agencies. The research proposed in this study was identified within the Research Roadmap and is designed to fill gaps in several high-priority areas.


Project
Funding: $400,000
Funding Source: Full NCHRP
Start date: August 2018
End date: January 2021
Objectives

The objective of this research is to develop a guidebook presenting principles, organizational strategies, governance mechanisms, and practical examples for improving management of the processes for collecting data, developing useful information, and providing that information for decision making about management of the transportation system assets. The guidebook should assist practitioners addressing at least the following topics:

• Conducting agency self-assessments of information management practices (for example, a maturity model and leading-practices descriptions), using existing tools and techniques to the extent these are available;
• Exploring transferrable data and information management practices from a variety of sources—DOTs and others not necessarily restricted to domestic transportation agencies—that have demonstrated effective asset management;
• Considering how to incorporate evolving technologies and state-of-the-art management practices, for example by providing agencies with management scenarios and exemplary data models;
• Establishing organizational structure, personnel capabilities requirements, outsourcing policies and practices, and governance policies and procedures to support effective provision of asset management information;
• Assessing options for staff development, outsourcing, and other strategies for ensuring the agency has appropriate capability and capacity for asset information management; and
• Developing a management roadmap for implementing unified, enterprise-wide governance of asset data and information, from initial project development through transportation asset and performance management.


Background

State departments of transportation (DOTs) and other transportation agencies produce, exchange, manage, and use substantial quantities of data and information for project development and subsequent management of the system assets for which they are responsible. These agencies devote considerable resources to data collection and storage and often face challenges such as duplicating effort or gaps in data collected by various organizational units; ensuring that data sources are well documented and information is current; and providing the people responsible for planning, design, construction, and operations and maintenance of system assets with access to reliable current information for decision making.

Continuing rapid evolution of data and information technologies presents challenges as agencies seek to ensure that the transportation system delivers high performance and the agency functions effectively and efficiently. Remote sensing, Lidar, GIS, 3-D graphic displays, and virtual reality (to name a few of the newer developments) are supplementing or replacing data acquisition and information management practices once based on physical measurements and storage and display in large-format print media. Many agencies must deal with legacy data while avoiding obsolescence in their management practices. Typically fragmented DOT business practices and the decades-long processes of asset development and life-cycle service have produced disparate data sets that are poorly suited to effective long-term system asset and performance management.

Efforts are being made to address these problems. The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) for example has developed a set of Core Data Principles (https://data.transportation.org/aashto-core-data-principles/) for transportation data. Ongoing research sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) will provide an analysis of the civil integrated management (CIM) data practices. Guidance produced by NCHRP, AASHTO, and FHWA addresses transportation asset management, information management, and data self-assessment (data value and data management)—see Special Note B. However, additional research is needed to provide agencies with guidance on opportunities for improving their information acquisition and management; data governance and maintenance workflows; human and business-support resources needed for data and information management; and procedures for assuring that reliable information for effective asset management is available when and where it is needed.


Project
Funding: $500,000
Funding Source: Full NCHRP
Start date: April 2019
End date: November 2021
Objectives

The objective of this research is to develop guidance coupled with one or more prototypical, analytical model(s) to support life-cycle planning and decision-making that applies life-cycle cost analysis as a component of a system-wide transportation asset management program. This guidance and associated analytical model(s) will apply quantitative asset-level, project-level, and network-level inputs to demonstrate methods for calculating life-cycle costs associated with alternative scenarios while taking into account preservation, rehabilitation, replacement, maintenance, and potential risk mitigation actions on a range of highway assets. To the degree possible, costs should reflect condition, risk and uncertainty, mobility, safety, and any other quantifiable aspect of transportation system performance. Although this research is targeted to state DOT highway assets within the overall transportation network, the research should also identify additional research necessary to expand the process to include other modes.


Background

State and federal policies are increasingly requiring state departments of transportation (DOTs) and other transportation agencies to implement a transportation asset management (TAM) approach to manage their existing assets. Defined as a strategic and systematic process of operating, maintaining, upgrading, replacing, and expanding physical assets effectively throughout their life cycle, TAM requires an agency to focus on strategic business and engineering practices to allocate resources cost effectively so that assets are maintained in the best condition possible, for the longest duration, at the least practicable cost.

State DOTs and other agencies need better economic analysis tools for assessing cost effectiveness of various maintenance treatments, thus enabling them to manage transportation assets more efficiently at the network level. One such industry-accepted practice and tool used by transportation agencies is project level life-cycle cost analysis (LCCA). LCCA is an engineering-economic analysis technique that allows comparison of the relative merits of competing project implementation alternatives. By considering all of the costs—agency and user—incurred during the service life of an asset, this analytical practice guides decision-makers in selecting of projects and other action alternatives that are the most cost effective over their service life.

A limitation of the traditional LCCA practice is its focus on individual project-level analysis which is not always compatible with network-level analysis requiring a broader focus on long-term maintenance and operation of a set of existing assets. Life cycle planning (LCP), however, is a relatively new concept aimed at providing tools and techniques that state DOTs and other transportation agencies can use to conduct an economic cost analysis for a network of transportation assets to manage them cost-effectively over their project life, covering the time each asset goes into service after construction to the time it is disposed of or retired. LCP can take advantage of asset management system capabilities, which include network-level condition data, by applying an engineering-economic analysis approach to evaluate and compare the cost-effectiveness of maintenance strategies to preserve assets at a desired performance level.

While LCP is in its infancy compared with LCCA, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), state governments, and international agencies have all developed analytical methods that can be used to create more robust LCP methods and tools. For example, NCHRP Report 713: Estimating Life Expectancies of Highway Assets, documents various methods for assessing the deterioration and life expectancy of a variety of highway assets, including signs, traffic signals, street lighting, sidewalks, culverts, pavements, and bridges. These methods, which can be used to assign an economic value to agency actions taken to maintain existing assets as well as quantifying, in economic terms, user and non-user stakeholder concerns, are foundational to developing more robust LCP analysis tools and techniques.

LCP could become an integral part of a system for managing assets at the network level to evaluate the economic aspects of various actions more effectively and to build strategies a transportation agency can take to increase project longevity. This research is needed to develop guidance and analytical models to enable state DOTs and other transportation agencies to implement a life cycle planning process applicable to TAM.


Project
Funding: $600,000
Funding Source: Full NCHRP
Start date: May 2019
End date: June 2021
Objectives

The objectives of this research project are to
• Develop enhanced techniques to consider and evaluate asset management-related risks as part of investment decision-making practices, including qualitative, quantitative, and analytical methods—building on and aligning with previous and continuing research efforts in the areas of TAM and risk management;
• Review effective processes to determine how existing and potential approaches can be used when integrating enterprise, network, and program level risk analysis. Alternative approaches should address how state departments of transportation (DOTs) make multi-objective, cross-asset investment decisions under uncertainty to best support national, state, and local asset performance goals for pavements, bridges, and other assets;
• Develop strategies and procedures for risk mitigation and response with applicable tools and tracking mechanisms for transportation agencies to improve risk assessment in existing and evolving asset management business processes; and
• Develop implementation guidance, including practical tools and techniques for incorporating risk and uncertainty, as well as possible measures of asset resilience that can be integrated into risk assessment procedures in support of national, state, and local asset performance goals.


Background

As transportation agencies are faced with aging and deteriorating infrastructure in a context of limited resources, it becomes imperative that assets are managed efficiently and effectively. To this end, Federal Regulations Title 23 CFR Part 515 require state transportation agencies to develop Risk-Based Transportation Asset Management Plans (TAMP), including a risk management plan. The risk management plan must include identification, assessment, evaluation, and prioritization of risks, as well as a mitigation plan for addressing and monitoring top priority risks. State transportation agencies are seeking to improve the assessment of risks to transportation assets as part of optimized investment decision-making.

Transportation agencies must contend with a wide variety of risks as they manage transportation assets. Owners must respond to impacts of events both within and outside their control. These risks can include funding uncertainty, regulatory changes, leadership and policy changes, increasing costs, severe weather events, evolving technology, and others. Underestimating risk can lead to costly repairs and reconstruction, while overestimating risk can lead to wasted resources. Asset owners require better techniques for assessing and managing risk.

Approaches to managing risk range from qualitative assessments of likelihood and consequence at the enterprise level to quantitative, probabilistic approaches at the network and program levels such as scenario analysis, simulation, and other approaches to predictive modeling. Successful organizations, across both the public and private sectors, effectively and efficiently quantify the effects of risk and uncertainty related to threats and opportunities.


Project
Funding: $45,000
Funding Source: Synthesis
Start date: September 2019
End date: December 2020
Objectives

The objective of this synthesis is to document DOT collaboration with MPOs relative to target setting, investment decisions, and performance monitoring of pavement and bridge assets for performance-based planning and programming. The synthesis will focus on DOT practices to initiate and facilitate collaboration with MPOs.


Background

The FAST Act emphasizes preservation of the existing transportation system in the metropolitan long-range transportation factors. These factors directly link the practice of long-range transportation planning to the practice of transportation asset management. Transportation asset management (AM), one of the national performance areas identified in MAP-21, is a strategic approach and business model that prioritizes investments primarily based on the condition of assets. The asset management cycle involves asset management plan development, maintenance and engineering activities, asset management plan monitoring, asset prioritization, and investment trade-off activities. A key component of asset management plan development is the inclusion of a performance management framework intended to provide a systematic approach to measuring progress in the implementation of an asset management strategy while enabling auditing and monitoring. Performance measurement and transportation asset management are therefore inextricably linked.

MAP-21 resulted in increased attention being paid to performance-based transportation planning across local, regional and statewide planning scales. The result has been increased communication and coordination across the national performance goal areas. Yet the practice of asset management within state DOTs can happen separate and apart from the performance-based transportation planning activities that occur within MPOs. However, to achieve the strategic vision of transportation asset management for system preservation, measurement, monitoring and prioritization, the integration of DOT and MPO activities, and coordination in the development of AM performance measures, may be necessary.


Project
Funding: $500,000
Funding Source: Full NCHRP
Start date: June 2020
End date: September 2022
Objectives

The objective of this research is to develop and disseminate a practitioner-ready guidebook for state DOTs that is focused on methods for the target-setting component of transportation performance management. The guidebook will provide information on selecting effective methods that use both qualitative and quantitative sources to establish performance targets. The guidebook will also address how to re-evaluate targets, taking into account unforeseen changes impacting the transportation system, performance data, and performance reporting requirements.


Background

In 2012, the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21) established national performance management requirements for state departments of transportation (DOTs). Successive legislation, regulation, and guidance have reinforced these requirements in the Transportation Performance Management (TPM) framework, with its seven national performance goals and related performance measures within three measure areas: safety (PM1); pavement and bridge condition (PM2); and travel time reliability, congestion, and emissions (PM3). State DOTs are required to establish performance targets for each performance measure and to regularly report on progress towards meeting those targets. In addition, some states have developed additional, non-TPM measures and targets to manage their safety, asset management, system performance, and other program areas.

Performance targets can be established using quantitative or qualitative methods, or some combination of both methods. For example, a quantitative method could use historical data to project a trend line. A qualitative method may establish a target based on factors such as agency leadership priorities. An example of a combined approach is adjusting trend data for fatalities and serious injuries with stakeholder perspectives to establish a Vision Zero safety target. Combined approaches can also be risk-based; a state DOT may adjust projections to account for funding scenarios or uncertainty in the capacity of the state DOT and/or partner agencies to deliver the planned program. Additionally, some targets may be defined by state statute. Any of these methods can result in a target that reflects a desired outcome and allows for ongoing evaluation of progress towards attaining the target using performance-based decision making and performance reporting.

However, establishing targets presents a number of challenges. Reliance on historical trend data can result in a target that cannot account for unforeseen events, such as severe weather that significantly increases winter maintenance costs or macroeconomic factors that affect transportation funding. These events require a state DOT to adjust their program, reallocating resources in ways that can affect progress towards a target. Some challenges are more technical in nature. For example, state DOT understanding and interpretation of federal guidance on calculation procedures has periodically changed, such as how to round calculated values or how to handle overlapping Traffic Management Channel (TMC) segments or segments that are only partly on the National Highway System (NHS). These changes in calculation methods can shift trends or targets that were established using prior calculation methods.

In 2010, NCHRP Report 666: Target-Setting Methods and Data Management to Support Performance-Based Resource Allocation by Transportation Agencies (available at http://www.trb.org/Publications/Blurbs/164178.aspx) describes steps for state DOTs to establish performance targets and documented quantitative and qualitative approaches used by state DOTs to establish targets. Since that publication, state DOTs, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs), and local governments have gained experience in target setting in connection with the first round of TPM requirements. As part of the ongoing evolution of transportation performance management, state DOTs are required to re-evaluate performance targets and provide a Mid Performance Period Progress Report to FHWA in October 2020 that documents performance towards targets and any revisions to targets.

Research is needed to improve the practice of target setting by developing more effective yet practical methods for state DOTs to establish and/or re-evaluate performance targets, strengthening state DOT capacity to use performance management to make better decisions in transportation planning and programming.


Project
Funding: $600,000
Funding Source: Full NCHRP
Start date: July 2020
End date: November 2021
Objectives

The objective of this research is to develop a guidebook that state transportation agencies and others can use for calculation and communication of the value of transportation assets, and for selecting valuation methods to be used in transportation asset management. This guidebook, applicable to transit as well as highway modes, should (1) present a standardized terminology for discussing asset value, (2) describe currently accepted valuation methods, (3) describe the merits and shortcomings of these methods to produce measures of asset value useful for communicating among stakeholders and making resource allocation decisions, and (4) present advice on determining which valuation methods will be most useful in communication and decision-making for a particular agency.

The guidebook shall include at least the following components:
• Terminology and definitions of asset value (a) determined by generally accepted accounting principles, considering initial acquisition or construction costs and depreciation, (b) based on engineering estimates to replace the asset (considering age, condition, obsolescence, and the like), (c) based on estimates of revenues that could be produced from the assets if they were operated as a business venture, (d) based on socio-economic returns to a region’s economy and wellbeing, or (e) other relevant definitions;
• Current best practices for computation and presentation of each of the definitions of value listed above, presented in a manner that can be used by transportation agencies;
• Analysis of the advantages and shortcomings of the value methods as factors to be considered in system-level resource allocation decisions, for example, investment planning, maintenance budgeting, lifecycle management, and presentations for public discussion;
• Identification and description of needs for data and information for value computations;
• A capability-maturity model that an agency can use to characterize its valuation practices and needs and strategies for improvement;
• Advice on incorporating valuation estimates into the agency’s asset management practices.
NCHRP anticipates that the guidebook may be published by AASHTO. It should be compatible with print and web-based versions of AASHTO’s Transportation Asset Management Guide.


Background

State transportation agencies are stewards for public infrastructure assets that are essential to economic vitality, public safety, and quality of life. Accurate, relevant, and reliable asset valuation is crucial for decision-making to ensure the effective, efficient, and economical management of these public assets.

Congress required, through the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP 21), enacted in 2012, that each state transportation agency develop and implement a risk-based transportation asset management plan (TAMP) that includes a valuation of pavements and bridges on the National Highway System (NHS). State transportation agencies are complying with the requirements through various approaches, but have struggled to incorporate asset valuation into their asset management practices and infrastructure investment and management decisions in a consistent, meaningful way. Practices have been developed and used internationally for incorporating asset valuation into an organization’s financial statements and decision-making processes, and some guidance has been produced in the United States, but such practices have not been much used in this country. Research is needed to make a detailed assessment of the issues and present practical guidelines and procedures for valuation of public-sector transportation assets in the United States and use of valuation in transportation system and asset management decision-making.


Project
Funding: $800,000
Funding Source: Full NCHRP
Start date: January 2020
End date: July 2022
Objectives

The objectives of this project are (1) to develop a playbook to support emergency management program review and development for state transportation agencies and (2) to develop and execute a deployment strategy to familiarize the affected transportation agencies of every state with the playbook and supporting emergency management materials. The playbook and related products and activities should encompass state DOTs, public transportation systems, and other transportation agencies under state control or influence (i.e., state transportation agencies).


Background

There is a need for a strategy-driven, actionable guide—a playbook—that, with incidental implementation support, will help emergent and part-time transportation emergency managers to understand, plan, and implement an emergency preparedness program that fits their agency’s needs, capabilities, and challenges. Such a playbook will serve as a simple, practical, and comprehensive emergency preparedness program development guide for transportation emergency managers; be generally applicable to all transportation emergency operations centers (EOCs); and be consistent with ICS/NIMS/HSEEP doctrine. A transportation-specific playbook will help close the gap in transportation emergency preparedness and enable quicker and more effective uptake of valuable scenario-based training and exercising tools that help organizations apply prerequisite planning and program development.

Translating strategy from the playbook to the real world (how to do it) is complex, as states vary in how they organize their activities. This project will develop and execute a strategy to effectively bridge the gap between all-hazards emergency management research and state transportation agency practice to improve state transportation agency responses over a broad continuum of emergencies affecting the nation’s travelers, economy, and infrastructure.


Project
Funding: $250,000
Funding Source: Full NCHRP
End date: December 2018
Objectives

The objective of this research is to develop a guide to bus transit service reliability. The guide will include a toolbox of resources that may be used to diagnose and manage bus transit service reliability and will describe benefits, costs, and outcomes of potential policies, strategies, and actions.



Project
Funding: $45,000
Funding Source: Synthesis
Start date: October 2019
End date: May 2021


Project
Funding: $250,000
Funding Source: Full NCHRP
Start date: September 2020
End date: August 2022
Objectives

The objective of this research is to develop a guide for state DOTs and other transportation planning agencies to understand, predict, plan for, and adapt to the potential impacts of emerging disruptive technologies. In preparing this guide, the research should identify issues, effects, and opportunities at the intersection of disruptive transportation technologies and organizational performance for senior managers at state DOTs and other transportation planning agencies; and it should include but not be limited to the following components:
· Categories of technology disruptors, such as big data, expanding digitization, vehicle and infrastructure technologies, mobility as a service, the sharing economy, mobility of people and goods, alternative travel modes, and communication technologies;
· New business opportunities or partnerships and collaboration models involving the private and public sectors, as well as impacts on how agencies execute planning and prioritize investments, implement, maintain, manage and operate the transportation system;
· Roles and responsibilities of federal, state, regional, and local agencies in evaluating, approving, regulating, enforcing, and managing new ways of moving people and goods; and
· Improving overall customer service, including effects on the transportation system’s ability to provide improved access and mobility for all users.
The target audience for this research is practitioners as well as decision-makers at state DOTs and their transportation partner organizations.


Background

The arrival of the 4th Industrial Revolution and the rapid development and fusion of multiple disruptive and innovative technologies are changing the behavior and the expectations of customers and stakeholders—not only in the United States, but all over the world. The deployment of these technologies—artificial intelligence, big data and digitization, the Internet of Things (IoT), wireless technologies (5G/6G), connected and autonomous vehicle (CAV) technologies, on-demand ride sharing services, Mobility as a Service (MaaS), the sharing economy, and others—is bringing a revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, relate to one another, and do business. In its scale, scope, and complexity, the transformation is moving at a pace at which governmental entities are not readily prepared.

Mobility is also transforming rapidly as new technologies disrupt traditional ways people and goods move throughout the transportation systems. The rapid deployment of mobile internet is upending the traditional approaches with new customer-centric business models based on the sharing economy such as car hailing, bike sharing, scooter sharing, time sharing, customized shuttle bus, parking sharing, etc. While the new business models bring more conveniences and efficiencies to the users and to the national and local economies, they are also creating new challenges and needs that state departments of transportation (DOTs) and other transportation agencies must grapple with as decision-makers. As technology previously foreign to transportation rapidly affects traditional ways of doing business, organizational structure and performance is affected across all modes and aspects of transportation. Institutional processes or procedures may be retooled or adjusted to accommodate updated or more effective methods to improve performance outcomes. These processes or procedures are necessary to help those agencies struggling to define meaningful performance measures, such as managing data collection, maintaining accountability, and streamlining reporting.


Project
Funding: $224,977
Funding Source:
Start date: June 2019
End date: June 2022
Objectives

The objectives of this project are to (a) document (beyond anecdotal discussions alone) concerns, issues and challenges DOTs and other government agencies have encountered in implementing federal transportation performance management (TPM) regulations; and (b) provide a framework for more systematic assessment of the costs associated with implementation.


Background

After more than a decade of steady progress, transportation agencies have reached a critical moment in advancing TPM practice. Federal performance management regulations initiated by the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21) established a new paradigm of nationally-coordinated performance measurement, target setting, and reporting across a range of domains including safety, asset management, multimodal mobility and air quality, and transit. State departments of transportation (DOTs), metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), and transit agencies have responded – meeting the challenge by prioritizing advancement in areas including data collection, measure calculation, target setting, coordination and communication, and performance-based planning.
These advances have required significant investment on the part of state DOTs and other transportation agencies. Organizations including the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the American Association of Transportation Officials (AASHTO), and the Transportation Research Board (TRB) have also worked extensively to assist agencies in implementation: fostering the dissemination and adoption of successful practices, promoting performance management concepts, and helping develop improved tools and approaches. Yet practitioners also recognize that performance management implementation is a process of continuous improvement and many real issues and challenges remain to be resolved.



Project
Funding: $550,000
Funding Source: Full NCHRP

Project
Funding: $1,076,200
Funding Source: Full NCHRP