ATSSA Signal Sept/Oct 2018

American Traffic Safety Services Association 24 arately when, ideally, all projects should be on the table in a department’s trans- por tation system to attain better prioritization. “One of the problems in our industry right now is we still are looking at these things in silos. We have safety over here. We have infrastructure or maintenance over there and capital improvement over here,” Chalmers said. “Our goal is to try to put all of that together so everybody is on equal footing in terms of invest- ments in thenetwork. That’swhyAASHTO has been working on TAM. A lot of times the thinking is more oriented toward existing and what we already have rath- er than should we do this safety project, or should we do this other project?” Member Company & Agency News Investing smarter to increase efficiency, funding, and safety of DOT facilities How systems and operations management can help agencies improve functionality Earlier this year, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Office of Oper- ations launched an informational web- page relating to Transportation Systems Management and Operations (TSMO). The “What is TSMO?” webpage is a fed- eral resource to assist transportation agencies achieve optimal operational performance. According to the FHWA webpage, TSMO is a set of strategies that focus on oper- ational improvements that canmaintain and even restore the performance of the existing transportation system be- fore extra capacity is needed. The goal is to get the most performance out of U.S. transportation facilities. By devel- oping these strategies, agencies can also improve roadway safety in addition to reduced traffic congestion, improved traffic flow and reliability, improved eco- nomic vitality, better quality of life, less wasted fuel, cleaner air, and increased efficiency of the use of resources such as funding and facilities. TSMOs are initiatives of many state and local transportation agencies including the Pima County Department of Trans- portation (PCDOT) in Tucson, Arizona. Seth Chalmers, an engineer with the de- partment, said PCDOT shifted more of its focus to developing TSMO strategies after the recession in 2007. “Prior to the 2007 recession, we had set up a revenue bond off our gas tax mon- ey to do certain Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) projects. We kept doing the CIP projects at the time the revenue was declining and unfortunately, we under- invested in our pavement maintenance starting around the mid-2000s,” Chalm- ers said. “We went ahead and did our CIPs but now we find that we built our- selves into a problem. The lesson we learned from that is we need to make better decisions on our transportation infrastructure investment includingmain- tenance and CIPs.” Chalmers said that many federal agen- cies are working to provide information to help at the state and local levels in- cluding the American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHTO), which has resources available through its Trans- portation Asset Management (TAM) program and the U.S. DOT recently re- leased a Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) tool to help with Return on Investment (ROI) planning. However, he also said there is an issue with internal planning being done sep- According to the Federal Highway System, there are numerous strategies that state agencies can implement as part of their Transportation System Operation plan including: • Work Zone Management • Traffic Incident Management • Special Event Management • Road Weather Management • Transit Management • Freight Management • Traffic Signal Coordination • Traveler Information • Ramp Management • Congestion Pricing • Active Transportation and Demand Management • Integrated Corridor Management • Access Management • Improved Bicycle and Pedestrian Crossings • Connected and Automated Vehicle Deployment TransportationSystemManagementOperation strategies