Performance measurement and monitoring are becoming increasingly important to state departments of transportation (DOTs) as they work to improve the transportation system’s service to its users and contribution to the nation’s economy and general wellbeing.  Growing federal program emphasis on system performance measurement and management is encouraging efforts to develop effective performance measures and performance monitoring practices.

 

As AASHTO’s Subcommittee on Transportation Systems Management and Operations (TSMO) has discussed extensively, these efforts are producing a rapidly expanding body of information about research and evaluations of agencies’ work on performance measurement and monitoring. TSMO staff members and their advisors in academia and private practice face significant challenges in trying to gain access to this information. These practitioners risk duplicating previous work, adopting measures and practices others have found to be inappropriate for particular applications, or both.

The objectives of this research were to (a) prepare a report surveying the current state of practice in TSMO performance measurement and monitoring and (b) develop a user-friendly tool to assist TSMO professionals to find and retrieve topic-specific information about current practice. The research team surveyed available literature (including print and web-based publications) on TSMO performance measures and performance monitoring; ongoing efforts to develop and adopt TSMO performance measurement and monitoring and ongoing research to advance these efforts. The team then developed a classification scheme to facilitate practitioner access to information about specific areas of TSMO performance measurement and monitoring.

NCHRP anticipates that AASHTO and the National Operations Center of Excellence will use the classification scheme to provide user-friendly access to information about TSMO performance measurement and monitoring practices and research.  The team's final report was delivered to AASHTO and may be downloaded by clicking here.