BACKGROUND

Recent initiatives in the United States and Europe have pointed to the largely untapped potential of Active Traffic Management (ATM), which is “the ability to dynamically manage recurrent and non-recurrent congestion based on prevailing and predicted traffic conditions” (FHWA Active Traffic Management and Demand Website). Some examples of ATM strategies include dynamic lane use control, adaptive traffic signal control, dynamic speed limits, queue warning, and adaptive ramp metering. One common theme from recent workshops conducted by the FHWA on ATM has been that public agencies are highly interested in ATM strategies; however, a major barrier to deployment is uncertainty about the operational, reliability, and safety impacts and resulting benefits. Key questions that agencies need to answer before funding ATM systems include: (1) What are the impacts seen by agencies that have deployed ATM systems? (2) How do these impacts translate into benefits both to the traveling public and to the deploying agency(ies)? (3) How can we estimate the impacts of alternative ATM systems in our state? (4) What benefits and impacts can be reasonably expected on specific roadways in our state if deployed? Another area of interest is the life-cycle costs and resources required to operate and maintain ATM systems. In this time of budget and staffing uncertainty, agencies need to consider issues such as: (1) operations and maintenance resource and management demands and challenges associated with ATM systems; (2) medium- to long-term sensitivity of ATM effectiveness and benefits to operations and maintenance resource levels and vigilance; (3) integration of life-cycle costs into sustainable financial programming of ATM systems; and (4) acknowledgement of human resource demands (agency or contractor staff) for operations and maintenance functions required for ATM effectiveness. Since ATM strategies are new to many agencies and they differ in some significant ways from traditional capital projects, they can present some difficulties during the planning, programming, budgeting, and staffing phases. A guide is needed to help transportation agencies decide whether and which ATM strategies can help them achieve their objectives.