Emerging Practices in Performance Based Planning in Urban Regions in the United States

Quantifiable performance metrics play an important role in transportation project prioritization and decision-making. Recently in the United States, Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) have been tasked by federal legislation to develop long-term transportation plans that include performance metrics. The requirements include standard, uniform indicators for specific projects and entire metropolitan regions, and lead to performance analysis serving as evidence of the productive use of taxpayer dollars towards public accountability. However, regions may differ in their history of voluntarily collecting data and utilizing performance based planning methods, and in their response to the new federal requirements. This study looks at how MPOs across the United States, 1) use and develop standard and unique performance measures; 2) prioritize and evaluate projects; and 3) act on competing influence from goals, regulations, and legislation at the local, state, and federal levels. Literature reviews of local, state, and federal documents, and background research on legislative history with respect to collecting and using performance metrics will be presented. Additionally, the paper covers the design and deployment of a survey of all MPOs nationwide. Survey data will include the following information from MPO respondents: performance metrics collected, timeframe for MPO collection of information on each metric, relationship (if at all) that each metric has to goals or regulations at varying levels of government, role of performance metrics in project prioritization, and weight of each metric in the project prioritization process. Preliminary survey results and analysis will be presented as well as relevant case study research stemming from survey results. Grouping of MPOs based on characteristics of the regions such as demographics, size, and political climate through a factor analysis of survey results will arrange agencies into unique groups. By choosing case studies from various groups for in-depth analysis and comparison, this work proposes a framework to study how different types of urban regions approach and carry out performance based planning in transportation planning. In addition, this study will increase the scope of knowledge and understanding on why urban regions in the United States choose individual performance metrics, how those metrics play a role in the transportation planning process, and when those plans match up with reality. The paper examines the role of US Federal legislation in boots-on-the-ground transportation project implementation. Recommendations are provided on performance based planning methods for urban regions. Elements will be scalable, down to the local, and up to the state and federal levels.

• Record URL:
  https://aetransport.org/past-etc-papers/conference-papers-2016
• Supplemental Notes:
  • Abstract used by permission of Association for European Transport.
• Corporate Authors:

  Association for European Transport (AET)

  1 Vernon Mews, Vernon Street, West Kensington
  London W14 0RL,    
• Authors:
  • Grossman, Alice
• Conference:
  • European Transport Conference 2016
  • Location: Barcelona , Spain
  • Date: 2016-10-5 to 2016-10-7
• Publication Date: 2016

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 11p
• Monograph Title: European Transport Conference 2016: Strands

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Case studies; Metropolitan planning organizations; Performance measurement; Transportation planning; Urban areas
• Uncontrolled Terms: Performance based planning
• Geographic Terms: United States
• Subject Areas: Planning and Forecasting; Transportation (General);

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01620281
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Dec 30 2016 1:57PM