Evaluating Alternative Operations Strategies to Improve Travel Time ...

SHRP 2 L11: Final Report
people of the costs and travel characteristics associated with living in certain areas. The purpose of
integration would be to evaluate all the forces behind travel to accomplish reliable connectivity
through timely, objective, and accessible information. Essentially, people would be informed about
the service characteristics, including the reliability, of all reasonable options.
In corridors where congestion and reliability are problems for the road network, a complementary
and competitive transit option can sometimes be designed that will lure choice riders out of their
cars, producing benefits for both transit and highway users. A competitive transit option requires a
time-competitive and seamless service where the separate links are effectively integrated; transfers
and waits are easy and short; the en route experience is quick, safe, and comfortable; and reliability
is high. For bus-on-highway transit operations, the challenge of delivering reliable service is the
same as it is for the automobile. Thus, improvements to one mode can bring benefits to the other.
Where road pricing is used, allocating some revenues to support such high quality transit services
can be both cost-effective and equitable.
Data Management
With the future emphasis on data collection, the agency of the future will need to be prepared to
manage a wealth of data. Data will need to flow efficiently to and from:
• Other traffic management systems, both within an agency and from other agencies
• Other agencies (law enforcement, transit, emergency management)
• Vehicles—either directly or passed through private monitoring systems
• Pricing systems
Good practice suggests that data must be used and handled consistently across different agencies
and jurisdictions. Consistency can be achieved by adopting certain standards and definitions such
as common geographic references, data stamping, and data collection practices. While it is
important to have consistent data collection and archiving across different regions, it is undesirable
for agencies to aggregate data from multiple locations with different traffic characteristics. Each
location has specific traffic patterns and the data archiving and management of each area is
fundamental to developing appropriate strategies.
By 2030, this data stream will be of a size that is difficult to imagine today. The traffic
management system operators of the future will need decision-support systems to sort, compile,
and display these data in a form that will be useful. Effective data management and data archiving
will become critical measures of how well agencies use the current and historical data for decision
making.
Once an agency starts to focus on operating and managing the system for reliability, the
information can be shared with the public to make the system truly effective. Motorists will have a
much different attitude toward the system because they will be able to relate what they pay to
make a trip with the value they received in return. Agencies will need to be much more transparent
about where revenue goes and how effectively it is used. In effect, today’s relatively minor
emphasis on performance measures will need to be greatly increased. Instead of waiting for
quarterly or yearly reports on performance, motorists will expect to see some information in realtime
(the relation between travel time and toll prices, for example.) Historical and predictive
information on travel-time reliability and traffic conditions will be necessary so that users can
make informed decisions. Similarly, performance measures with a consideration of cost, including
A CONCEPT OF OPERATIONS Page 115