Evaluating Alternative Operations Strategies to Improve Travel Time ...

SHRP 2 L11: Final Report
travel time uncertainty and improving travel time reliability. Better information will tell consumers
when travel times are not reliable.
Another important step is to reach agreement that funds generated by pricing would be made
available to improve all forms of capacity within the corridor in which they are collected. That
includes, in some cases, expansion of roadways. It also includes funding for operations and
funding for alternative sources of capacity, including improvements to transit service and parallel
arterials. Gaining the buy-in for these types of improvements and balancing these improvements
with expenditures will require time and effort.
Equity concerns will likely be among the major obstacles to road pricing, particularly income
equity – the impacts of network-wide pricing on low income travelers. Once the public and their
leaders begin to understand the merits of road pricing, equity will become addressable through a
variety of paths, including providing better information on travel and location options; offering
alternative services; enhancing transit services, and providing discounts and subsidies.
STEPS TO STRENGTHEN INTERAGENCY AND INTERMODAL
RELATIONSHIPS
A more reliable roadway network requires the integration of arterial network operations with
adjoining freeway operations. This integration includes adjusting arterial traffic controls to account
for freeway performance. (This does NOT mean that arterials must sacrifice local performance in
favor of regional travel-time reliability. It does mean that local arterials need to operate differently
during times when adjacent freeways are unreliable.) Similarly, transit system operations need to
be an integral part of corridor demand and capacity management actions. The fact is that the
roadway network operates as a system which is independent of jurisdictional boundaries. Network
operators need to consider this to foster interagency cooperation.
An important step that the public sector could take now is to work more closely with the private
sector. The private sector is making significant technological breakthroughs in both performance
monitoring and traveler information. Working with private companies to take advantage of them
has great potential to improve travel-time reliability, increase traveler satisfaction, and reduce the
public sector cost of communicating effectively with travelers.
Public agencies could consider the following five actions in the near term to foster interagency and
intermodal relationships:
• Change the agency “culture" so that agencies work together (and perhaps even coalesce) to
achieve better system performance rather than working toward agency-specific goals.
• Strengthen relationships with neighboring jurisdictions, especially where improved
integration of facilities benefits both agencies (e.g., shared traffic operations centers, multiagency
incident response teams, and corridor management teams).
• Create and provide easily-accessed, standardized transportation system performance data to
those that need it.
• Work with the private sector to support community goals. (For example, encourage the
private sector to limit the amount of “cut through traffic” that occurs on residential streets
by avoiding the use of portable navigation devices to reroute traffic through local streets.)
• Work with private sector trip generators and private sector information providers to obtain
and disseminate better information on travel demand fluctuations. Provide better
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
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