Conference Proceedings 26 - Transportation Research Board

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 151Tools, Techniques, and MethodsTools in General• Provide tools for managers and policy makersfor applying and using performance measures.• Determine the limitations of performance measurementtools and how they fit into a total decisionmakingprocess.• Identify other desirable or essential tools thatmust complement performance measurement.• Establish a guide to measure and understanderrors.• Improve planning techniques regarding surveys,use of intelligent transportation systems (ITSs), databehavior, and behavioral models.Market Research and Customers• Improve the understanding of the current use ofmarket research in decision making and how it canbe improved to provide decision makers with importantoutcome information.• Create new market research and public involvementtools.• Survey customers.• Maximize use of market research, expert panels,multidisciplinary approaches, other professions andagencies, and high-technology methods.Communications• Communicate performance to customers, stakeholders,and the public.• Gather examples, case studies, and tools to effectivelycommunicate performance measures to policymakers, legislatures, and the public, providingquality information to decision makers in a usableformat.• Determine how performance measures are communicatedto decision makers.• Develop a web library of samples of communicating,summarizing, and presenting performance resultsto decision makers and the public, particularlyones using graphics and visual aids instead of tabular,text-oriented reports.Data• Create a directory of private-sector data (goodsmovement) and privacy issues.• Collect data on demographic stratification.• Identify which data we have stopped collecting(state and federal) and why.• Integrate data.• Amass historic and trend information to createperformance measures.• Synthesize data availability at the national, state,and regional level, and develop strategies for usingexisting data sources.• Recharacterize data collection as performancemonitoring.• Revisit data quality issues.Terminology• Clarify and standardize terminology and differencesbetween organizational and managerial andsystems measures.• Align the definition of goals across the industryto extent possible and standardize the measures.• Create consistent standards so that performancemeasures can be reliably compared across agencies.ProcessAll workshop groups recommended additional documentationand sharing of information and experienceson creating performance measurement systems.NCHRP Report No. 446: A Guidebook forPerformance-Based Transportation Planning includesa comprehensive review of the state of the practice,including case studies and a library of performancemeasures based on information collected in 1997 and1998. The sense of the participants was that the fieldis changing so rapidly that the effort to update thesematerials should start as soon as possible. They alsorecommended several additional mechanisms forsharing information, including NCHRP Synthesis reports,peer exchanges on selected topics, and additionalconferences and workshops on selected topics.The topics recommended for additional groupsharing were as follows:• Linking performance measures to decision making:case studies on how measures are successfullyused in decision making, including different processesand methods of decision making; evidence of benefitsand long-range payoffs of using performance measuresfor transportation decision making; tools toquantify the impacts of performance measures on decisionmaking; ways to gauge the consequences ofusing a wrong performance measure; and decisionstructures to consider societal measures in decisionmaking.