Conference Proceedings 26 - Transportation Research Board

PANEL DISCUSSION: AGENCY IMPLEMENTATION OF SYSTEM PERFORMANCE MEASURES 67to develop vehicles through which we can measure,monitor, and evaluate, so that we can be responsive.If we do that and allow the entire field of performanceindicators to truly humanize us, then bureaucraciesthemselves will evolve.The theory that I am talking to you about has beenin practice for the past 15 years. We began 15 yearsago on a voyage of discovery relative to the wholenotion of how we move the decision making withinour region. My region has 186 cities, 17 million people.We have more debates, conflict, and fragmentation,and we have more ethnic and racial mix withinour population than probably anywhere else onEarth. In fact, I do not think there is another placethat has the degree of confusion that southern Californiahas, and those of you who are not from hereprobably thought that before you even arrived here.So what have we done? We began in the late 1980sand early 1990s with a comprehensive plan in whichwe took our region through a 4-year process of identifyingthe fundamental goals and what people reallywant. Our need to get input from individuals is atthe core of performance indicators. We cannot developthem independent of what human beingswithin our respective jurisdictions think and want. Iurge you to spend as much time and effort as possibleon that process. By the way, your policy makers willlove it. I have a board of 76 elected officials, and Ihave never seen my policy makers more animated ormore engaged than when we went through the communitydialogues that helped drive goals.Then we focused on how we translate the myriadactivities that we perform in transportation in a waythat we can relate to those goals. We developed performancestandards. We set up a peer review process.We had many individuals in this room and at universitiesparticipating in about a 3-year-long processof identifying performance indicators. The processmeasured activity relative to the outcomes of whatpeople wanted and what we heard through our goalsettingprocess. We came up with this basic list ofindicators:• Mobility,• Accessibility,• Environment,• Reliability,• Safety,• Livable communities,• Equity,• Cost-effectiveness, and• Transportation sustainability.I am not going to go through all these performanceindicators. I prepared a paper that gives detailed definitions,the algorithms for them, and the databasesthat support them. We have a database of 356 geographicinformation system data overlay on our analyticaland modeling capacity to translate theseparticular indicators into concrete outcomes ormeasurements. For example, mobility is the speed ofgetting to points, and accessibility is the ease of opportunityof getting to where you want to go. Wehave real, concrete explanations and measurementsof these indicators.We then went through a process of saying, okay,we have good performance indicators. Now, how dothey relate to our current decision-making process orto the current comprehensive, continuing, and cooperativeplanning process? Let me tell you, in acomplex society, it does not work. When you overlaythe environmental impact study and review processeson it, it gets even more confusing. We have the publicbefuddled. They cannot understand whether we arecoming or going in our planning processes. We basicallyasked, ‘‘How do we begin?’’ or ‘‘How do weframe this in such a way where we can understandand we can present hard, concrete information interms that they understand so that they can begin tohave confidence in our decision-making process?’’ Westart off with goals right at the top, and then weformulate the problem; we have proposed solutions,and through these performance standards, we selectfrom the whole range of activities: projects, programs,initiatives, and strategies. We subject them toa performance review, then prioritize solutions, andidentify those that move us toward our goal. It createsa logical progression to make sense of the transportationdecision-making process.So that you do not think this is all academic, Table1 shows some of the alternatives that my board wasfaced with in the first transportation plan in whichthese measures were applied. We looked at individualcorridors in Orange County: SR-60 is an east-westroute, and SR-10 is a diagonal route through the region.There is a whole set of different modes—trucklanes, commuter rail, mixed flow, light rail. Then wehave the cost of these projects, the amount of theemissions reduced by the projects, the net presentvalue of the benefits of each of those projects and thehours of delay. Included is an indicator that we useto help people sort these out—what the value of adollar is and what the benefits are if you took a dollarand invested it. You see that we have some prettyunconventional results from this kind of analysis,where truck lanes clearly outperformed anything elsewe could do in our region. Investment in truck lanesis more beneficial than investing in light rail, buses,and so on according to these indicators.All of my myths and predilections about transpor-