ALDOT Statewide TSMO Program Plan ALDOT Statewide TSMO Program Plan 20190522REV | Page 11

3.2 OPPORTUNITY FOR IMPROVEMENT
Transportation agencies have historically focused on increasing roadway capacity through capital projects
and ongoing infrastructure maintenance. The mindset has been to build our way out of congestion; to
construct additional roads or lanes to accommodate growth. This approach is becoming more difficult as
space becomes limited in the most congested areas and costs rise as funding decreases. With limited
money to continue to build and maintain infrastructure, DOTs are turning to TSMO strategies to do more
with less.
A TSMO approach has demonstrated fruitful return on investment (ROI) via a range of different
strategies. TSMO investments offer DOTs the opportunity to realize better returns on investments than
traditional roadway investment methods, such as adding more lanes. Some of the most beneficial
strategies include coordinating our traffic signals and providing real-time traffic information. Table 1
provides some examples of benefit-to-cost ratios that have been demonstrated TSMO strategies.
TSMO Strategy
Traffic Incident Management
Safety Service Patrols
Surveillance/Detection
Traveler Information/Dynamic Message Signs
Road Weather Information Systems
Work Zone Management Systems
Ramp Metering Systems
Traffic Signal Optimization/Retiming
Traffic Adaptive Signal Control
Electronic Toll Systems
Commercial Vehicle Information Systems
Bus Rapid Transit
Transit Signal Priority
Parking Management Systems
Transit Automated Vehicle Locator/Computer-
aided Dispatch
High Occupancy Toll Facilities
Benefit-to-Cost Ratio and Other Metrics
Incident duration reduced 30-40%
2:1 to 42:1
6:1
3% decreases in crashes
2:1 to 10:1
2:1 to 42:1
15:1; up to 15% reduction in delay
17:1 to 62:1; up to 2-3% reduction in delay
Improved travel time 6-11%
2:1 to 3:1
3:1 to 5:1
2:1 to 10:1
Improved travel time 2-16%
Increase in transit mode share up to 6%
AVL improves on-time bus performance 9-58%
CAD improves on-time bus performance up to 9%
59% would pay $2 to save 20 minutes
Table 1: Impacts of Current TSMO Best Practices (US Department of Transportation, Intelligent
Transportation Systems Joint Program Office, 2009)
Alabama is dependent upon the gas tax for transportation funding. Alabama has not increased
the gas tax since 1992. Vehicles are rapidly becoming more fuel efficient. Alabamians have a
serious challenge.
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