ALDOT Statewide TSMO Program Plan ALDOT Statewide TSMO Program Plan 20190522REV | Page 44

This will require an investment of resources to develop tools to measure the performance of assets. In
some cases, crashes for example, tools are currently developed with a process for maintaining data;
however, there will still need to be consideration of how this data can be efficiently retrieved, analyzed,
and processed to guide decisions. It is recommended that tools be developed at a statewide level for the
use of regional TSMO engineers. This will promote consistency, efficiency, and quality of the data.
It is recommended that regional TSMO engineers lead an effort to develop regional performance
measurement goals within each of their regions—what are key focus areas within each region that need
to be addressed; what is the performance metric that can be considered to measure the progress against
these goals? These goals should be used to guide project development and focus investments. It is
expected that continual assessment of performance will offer insight on how best to optimize
performance; therefore, it is recommended that goals be annually reconsidered to make sure current
practices and recommendations are still relevant. It is recommended that an annual Statewide TSMO
report demonstrating program success, challenges, status, and goals for the coming year.
Benefits Analysis
It is recommended that performance measures data be used to provide
an estimate of program benefits, including sustainability. Estimation of
benefits is a powerful way to communicate the value of TSMO
strategies and deployments which are more difficult to tangibly show.
However, analysis is not an exact science, assumptions are formulated
and applied in a consistent method to most accurately anticipate what
has been or will be realized. As performance measures data accuracy
and availability increases, so does the quality of benefits estimation.
The basic methodology typically involves considering a similar
deployment or system that has a published evaluation of tested results
and scaling according to project/system specific data elements. U.S.
TOPS-BC Website from FHWA
Department of Transportation (US DOT) maintains a clearinghouse of
ITS related cost and benefits information that has been developed over
many
years
(https://www.itsbenefits.its.dot.gov/its/benecost.nsf/ByLink/BenefitsAbout).
This
clearinghouse is an extensive resource of information for ITS and TSMO strategy deployments.
Additionally, FHWA has developed the Tool for Operations Benefit Cost Analysis (TOPS-BC), which guides
the user through the estimation of benefits of a specific deployment.
Both resources provide an extensive amount of information, however, can be labor intensive to use and
dependent on data that may or may not be readily available for ALDOT users. It is recommended that
simplified benefit and sustainability resources be developed to support ALDOT TSMO reporting. In
addition, it is recommended that the resources be integrated to support the project prioritization
methodology as described on the previous page.
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