Chapter 5: Implementation Strategies and Recommendations

The timing of this scan is most conducive to implementing the scan results because many opportunities exist for disseminating them. For example, the scan results were reported to several AASHTO committees during 2004, including the Standing Committee on Quality in April, Standing Committees on Planning and on Highways and Traffic Safety in May, and others at the annual meeting in September. The team also planned to contact the Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations, National Association of Regional Councils, and other groups to present results at relevant meetings. Several scan team members were scheduled to make presentations at the Transportation Research Board's second national conference on performance management in August 2004.

The scan team has developed the following preliminary recommendations on further activities that should follow from the scan:

National emphasis area demonstration on safety ( FHWA. )The most integrated and impressive application of a performance measurement framework the scan team observed was in the safety area. Among the four countries, Australia demonstrated the most advanced process of understanding the problems, benchmarking against others, setting targets, identifying strategies, monitoring effects, and feeding results into future planning efforts. The scan team believes that the Australia model and the significant results achieved in the safety area are worthy of sharing and ultimately implementing in the United States. Two safety implementation strategies are recommended:

• Bring Australian safety leaders to the United States to tell their story to key groups.
• Encourage States to implement the best practices learned.

Data exchange and warehousing consortium for benchmarking ( AASHTO ).Develop an action plan to initiate a data exchange and warehousing consortium for benchmarking performance among participating States. The goal is to export State-level performance data to an external source for the purpose of comparing performance in a variety of service areas. It would also be a forum for sharing performance objectives, measures, and targets, and the rationale behind them.

Performance measure ( PM ) research.Initiate research and disseminate findings (through FHWA and AASHTO ) on several PM -related topics:

• Monetizing PM s-Initiate a study on converting measures into cost-based numbers and targets by identifying the cost and/or benefit of providing the improvement on a monetary basis.
• Interrelationship of PM s-Initiate a study on the cause-and-effect impacts between PM s that examines the correlation between improving possibly competing transportation attributes.
• Multimodal tradeoffs-Initiate a study on the interrelationship between modal PM s. The study would expand on the "interrelationship" issue to include tradeoffs between modes.
• Outcome/output empirical relationships-Initiate a study on translating output indicators to outcome consequences. Since output PM s tend to be more quantitative (versus a more subjective outcome), the tendency is to gravitate toward them. Most times, however, the service improvement is difficult to recognize. This area of study would identify the relationship between one or more output PM s and relate them to a desired outcome target.

Training( National Highway Institute) or guidance papers( AASHTO ).Develop performance measurement courses and instruction aimed at executive and mid level leadership. Topics could include the following:

• Development and use of performance measures
• Outsourcing of products and services
• Best practices
• Before-and-after analysis of implemented actions and their relationship to performance measurement
• Relationship between the practices of asset management (self-assessment tool) and performance measurement

Stand-alone overview document on the scan team's findingsrelated to congestion and reliability performance measures. Develop a resource document on international and domestic practices on measuring congestion and reliability. Related publications could include an abbreviated pamphlet for distribution at conferences and meetings.

Conferences or meetings. Plan, develop, and implement conferences or meetings specifically oriented to presenting the scan findings and recommendations to transportation professionals, State commissioners and DOT senior staff, top representatives of USDOT, State governors, local mayors and other officials, and members of Congress and their staffs. The purpose of these meetings would be to increase awareness of performance measures (how and where transportation agencies use them) and present the findings, lessons learned, and recommendations of the performance measures scan.

Technical guidance. Develop and distribute through AASHTO, FHWA, and other stakeholder organizations guidance on various secondary PM topics:

• Auditable PM s-Provide PM design and tracking methodology for developing verifiable measure numbers and associated impacts.
• Before-and-after analysis-Prepare best-practice materials on this type of analysis. This would be on implemented actions and their relationship to performance measurement improvement.

Presentations of findings from the scan at appropriate regional and national meetings and conferences throughout the United States over the next year. Candidate venues include AASHTO annual, committee, subcommittee, task force, and regional organization meetings; Transportation Research Board annual and committee meetings; and meetings of organizations such as the Institute of Transportation Engineers, Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations, and International Bridge, Tunnel, and Turnpike Association. Develop a core presentation and a frequently asked questions sheet that could be customized, depending on the venue. Initial versions of this material have been produced for use by team members. Team members would make the presentations, starting with those who would normally be at the meetings to minimize costs.

Web-based distribution of materials.Investigate and select a logical Web-based home for the materials emanating from the scan, including reports, presentations, and implementation actions. Options include AASHTO, FHWA, or a university. Request links to the site on home pages of a number of organizations and launch the site with a notification posted on these home pages. Disseminate scan findings and recommendations via various organizations' Web sites. Develop information packets, sample Web pages, and use guidelines.

Follow-up review on the sustainability concept. New Zealand is attempting to incorporate sustainability into transportation decision-making. At the time of the scan, the national transport agency was six months away from proposing how it would incorporate sustainability goals into its performance measurement system. The team recommends that a Transit New Zealand representative be invited to visit the United States after implementation to discuss the topic.