OPERATIONS AND MANAGEMENT ACTIVITIES WITHIN THE TRANSPORTATION PLANNING PROCESS

Since 1997, research staff from the U.S. Department of Transportation's John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (Volpe Center) have been working with the Federal Highway Administration's Office of Metropolitan Planning and Programs to assess how operations and management activities are incorporated into the metropolitan transportation planning process. The Volpe Center team has supplemented this work with a variety of related work that has been performed by team members and other Volpe Center staff. This research began with a review of the degree to which intelligent transportation systems (ITS) solutions are included in planning documents. Afterward, successful strategies for mainstreaming ITS into the transportation planning process at ten metropolitan areas were examined. Current work is venturing beyond the ITS programs to discover the depth and breadth of the coverage of operations and management functions in the planning process.