18-02 — Leading Practices in Modifying Agency Organization And Management To Accommodate Changing Transportation System Technologies

Original Scope: From the perspective of state departments of transportation (DOTs) and other public sector organizations responsible for development and management of surface transportation systems, transportation systems technologies refers broadly to operating procedures, procurement methods, and information management, as well as a wide range of hardware, materials, and software. Many of these technologies have been evolving rapidly and some are motivating change in DOT organization and management practices. Some agencies have found, for example, that effective implementation of Transportation Systems Management and Operations (TSMO) strategies requires significantly enhanced communication and coordination among operations, maintenance, and engineering staff. Others are finding that increased availability and reliability of information about roadway and traffic conditions offer opportunities for improving safety and travel times but require changes in their traffic incident management and road-weather management practices. Many observers expect that introduction of connected and automated vehicles (CAV) will continue to motivate organizational and management change.

The scan will investigate how DOTs are changing their organizations, institutional arrangements, and management practices to improve transportation system performance through adoption of new technologies. A diverse scan team—drawn from maintenance, operations, and traffic engineering—will be tasked to review the experience of DOTs or other agencies that have been notably successful in their adoption of new technologies for integrated corridor management, traffic incident management, and road-weather management, to explore the institutional and management changes credited for the success and to extract lessons that can inform other agencies’ development.

Implementation and Impact

Following the scan workshop in August 2019, the scan team worked at the state, regional, and national levels to advance scan findings. Highlights of these activities include:

At the state level, scan findings were presented to the Region 4 Management Team and the Connected and Automated Vehicle Steering Team of the Oregon DOT.  

At the regional and national levels, the scan team presented the scan outcomes to the TRB’s Transportation Asset Management Committee and Maintenance and Operations Management Committee; AASHTO’s Committees on Performance Management and Transportation System Operations; as well as the National Center for Pavement Preservation’s Expert Task Group.

TRB hosted a webinar based on the outcomes of this scan entitled, Changing Transportation System Technologies. This webinar was moderated by, and featured speakers, from the scan team. The webinar explored the institutional and management changes credited for the agencies’ successes. They also discussed new technologies successfully adopted for integrated corridor management, traffic incident management, and road-weather management. The presenters shared lessons learned to inform other agencies about the process.

The National Operational Center for Excellence has acknowledged the importance of this scan and published it as a State-of-the-Practice resource on their website.

Scan chair, Michael Lewis, provided perspectives on the scan outcomes on the final day of the scan:

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