Transportation Performance Management Insight From Practitioners PDF Download

TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) has released a pre-publication version of NCHRP Research Report 920: Management and Use of Data for Transportation Performance Management: Guide for Practitioners that provides practical guidance to transportation agencies to help improve their use of data for performance management. Recent federal legislation has established requirements for agencies to set performance targets and report on safety, pavement and bridge conditions, transit asset state of good repair, system performance, freight, and mobile source emissions. These requirements have resulted in increased visibility and attention to Transportation Performance Management (TPM) and increased awareness of the importance of data within that process. Transportation agencies are recognizing that the value of performance management goes far beyond meeting federal requirements; NCHRP Report 920 will assist agencies to make visible progress in meeting their objectives. The guidance is organized around six data life-cycle stages and includes a discussion of what is involved in implementing each step and some of the critical choices to be made; a synthesis of key points in the form of "Dos and Don'ts" checklists that can be used to assess agency capabilities and identify opportunities for improvement; and illustrative examples. While this guide draws on many examples related to the federally defined TPM areas (safety, pavement, bridge, and system performance), it does not provide official guidance for MAP-21/FAST Act target setting or reporting. It provides a framework for assessing current data management practices and a source of ideas for practice improvement. Its purpose is to promote practices that will enable agencies to go beyond meeting reporting requirements, to get valuable insights from data that can be used to boost agency results.