Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
2. Provide feedback to SHRP 2 on the applicability and usefulness (benefits and value) of the products tested. Suggest potential refinements [to the products tested]. Pilot testing under the L38 project occurred at four separate sites in Florida, Minnesota, Washington State, and Southern California. This report describes the approach and findings from the Southern California pilot site. Pilot testing at the other three sites was conducted by different study teams under separate contracts. Southern California Pilot Site The Southern California pilot site is one of the most congested regions in the United States. The Texas Transportation Institute 2012 Urban Mobility Report ranks the Los Angeles-Long Beach- Santa Ana urban area second only to the Washington, D.C., metro area in terms of yearly delay per auto commuter (Texas Transportation Institute 2012). The pilot testing in Southern California was a team effort involving consultants, staff at the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), and input from the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans). Both SCAG and Caltrans are already actively involved in analyzing travel time reliability. SCAG has a long history of performance-based transportation planning and recognizes the importance of operational strategies. In April 2012, the SCAG Regional Council unanimously adopted the current Regional Transportation Plan/Sustainable Communities Strategy (RTP/SCS), which includes a specific reliability goal (SCAG 2012). The RTP/SCS also provides a high-level evaluation of reliability impacts based on work done for Corridor System Management Plans (CSMPs) in Southern California. Caltrans is committed to system management and has formally embraced what it terms the âMobility Pyramid,â which focuses on the importance of operational strategies (Figure ES.1). As a champion of system management, Caltrans is interested in research that furthers its commitment to funding operational strategies, especially given its role in improving interregional mobility. Management in Caltrans District 12 (Orange County) would like an expansion of the work performed as part of the pilot studies to better identify the causes and impacts of congestion at a corridor level, so they can develop mitigation strategies to address reliability. 2
Figure ES.1. Caltrans Mobility Pyramid. By engaging advanced users, the Southern California pilot site tested two aspects of the SHRP 2 products without the need to introduce the travel time reliability concept: ⢠Technical functionality: How easy are the products to use? How consistent are they with each other and to prior work? ⢠Practical use: Do they help Southern California select and prioritize projects? Do decision makers understand the reliability analyses and find the results credible? The Southern California pilot site also benefitted from the extensive automated detection and performance measurement available in the Caltrans Performance Measurement System (PeMS). This is an Internet-based tool that allows the extraction of real-time and historical performance data collected through automated roadway sensors, such as loop detectors (Figure ES.2). 3
