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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Principles." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2014. A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22338.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Principles." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2014. A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22338.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Principles." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2014. A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22338.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Principles." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2014. A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22338.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Principles." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2014. A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22338.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Principles." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2014. A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22338.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Principles." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2014. A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22338.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Principles." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2014. A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22338.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Principles." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2014. A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22338.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Principles." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2014. A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22338.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Principles." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2014. A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22338.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Principles." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2014. A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22338.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Principles." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2014. A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22338.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Principles." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2014. A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22338.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Principles." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2014. A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22338.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Principles." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2014. A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22338.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Principles." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2014. A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22338.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Principles." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2014. A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22338.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Principles." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2014. A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22338.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Principles." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2014. A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22338.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Principles." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2014. A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22338.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Principles." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2014. A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22338.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Principles." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2014. A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22338.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Principles." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2014. A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22338.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Principles." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2014. A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22338.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Principles." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2014. A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22338.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Principles." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2014. A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22338.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Principles." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2014. A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22338.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Principles." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2014. A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22338.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Principles." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2014. A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22338.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Principles." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2014. A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22338.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Principles." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2014. A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22338.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Principles." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2014. A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22338.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Principles." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2014. A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22338.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Principles." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2014. A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22338.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Principles." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2014. A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22338.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Principles." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2014. A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22338.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Principles." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2014. A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22338.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Principles." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2014. A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22338.
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Suggested Citation:"Section 2 - Principles." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2014. A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/22338.
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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.

S e c t i o n 2 Principles

17 Comprehensive regional transportation planning for disasters, emergencies, and significant events is a process by which a region sets forth a vision, goals, and objectives across multiple jurisdictions, stakeholders, modes, and communities to prepare for, respond to, and mitigate against such events. Comprehensive regional transportation planning is all-inclusive geographically and func- tionally and considers all types of disasters, emergencies, and significant events that could occur in the area covered by the plan. It covers broad categories and seeks coordination “with the needs of all levels of governments, semipublic and private agencies and the citizens . . .” (Portland 2011). Effective comprehensive planning establishes and maintains a continuous, effective, and iterative process that integrates transportation and emergency planning considerations into their respective partner’s planning cycle. Characteristics of Comprehensive Planning At a fundamental level, comprehensive planning includes all modes; considers the abilities and needs of all travelers; collaborates with all involved stakeholders; and takes into account the range of potential events, threats, and conditions that may occur at various scales. Comprehensive plan- ning encompasses short-range response actions and longer-range projects and actions that can mitigate the most severe consequences and enable a faster recovery. A solid comprehensive plan sets parameters for the general policy that governs the more detailed, specific plans. Strategies In both planning and operations, situational awareness is a key to successful outcomes. This awareness includes assessing the transit and transportation infrastructure and systems, critical systems, existing security and emergency management features, and interdependencies with utilities and other systems. The following strategies can help planners develop comprehensive regional transportation planning: • Assess the multijurisdictional transportation situation. – Where are people working, living, visiting, or recreating? – Where and how are people moving in and through the region? – Where are goods located and where are they moving in and through the region? – How do surface, air, and water transportation systems support and integrate with one another? – What is and is not included in the inventory of transportation infrastructure and assets for all modes of travel? – Who are the key stakeholders, including leadership and staff within regional transporta- tion, emergency management, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), private industry, elected officials, and the local citizenry? P R I N C I P L E 1 Comprehensive

18 A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events – What land uses are currently located in the most high-risk areas in the multijurisdictional area; and what measures are in place to protect them, to encourage them to relocate, or to discourage further development? What are the possible stresses on transportation infra- structure and resources in an emergency? • Consider the interdependencies, priorities, and contingency plans that are needed when multiple systems fail simultaneously. – Identify, chart, and map interdependencies between power, communication, highway and transit systems, and other transportation infrastructure. – Develop an action strategy. 77 Will this information change utility company priorities for restoration of power, or trans- portation priorities for opening roads in an emergency event? 77 Will this information lead to new priorities for infrastructure investment or retrofits to protect critical assets? 77 Will it lead to mitigation efforts such as zoning or other restrictions on new development or on rebuilding after a disaster (e.g., in a flood plain or in an area subject to wildfires or landslides)? Tohoku Earthquake Example The March 11, 2011 Tohoku earthquake, resulting tsunami, and subsequent nuclear disaster in Japan were an example of what can happen when multiple “failsafe” systems fail. More recently, in 2012 Hurricane Sandy demonstrated the fragility and interdependence of power, communication, highway, and transit systems. When tunnels flooded, both communications and transportation were shut down or severely limited. Flooding also severely damaged or destroyed power infrastructure such as substations and generators. Principles • Comprehensive • Cooperative • Informative • Coordinated • Inclusive • Exercised • Flexible • Continuous/ Iterative

Comprehensive 19 • Evaluate the hazards and risks pertinent to the region, even those that may be relatively rare but still pose a risk. – Review the list of hazards with planning partners. – Ensure coordination and collaboration with private-sector partners that can aid in assess- ing and mitigating risks and hazards. – Update hazard assessments to account for ongoing changes in 77 Land use (new houses or businesses developed in flood plains or wildfire threat areas, threatened uses in land areas removed from danger); 77 Climate (rising sea levels, drought, greater flood risk or weather volatility); and 77 Risk, such as the addition or removal of chemical plants, power plants, pipelines, hazardous materials carried on rail lines or trucks, and similar factors. – Use hazard and risk assessments to inform decisions about priorities, programs, and funding to reduce risks. – Invest in mitigation measures for risks that are geographically predictable, such as reinforcing or otherwise protecting a bridge or tunnel subject to earthquake; and – Develop preventive and reactive strategies to deal with non-geographically specific threats, such as a hazardous spill or explosion. Tools The following tools, which are detailed in Section 4, can help planners incorporate some of the strategies that have been discussed in this section: • Tool 1: Checklist of Potential Stakeholders • Tool 2: Checklist of Potential Transportation Assets (High Level) • Tool 3: Transportation Resources (Detailed Checklist) • Tool 4: Sample Transportation Security and Hazard Mitigation Strategies for Various Project Modes and Types • Tool 5: Checklist for Emergency Events Affecting Multiple Jurisdictions, Transportation, and Interdependencies • Tool 6: Key Steps to Effective Collaboration • Tool 7: Questions for Collaborative Partners and Other Stakeholders to Ask Each Other • Tool 8: Strategies to Exercise a Regional Transportation Plan for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events Tips • Any hazard assessment tool is no replacement for serious, in-depth conversations and inves- tigations among multijurisdictional stakeholders. These conversations and investigations can provide surprising and very important information; for example, a nuclear power plant operator reported that losing access to diesel fuel would critically impact its operations given the plant’s limited fuel storage and constant need. Similarly, water supply plants may need near-constant renewal of chlorine or other chemicals. Manufacturing plants that provide critically needed supplies likely rely on just-in-time delivery; if even one or two elements are disrupted by a major event, ripple effects will be felt, as was noted after the 2011 Tohoku earthquake (Carafano 2011). • Regional transportation assets must be inventoried. The numbers and relative importance of each type of infrastructure will vary for each region. In 2003, Homeland Security Pres- idential Directive-7 (HSPD-7) established a national policy for federal departments and agencies to identify and prioritize U.S. critical infrastructure and key resources and to pro- tect them from terrorist attack. HSPD-7 identified 17 critical infrastructure sectors that

20 A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events require protective actions to prepare for, protect against, or mitigate a terrorist attack or other hazard (National Infrastructure Protection Plan [NIPP] website 2012). Transporta- tion is one of those critical infrastructure sectors. Tool 2 in Section 4 provides a high-level overview of critical transportation infrastructure that can be useful to taking inventory of transportation assets. • FEMA’s Full-Risk System Knowledgebase provides a starting point for reviewing different types of risks and hazards and interdependencies (such as those between transportation and various utilities) and assessing consequences and mitigation approaches. Examples • Adams County, Colorado, is currently incorporating hazard identification, the county’s land use plan, and their transportation plan into one document. The county is attempt- ing to develop policies and goals that help bring these three areas together. For example, a policy might be to prohibit development and road construction in an area known to have a high flood risk. As another example, they might have land use restrictions for locating non- natural hazards. The document generated by this new effort will be used by public works and planning officials. • On the West Coast, the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART) can now automatically brake its trains when earthquakes threaten the region, allowing time for trains to slow down before the ground starts to shake (Passenger Transport 2012). BART worked with seismologists from the University of California, Berkeley, to activate this early warning system. BART is also retrofitting the BART Transbay Tube and elevated BART track struc- tures for seismic safety as part of the Multijurisdictional Local Hazard Mitigation Plan for the San Francisco Bay area. This regional effort has been led by the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG). • The Washington State Department of Transportation (Washington State DOT) has incorporated security and emergency mitigation into recent mega-projects. These mea- sures include seismic retrofits for bridges and tunnels that also improve stand-off distances for possible explosions. Other measures include security cameras and intrusion detection devices for hatches and other entrances. This has been achieved through the determination and persistence of DOT personnel with security and emergency planning expertise. Case Studies The following excerpts from the case studies in Section 3 provide more detailed examples of current comprehensive regional planning initiatives. See the full case studies for more information. • Case Study 1: Pacific Northwest Economic Region (PNWER) and the Center for Regional Disaster Resilience (RDR). Established as a nonprofit agency in 1991, PNWER fosters cross- border economic coordination in the Pacific Northwest with public-sector and private-sector partners. The RDR was established by the PNWER in 2000. RDR working groups plan and conduct private-sector-driven exercises that do not end with the exercise, but rather lead to a Regional Action Plan with identified projects and actions. Action plans include: inter- dependencies, coordination, roles and responsibilities, response, critical resource logistics and distribution, information sharing, economic continuity and recovery, public information, and training and education. • Case Study 3: All Hazards Consortium (AHC). AHC is a nonprofit organization guided by states in the eastern United States to facilitate multi-state collaboration efforts. The

Comprehensive 21 multi-stakeholder focus of the consortium has yielded effective working relationships and strengthened emergency readiness and response capabilities between government, transpor- tation entities, and the private sector, as demonstrated with Hurricane Sandy. • Case Study 5: The Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG). ABAG led and coordi- nated the development of the Multijurisdictional Local Hazard Mitigation Plan (MJ-LHMP) for the San Francisco Bay area. The plan includes extensive discussion and diagrams describ- ing the interconnectivity among utilities, transportation, and communications. The plan is comprehensive, also covering health risks, such as a pandemic, which is typically under the purview of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Evaluating and Managing Risk The 2010 Transportation Systems Sector-Specific Plan (SSP) is an annex to the National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP). The SSP is the strategic plan for fulfilling the requirements of Homeland Security Presidential Directive 7 (HSPD-7): Critical Infrastructure Identification, Prioritization, and Protection and other requirements. The SSP describes a process to encourage wider participation in risk reduction decision-making activities and build a set of programs and initiatives that reduce the most significant risks to the transportation sector. This illustration from the SSP shows a framework for managing sector risk. Chapters 2 through 6 of the SSP describe the framework. Source: NIPP-TSSP The Transportation Systems Sector Risk Management Framework.

22 Shared Responsibility “Effective response to an incident is a shared responsibil- ity of governments at all levels, the private sector, and NGOs, and indi- vidual citizens.” —National Response Frame- work 2012 Cooperation is the act of working with others voluntarily to obtain a mutual benefit. It requires multi-stakeholder decision making and interaction over the long term (Lanka, Wiek, and Ries 2009). Cooperation among regional stakeholders is key to promoting and enhancing regional resilience and protection, as emphasized by the Regional Consortium Coordinating Council (RCCC) study with the Department of Homeland Security Office of Infrastructure (RCCC 2011). Cooperation and collaboration both undergird the entire transportation plan- ning process, creating a foundation for structure, resources, and operations, and serving as a means to achieve shared goals. For disasters and emergencies, cooperation requires individual authorities and organizations to look beyond their own needs for safety and security. They must work as a team with their counterparts in other jurisdictions to ensure that disaster workers, equipment, and supplies can reach the incident site rapidly and quickly restore transportation services and systems within the region to normal operations. Advance, cooperative planning can make a difference in suc- cessful outcomes when emergency events quickly overwhelm the emergency management and transportation resources of a single local jurisdiction or even multiple adjacent jurisdictions. Characteristics of Cooperative Planning Cooperation depends on building relationships, and the communication needed to estab- lish and sustain those relationships ranges from less formal communication to more formal and interdependent communication (as might be seen with intergovernmental relationships). Successful cooperative planning relationships often develop from ongoing collaboration that incorporates the full range from informal to formal communication. Cooperation builds partnerships among various transportation modes and systems, utilities, public and private stakeholders, layers of governments within the region, and interdependent internal and external communications systems. It requires planning partners to share informa- tion, identify interdependencies, train together, and incorporate regional emergency response and recovery planning and operations into their individual strategies (RCCC 2011). Partners in the emergency transportation planning process can include • Federal, state, regional, Tribal, and local agencies • School districts • Private-sector businesses • NGOs, nonprofits, and other community and faith-based organizations that provide services to vulnerable populations • Members of the general public P R I N C I P L E 2 Cooperative

Cooperative 23 Principles • Comprehensive • Cooperative • Informative • Coordinated • Inclusive • Exercised • Flexible • Continuous/ Iterative Cooperation Provides a Framework Cooperation provides “a frame- work to exchange ideas and best prac- tices; facilitate plan- ning and allocation of resources; estab- lish effective coor- dinating structures among partners; enhance coordi- nation with the international com- munity; and build public awareness.” —NIPP 2009. These partnerships continue through development and analysis of plans, policy and decision making, implementation and operations, and recovery and restoration. Strategies Identifying and responding to a shared and compelling transportation need that transcends jurisdictional boundaries can be best addressed through regional collaboration. Strategies to build and enhance cooperation in regional transportation planning for disasters, emergencies, and significant events include the following: • Identify the common issues or needs that are perceived to be mutual problems and opportunities. • Build a case for a joint solution to a common problem. How will this make the job easier? How can cooperation minimize problems and expenses, or leverage support for a mutually beneficial investment? • Name the benefits of cooperation, such as improved response, resilience, and enhanced regional and national safety, security, and preparedness. • Identify existing networks or groups within the region that are already engaged in transpor- tation planning and could be broadened for emergency planning. • Build and maintain relationships with key stakeholders. • Identify complementary roles, responsibilities, and functions between regional transporta- tion and emergency management plans and operations (see Table 1 and Figure 1). • Integrate private, business, and community resources into plans and operations. • Discuss planning partners’ goals and objectives, and determine how they relate to one another (see Tool 7 in Section 4 for questions that can guide these discussions). • Form workgroups to address specific areas of response and recovery.

24 A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events Tools The following tools, which are detailed in Section 4, support cooperative planning efforts: • Tool 1: Checklist of Potential Stakeholders • Tool 4: Sample Transportation Security and Hazard Mitigation Strategies for Various Project Modes and Types • Tool 6: Key Steps to Effective Collaboration • Tool 7: Questions for Collaborative Partners and Other Stakeholders to Ask Each Other • Tool 8: Strategies to Exercise a Regional Transportation Plan for Disasters, Emergencies and Significant Events Tips • Some communities, particularly in metropolitan areas, have well-established interagency partnerships to plan for regional transportation needs and emergency response and recovery. In some cases, long-range transportation plans (LRTPs) call for cooperation with emer- gency management in addressing security needs of the transportation system. One common approach to cooperative planning is working through the metropolitan planning organi- zation (MPO), council of governments (COG), or rural planning organization (RPO) to develop an emergency transportation planning process that includes both transportation and emergency management. • Establishing sound working relationships and plans also pays off in day-to-day operations, in planning for large special events, and in ensuring that major transportation programs and projects incorporate appropriate security and hazard mitigation features. Examples • The Louisiana Business Emergency Operations Center (LA BEOC) was established through a partnership among the Louisiana Economic Development Agency, Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (GOHSEP), Louisiana State University’s Stephenson Disaster Management Institute and the National Incident Management Systems and Advanced Technologies Institute at University of Louisiana at Lafayette. The LA BEOC includes up to 40 representatives from the business community, industry trade associations, universities, volunteer organizations, and state government. • The LA BEOC is virtually connected to the state’s emergency operations center (EOC) and can efficiently and economically access private-sector resources and the critical infrastructures that support their supply chains and assist in matching volunteer and nonprofit needs with donations made by the private sector. • The LA BEOC was activated during responses to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 and Mississippi River flooding in 2011 to provide economic impact analysis and manage offers, vendor proposals, and response suggestions from the private sector. The LA BEOC also helped create technical interfaces with Deepwater Horizon responders and coordinated the scientific review panel to review proposed technical solutions. FEMA has recognized the LA BEOC as a collaborative model for public-private partnership. • The Houston–Galveston Area Council (HGAC) has a cooperative planning process for regional emergency management. The HGAC has a working committee that includes trans- portation entities, representatives from emergency management offices in Galveston and Houston, and representatives from various counties, mayors’ offices, city of Galveston agen- cies, the Houston transit agency (METRO), housing authorities, and school districts. The

Cooperative 25 committee meets regularly to brainstorm issues around disaster response and recovery. Dur- ing Hurricane Ike in 2008, the HGAC assisted with contraflow, collaborating with sheriffs’ departments, state police, and counties in the region. • When planning and conducting full-scale exercises, the Houston METRO also works with individuals with disabilities and their advocacy organizations. Through this type of plan- ning, specific needs have been recognized, such as time required to load buses and to accom- modate various support equipment. • In some regions, an agency other than the MPO assumes leadership for long-range emer- gency hazard mitigation planning for transportation and other critical infrastructure. In the San Francisco Bay area, for example, ABAG is primarily responsible for coordinated land use planning, but also has taken ownership of mitigation planning. ABAG works closely with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), the designated MPO for the area. • Some regions have established dedicated nonprofit organizations to maintain collaboration among public-sector and private-sector agencies, including public and private transpor- tation, utilities, and multiple levels of government. Examples include the PNWER (and RDR), encompassing British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, the Yukon, the Northwest Territories, Alaska, Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Oregon, and the AHC, encompass- ing North Carolina, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York State, along with the urban areas of New York City, Newark, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the National Capital Region surrounding Washington D.C. For more information about these nonprofit organizations, see Section 3. • Federal transportation legislation, such as ISTEA, TEA-21, SAFETEA-LU, and MAP-21, provided the impetus for states and agencies to come together to study and solve com- mon problems through multi-state transportation operation programs (MSTOPs). One of the earliest MSTOPs is the Transportation Operations Coordinating Committee (TRANSCOM), created in 1986 for a regional collaborative approach to transportation management. TRANSCOM is an independent, nonprofit legal entity set up as a technical services group to monitor construction activity and management and disseminate informa- tion about incidents in the New York City area. Case Studies The following excerpts from the case studies in Section 3 provide examples of cooperative planning efforts. See the full case studies for more information. • Case Study 3: All Hazards Consortium (AHC). After Hurricane Sandy, convoys of utility trucks and response vehicles encountered bottlenecks at tolling stations around the region. The AHC, through its established network of private-sector utility partners and government agencies, was able to obtain quick and widespread agreement on a workaround for expedited passage for relief vehicles to eliminate the bottlenecks. • Case Study 4: Southwest Missouri Council of Governments (SMCOG). SMCOG provides planning services to 10 counties, most rural, in and around Springfield, Missouri. SMCOG serves as a convener for regional matters extending well beyond traditional transportation planning; e.g., the state emergency management agency (SEMA) relies on SMCOG to help local jurisdictions develop county-wide multijurisdictional, multi-hazard mitigation plans. SMCOG also works with rural cooperatives on developing local hazard mitigation plans. In 2003, the Missouri Department of Transportation (Missouri DOT) initiated a new planning framework to expand public participation in planning the future transportation network

26 A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events in the state using collaborations with local officials around the state, including SMCOG, to determine regional priorities for transportation. • Case Study 8: Hurricane Sandy. The New York Metropolitan Transit Commission (NYMTC) has partnered with the FHWA, the North New Jersey Transportation Planning Authority, the South Western Regional Planning Agency, and the Greater Bridgeport Regional Council along with the New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey DOTs on a project to assess the effects of Hurricane Sandy and other past weather events and to analyze adaptation strategies for critical infrastructure. The study area will consist of the planning areas of the partner MPOs. The project will assess the vulnerability of transportation assets to the impacts of extreme weather and the possible future impacts of climate change, and it will identify adaptation strategies to increase resilience of the regional transportation system.

27 Effective and informed communications are essential in carrying out each of the other prin- ciples in regional transportation planning for disasters, emergencies, and significant events. Informative communication implies accurate, timely messages dispersed, received, and under- stood across multiple channels and media. Information flows in multiple directions: back and forth between parties; up and down levels of governments, agencies, organizations and chains of command; and across boundaries of jurisdictions and public, private, and nonprofit sector partners, and the general public. Characteristics of Informative Planning Effective informative planning ensures that people who are working together on plans understand each other’s needs, expectations, and available resources. Effective two-way and multi-stakeholder communication during planning stages brings new ideas, perspectives, and information to the process. It illuminates additional community strengths and resources and unforeseen or underestimated risks, hazards, and vulnerabilities. Before, during, and after an event, informative messages also let the public know where to go to access help, water, food, or fuel; connect with family and friends; and begin the process of rebuilding their communities. After an event, timely information helps direct recovery efforts and resources to the most needed places, and helps reduce or eliminate bottlenecks that disrupt the flow of recovery resources to the region. Strategies Addressing the following facets of communication is critical to implementing effective, informative communications in emergencies, disasters, and significant events: • Regional transportation communications • Situational awareness • External communications to the public, including people with access and functional needs Regional Transportation Strategies to improve regional transportation communications include the following: • Identify information resources used by transportation, emergency management, and other responders for delivering critical and routine messages. • Determine interoperability of communications systems and channels among planning part- ners, particularly those outside the emergency response sector. P R I N C I P L E 3 Informative

28 A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events • Determine the robustness and redundancies of information exchange. • Develop contingencies for alternate information sharing resources during a massive com- munications outage. Situational Awareness Situational awareness is knowing and understanding what is happening and predicting how it might change with time. As was discussed under the comprehensive principle, situational aware- ness in both planning and operations can be improved by using the following strategies: • Assess transit and transportation infrastructure and other critical systems and possible stresses. • Know existing security and emergency management features. San Francisco Area MTC An example of situational awareness in planning comes from the San Francisco Area MTC, an operating agency and a planning and coordination agency. The MTC operates the 511 call service, providing multimodal transportation informa- tion that includes bike information, traffic information, and more. Together with the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) and the California High- way Patrol, MTC operates the phone center and freeway service response center. Under the Regional Transportation Emergency Management Plan (RTEMP), MTC serves as a public information clearinghouse during a disaster. This role gives MTC a good perspective on emergency preparedness issues related to transportation operations, which feeds back into transportation planning. Principles • Comprehensive • Cooperative • Informative • Coordinated • Inclusive • Exercised • Flexible • Continuous/ Iterative

Informative 29 • Understand the interdependencies between transportation, utilities, communications, and other systems and priorities for restoration of services. • Additional strategies for situational awareness include the following: – Identify mechanisms for regular data collection and exchanges with stakeholders about essential services. – Know how people and goods are moving in and through the region and potential impacts. Tools for establishing situational awareness can include flow maps for traffic capacity and time; GIS maps; laser imaging and radar mapping (Lidar) systems; traffic management centers; secu- rity cameras for critical infrastructure; and others. See Tool 3 in Section 4 for more information. External Communication The following strategies can improve external communication planning and implementation: • Establish and practice multijurisdictional coordination in messages and information sharing. In advance, determine the types of messages that should be consistent across the region and how multijurisdictional message coordination will take place horizontally and vertically. • To guide information sharing, address such questions as “How will information coming from the public be monitored and acted on?” and “If social media are being used, how will the streams of information coming from many individuals and locations be monitored and acted on?” • Identify available methods or channels of public outreach within the region, such as televi- sion, radio, websites, social media, text alerts, phone alerts, sirens, bullhorns, door-to-door alerts, paper flyers, and newspapers. • Establish and publicize backup methods for communications in case of loss of power or networks, deciding in advance what to do if cell towers are down, communications lines are knocked out, and electrical power is out for an extended period. • Determine how external messaging will be coordinated horizontally and vertically. • Establish a communication network for disseminating routine and critical information about access to transportation for people with access and functional needs and carless popu- lations (TCRP Report 150 outlines how to establish a communication network). Tools The following tools, which are detailed in Section 4, can be used to identify planning part- ners and resources needed to achieve informative planning: • Tool 1: Checklist of Potential Stakeholders • Tool 2: Checklist of Potential Transportation Assets (High Level) • Tool 3: Transportation Resources (Detailed Checklist) • Tool 4: Sample Transportation Security and Hazard Mitigation Strategies for Various Project Modes and Types Tips • Many agencies have found that the information and data sharing for a planned significant event can be used to help prepare for a disaster. For example, procedures and protocols for inter- operable communications across jurisdictions and across agencies can be tested and practiced for a significant planned event, such as a large Fourth of July celebration or a major sporting event or concert. Likewise, various means of communicating with the public, such as variable message signs, public alerts, and text or email alerts, can also be tested to evaluate their effectiveness.

30 A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events • For both planning and events, bringing media in early is important because the media have a different and unique perspective on the region. The news goes on all the time—will trans- portation and emergency management be there to shape the story or not? Listen to media representatives to understand their approach. Share information and always follow through in order to build good working relationships with the media. To get over the fear of working with the media, it is helpful to go to basic and advanced media training to learn the language, what drives the media, how to develop messages, and how to respond during an emergency or other significant event. Examples • Informative regional transportation communication typically builds from a platform of routine communications that also support emergency operations. The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (MWCOG) implemented the Metropolitan Area Transportation Operations Coordination (MATOC) program. For many years, MATOC has provided situational awareness for the public and agencies, coordinating and dis- seminating information from and among transportation and transit agencies in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia for the National Capital Region (NCR). MATOC was modeled on TRANSCOM, the longstanding MSTOP in the greater New York area. In turn, MATOC provided the impetus for the Regional Integrated Transportation Information Sys- tem (RITIS) profiled in Case Study 9. • The Michigan DOT is responsible for numerous international crossing points between Canada and the United States. In addition to tourist and commuter traffic, many of these locations also serve as vital links for commercial shipping traffic, particularly traffic associ- ated with the automotive industry that closely links both countries. Accordingly, the Michi- gan DOT maintains close relationships with transportation officials in Ontario, Canada, mostly related to bridges and tunnels in the state. These long-term relationships spread to states that share borders with Michigan. When major snowstorms have affected areas of Ontario and closed freeways in Canada, Michigan DOT officials have changed information on variable message signs throughout the state and, in particular, near Interstate crossings into Michigan from the border states of Ohio, Indiana, and Wisconsin to inform automobile and commercial traffic of these border link closures and suggest alternative routing. • Hurricane Sandy highlighted the need for cross-agency coordination and regular information sharing and data exchanges between New York City and relevant agencies to drive allocation and distribution of emergency resources. After the hurricane, the ability to collect and syn- thesize accurate data was critical to addressing the city’s most urgent needs, such as power, water, fuel (e.g., fuel availability in a gas station with access to power), and communications. Following Hurricane Sandy, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg created an Office of Data Analytics and appointed a chief data analytics officer to improve the city’s collection and synthesis of data on the city’s essential services. Engagement with private and utility sectors— power, gas, telecommunications, and others—also is an important part of this effort. • The Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities (Alaska DOT) developed a Field Operation Guide specifically for its transportation divisions that includes information about responding to various types of incidents, such as earthquakes and floods. For example, a 5.2 earthquake triggers operations and maintenance officials to assess effects on infrastruc- ture. The Field Operation Guide addresses how to assess post-disaster impact. This multi- faceted document includes a small, removable pocket guide with checklists about what to do in different emergencies/disasters. In the back of the Alaska guide is a CD-ROM with Incident Command System (ICS) forms and an electronic version of the guide and other resources. The CD-ROM also has various emergency

Informative 31 plans shared by other agencies and references to other plans. The Alaska DOT also manages an internal website with 10 training modules that accompany the guide. The Field Operations Guide addresses the National Response Framework (NRF) under continuity of government planning and deals with resilience in how to keep transportation going and infrastructure working. Communicating Informatively with Diverse Populations in Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events: Lessons Learned In Kentucky, public health has led the way in outreach to vulnerable and at-risk populations for both routine and crisis communications. One of the best exam- ples comes from the Northern Kentucky Health Department. This department established a regional version of the statewide Kentucky Outreach and Informa- tion Network (KOIN), recognized nationally as a model program. Like its parent network, the Northern Kentucky KOIN is a network of local agencies, community organizations, and other groups who have volunteered to be conduits of infor- mation about public health impacts from disasters and emergencies. Through the KOIN, the health department holds train-the-trainer sessions for the people it serves. For example, the health department conducted shelter-in-place train- ings to give volunteers additional information to pass along about where to get immunizations, hygiene measures, and other information. The KOIN is also helpful in addressing bigger problems. Volunteers are asked to keep the health department informed about population changes that will have an impact on planning and response. If a client group depends on oxygen tanks and there is a power outage, the health department knows where those people are located and can plan/respond to those needs. The KOIN has also been effec- tive in delivering crucial messages during ice storms, hurricanes, and disease out- breaks throughout the commonwealth. The health department uses some GIS data and census data, but also relies on people, such as emergency managers and medical providers, to gather popula- tion data. The health department looks for ways to incorporate that data into a better resource and plans to build its own database because the tools available do not fit its needs. It is also finding better ways to acquire information such as how many people are on prescription medications and other personal medical information. Emergency managers and transportation managers and planners may find that many of the important connections they need for informative planning are already available through a partner agency. Case Studies The following excerpts from the case studies in Section 3 demonstrate informative planning for disasters, emergencies, and significant events: • Case Study 2: Anchorage, Alaska. The Anchorage Emergency Management Agency (Anchorage EMA) has incorporated the needs of access and functional needs populations in several emergency planning initiatives, resulting in improved communication products

32 A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events and planning documents. The EMA formed a functional needs support services working group to review sections of the mass-sheltering annex of the emergency operations plan. The EMA also worked collaboratively with several planning partners to develop a disaster regis- try application and brochure that would meet the communication needs of target end users. • Case Study 3: All Hazards Consortium (AHC). In 2004, the AHC hosted an All-Hazards Forum around the concept of interoperable communications, bringing together first responders from many jurisdictions across Maryland, along with vendors and universities that showcased the latest tools and technologies. A lesson learned from the forum was that, while technology was important to all-hazards planning and response/recovery, people must also come together to develop consensus on exactly what is needed to address problems, including the application of technology. • Case Study 9: Regional Integrated Transportation Information System (RITIS). RITIS is an automated data sharing, fusion, dissemination, and archiving system for operational data. It includes many performance measure, dashboard, and visual analytics tools that provide real-time information to help agencies gain situational awareness and measure performance. It does this by compiling transportation data from each participating agency, standardizing it, and making it available to other participating agencies through each agency’s existing trans- portation management systems. RITIS also communicates information between agencies and to the public. This improved real-time information is crucial for effective management of the region’s transportation system and related emergency preparedness. Managers and policy- makers from transportation, transit, and public safety agencies can also use real-time RITIS data to monitor their agencies’ incident responses.

33 Regional transportation planning establishes a coordinated system for identifying problems and solutions that cross jurisdictional boundaries and involve multiple agencies. A coordinated planning approach for disasters, emergencies, and significant events fosters a more cohesive interaction between and within agencies, throughout all levels, and across hierarchical political and jurisdictional boundaries. Coordination shapes and guides the planning process. Similarly to Principle 2: Coopera- tive, Principle 4: Coordinated aims to establish a set of regional policies and protocols that ensure the involvement of all local municipalities, agencies, modes, and communities. Coordi- nated planning can result in a more informed, robust plan that enables a region to draw on its resources and capabilities in situations that warrant multijurisdictional emergency response and recovery. Characteristics of Coordinated Planning Coordinated planning initiates and maintains working relationships and communication channels with planning partners long before disasters, emergencies, and significant events occur. It identifies the needs, capabilities, and available resources in the region so that person- nel and resources can be moved into immediate action when needed. Coordination among agencies can be informal or solidified in formal, institutionalized agreements such as Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) or Memoranda of Agreement (MOAs). These compacts typically are put in place to support neighboring jurisdictions when they exhaust available resources in responding to an event. For example • MOU relationships were used extensively during the California wildfires of 2005 and 2008 when neighboring counties and cities around the state dispatched fire crews to assist local crews. • State police officers from Michigan and New York supported fellow law enforcement person- nel in various locations in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. • Such agreements are also common in the private sector where electrical power compa- nies support one another during hurricanes in the southeastern and gulf coastal areas of the United States and during tornadoes and ice and snow storms in states farther north and west. Templates for MOUs can be found online or in NCHRP Report 740: A Transportation Guide for All-Hazards Emergency Evacuation (Matherly et al. 2013). P R I N C I P L E 4 Coordinated

34 A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events Strategies Strategies to coordinate regional transportation planning efforts for disasters, emergencies, and significant events include the following: • Use planned events to bring key stakeholders to the planning table, and leverage those relationships and resources for regional transportation planning for disasters and emergencies. • Focus on what is required to get started to meet regional emergency transportation needs. • Share emergency plans, and consider how they can be integrated. Be prepared to discuss – Assumptions upon which those plans were built. – Transportation assets and resources and how they will be used. Are there wrong assumptions about how/when transportation assets would be used and by whom? – Critical transportation services that will need to be restored and maintained. • Consider ways to establish more formalized partnerships through MOUs and other agreements as planning progresses. Tools All eight tools included in this guide can be useful for coordinating regional planning efforts with key stakeholders and partners. These tools are available in Section 4. • Tool 1: Checklist of Potential Stakeholders • Tool 2: Checklist of Potential Transportation Assets (High Level) • Tool 3: Transportation Resources (Detailed Checklist) • Tool 4: Sample Transportation Security and Hazard Mitigation Strategies for Various Project Modes and Types • Tool 5: Checklist for Emergency Events Affecting Multiple Jurisdictions, Transportation, and Interdependencies Principles • Comprehensive • Cooperative • Informative • Coordinated • Inclusive • Exercised • Flexible • Continuous/ Iterative

Coordinated 35 • Tool 6: Key Steps to Effective Collaboration • Tool 7: Questions for Collaborative Partners and Other Stakeholders to Ask Each Other • Tool 8: Strategies to Exercise a Regional Transportation Plan for Disasters, Emergencies and Significant Events Tips • One of the most common forms of coordination is to convene planning meetings at regu- larly scheduled intervals, which can be as often as monthly or as infrequent as once a year. In practice, these meetings include planning and carrying out exercises to test assumptions and readiness. • After an event, coordinated planning and operations restore order and help communities recover. Coordination also is required when evaluating the performance of the operations through after-action reporting and plan revisions. • Obtaining mutual aid for planned events is a good precursor to moving into more formal mutual aid agreements for emergency planning and response. Planned events are opportu- nities to bring together many agencies and organizations to discuss available resources and develop good working relationships that can be leveraged for subsequent emergency planning and mutual aid agreements. Examples • The MTC’s emergency planning committee (closest forum to operations) includes the 10 largest transit properties, the California Emergency Agency (Cal EMA), Caltrans Dis- trict 4, and others. The committee helped develop the regional mitigation plan and was able to get the transit agencies to buy into the process by explaining the financial benefits that accrue to a jurisdiction or region that has an approved mitigation plan in place. In particular, if a state declaration is made and state disaster funds become available, jurisdictions with a state/federal- approved LHMP are eligible to apply for these funds. Also, these jurisdictions are eligible to apply for pre-disaster mitigation (PDM) funds. • MTC officials developed the RTEMP as a counterpart of the Regional Emergency Coordina- tion Plan (RECP). One of the subsidiary plans of the RECP is the Transportation Coordina- tion and Response Plan, which addresses such emergency functions as transportation of first responders and disaster service workers, delivery of emergency equipment and supplies, and evacuation. • Whereas the Transportation Coordination and Response Plan focuses on coordination of transportation assets to enable emergency response, the RTEMP focuses on restoration of basic transportation services to the general public. The two plans function in concert to ensure transportation capacity for emergency response and for basic mobility. • The Lifelines Council was established by ABAG several years ago as an advisory group to get input for developing a MJ-LHMP for the San Francisco Bay region. The council also served as advisor to several planning studies, such as ABAG’s Regional Disaster Resiliency Initiative and its current Bay Area Airport Disaster Recovery Study. • In Washington, D.C., federal, state, and local agencies in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia coordinate with the Military District of Washington on an ongoing basis, espe- cially for security events, such as presidential inaugurations or the World Bank G-20 and simi- lar meetings with heads of state from around the world. Airports are located in Virginia and Maryland, so cross-border security coordination is essential. The military sometimes supports ESF 13, Law Enforcement, in perimeter and crowd control, and supports ESF 1, Transportation, in traffic control.

36 A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events • Regular, continuing coordination with law enforcement, health, transportation, and fire and rescue occurs across state and city borders. This includes law enforcement pursuing suspects; transportation of patients to hospitals across borders; and fire and rescue services respond- ing to incidents across borders as needed. • In New York State, biannual coordination meetings bring together the emergency liaisons for all state-level agencies. At these meetings, issues are discussed at the regional level. Upon returning to their respective agencies, coordinators work through their agency’s chain of command to ensure that subordinate managers receive information. Each district, regional, or local coordinator is then expected to conduct similar coordination with the correspond- ing agency counterparts (e.g., district DOT emergency transportation coordinator with the county and city emergency managers, police, etc.). • In Memphis, Tennessee, hazards that impact the region tend to be large in scale, and this necessitates that the Memphis-area MPO be able to interact across political boundaries and jurisdictions. A recent example was a flooding disaster that crossed into many different juris- dictions. Because of long-term planning and coordination interactions with all of these com- munities and the bordering state of Arkansas, the role of the MPO was described as “the glue that holds the separate cities together.” Case Studies The following excerpts from the case studies in Section 3 exemplify coordinated regional planning. See the full case studies for more information. • Case Study 1: Pacific Northwest Economic Region (PNWER) and the Center for Regional Disaster Resilience (RDR). PNWER helped facilitate cross-international-border planning for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada, leading to longer-range improvements in balancing efficient border crossings and security. PNWER also established a Border Solu- tions Coordination Council to work on border issues in advance of the Olympics and develop recommendations and strategies to facilitate travel. Specific strategies implemented during the Olympics were subsequently adopted as improved modes of operations. This case study offers a good example of multijurisdictional coordination for planned events contributing to everyday improvements. • Case Study 6: City of Craig, Alaska. The political situation in Alaska is unique. In Alaska, boroughization is optional; more than half of Alaska’s land area is part of the larger Unorganized Borough. Prince of Wales Island is not within an organized borough, so the communities on the island are politically separate. Each community owns its own resources and is responsible for its own emergency planning and response. Advisory groups exist, but no specific political group can mandate regional transportation planning. One key to overcoming political chal- lenges has been communities working together to match resources and responsibilities and forming mutual aid agreements to share resources. Routine, day-to-day occurrences, such as dispatch of fire departments from one community to another, require communities to work together and share resources, which builds a sense of community regionally and an awareness of available resources. • Case Study 7: Marathon Bombing Medical Care—Boston Bombings. The International Association of Emergency Managers published an article on LinkedIn following the explo- sion of two pressure cooker bombs at the Boston Marathon in April 2013. The article high- lighted factors that contributed to coordinated response efforts after the attack, including adequate numbers of trained medical staff; logically placed and well-controlled medical treatment areas with adequate access and egress; patient movement devices and tracking; effective incident command; and all-encompassing communications (Reiter 2013).

37 Inclusive regional transportation planning for disasters, emergencies, and significant events creates an equitable transportation system that addresses the needs of all people. Inclusive planning affords opportunities for involvement and representation of all people affected by the plan. This includes people with or without automobiles as well as individu- als and organizations that represent populations likely to be marginalized from mainstream emergency communications and response (e.g., transit-dependent populations and people with access and functional needs). Characteristics of Inclusive Planning Inclusive regional transportation planning • Builds a comprehensive understanding of the region’s demographics • Identifies and locates population segments that will be more adversely impacted than the general public by disasters, emergencies, and significant events • Collaborates with partners who represent these population segments and can serve as trusted intermediaries in reaching them Inclusive planning also takes into account changing demographics and the significant impli- cations posed by such changes for emergency planning and response from a regional perspec- tive. Key population trends show growth in both numbers and diversity. This means emergency response agencies increasingly will have to plan for the needs of an aging and ethnically diverse population. Population growth is also increasing in coastal regions and flood-prone areas, lead- ing to greater population density along the nation’s coastline, with more people susceptible to sea-level rise and other hazards related to climate change. In many communities, the poorest and most vulnerable populations are located in areas with disproportionate risks and hazards (e.g., in low-lying areas subject to floods; near industrial sites or transportation facilities subject to more air pollution and releases of hazardous materi- als or emissions; or living in structures such as mobile homes that cannot withstand extreme weather events like hurricanes or tornadoes). Strategies TCRP Report 150 outlines a complete process for inclusive planning that accounts for the needs of people with access and functional needs (Matherly et al. 2011). Key strategies from the report include the following: • Understand the demographics of the region. • Build a network of key leadership and staff within the regional transportation and emergency management planning communities to leaders within non-governmental organizations P R I N C I P L E 5 Inclusive

38 A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events (NGOs) and other agencies that understand the needs of people with access and functional needs and transit-dependent populations. – Are needs and resources aligned on a multijurisdictional basis (e.g., how many ambulance and paratransit vehicles are available in the region)? – Do hospitals, nursing homes, and emergency responders in multiple jurisdictions each think they have “first call” on ambulance or paratransit resources? – What is the capacity of vehicles that will be used for emergency response? How will capacity be impacted by people who have durable medical equipment? – Are policies, such as no-pets rules, flexible in emergencies? How flexible are they? • Plan for the needs of people without automobiles. – Are alternatives to privately owned vehicles readily available and accessible? – Do people know how and where to secure transportation assistance? • Understand community partners’ emergency plans and how they can be integrated into regional plans. Be prepared to discuss the assumptions on which the plans were built. – How will transportation assets and resources be used? – Are there wrong assumptions about how and when transportation assets will be used? Tools The following tools, which are detailed in Section 4, can help planners conducting inclusive regional transportation planning: • Tool 1: Checklist of Potential Stakeholders • Tool 5: Checklist for Emergency Events Affecting Multiple Jurisdictions, Transportation, and Interdependencies • Tool 6: Key Steps to Effective Collaboration • Tool 7: Questions for Collaborative Partners and Other Stakeholders to Ask Each Other • Tool 8: Strategies to Exercise a Regional Transportation Plan for Disasters, Emergencies and Significant Events Principles • Comprehensive • Cooperative • Informative • Coordinated • Inclusive • Exercised • Flexible • Continuous/ Iterative

Inclusive 39 Tips • TCRP Report 150 provides a comprehensive, step-by-step toolkit for building inclusive grass- roots networks of people and organizations to support emergency transportation planning and response. It describes a proven approach for how to build an association of agencies and organizations that understand the transportation needs of drivers and non-drivers, includ- ing the region’s most vulnerable citizens (Matherly et al. 2011). • Inclusive planning is the law. Federal legislation mandates inclusive planning and requires addressing the needs of vulnerable groups in all phases of emergencies from planning to recovery. See Appendix B for examples of applicable federal legislation. Examples • The City of New Orleans demonstrates one approach to inclusive planning. Historically, wrong assumptions about how, when, and by whom transportation assets would be used had come to light after several disasters were followed by emergency responses in which organiza- tions and agencies laid claim to the same transit or paratransit vehicles and drivers. Recog- nizing this, the city established different types of classifications for individuals who utilize the City Assisted Evacuation Plan (CAEP), including tourists, residents without cars who need a ride during an emergency, and people who need specific medical resources. Develop- ment of the CAEP involved a significant amount of planning and collaboration, and the strategy was effectively deployed to meet the emergency needs of the most vulnerable people during Hurricane Gustav in 2008. The Louisiana Nursing Home Association (LANHA) also responded to the challenge of inclusive planning by developing a best practice for transporta- tion buses. Following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the LANHA established a desk at the state EOC and helped coordinate ESF 1 with respect to the evacuation of nursing homes. Further- more, the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals assigned a staff member to double check the nursing home contracts each year to see if the bus companies have the actual buses. When Hurricane Gustav struck in 2008, the state worked with the federal government to ensure that buses were available. Unlike the response to Hurricane Katrina, during which most of the bus contracts were not honored, 95 percent of the contracts were honored following Hurricane Gustav, and the nursing homes knew that the contracts were not just “ink on paper.” • San Diego experiences wildfires in heavily populated areas. The regional community has learned valuable lessons about evacuating vulnerable populations, and the experiences are fea- tured in a case study in NCHRP Research Results Digest 333/TCRP Research Results Digest 90: Guide to Planning Resources on Transportation and Hazards (LeDuc et al. 2009). As noted in an excerpt from the digest, communities in Southern California have learned that evacuations run more smoothly if the following strategies are employed: – Isolated communities involve local law enforcement in traffic management during an evacuation. – Evacuation plans consider the need to educate tourists as well as locals. – Hospitals have their own evacuation plans for patient relocation that are coordinated with community evacuation plans. – MOUs are kept active and current and backup plans are in place in case these fail. – Plans for resource coordination among retirement homes assure availability of trans- port and shelter in an evacuation. – Service providers are involved directly in planning for evacuation. • Fort Collins, Colorado, experiences periodic severe, sudden flooding. Planners have coordi- nated stormwater management, transportation, and recreation investments to achieve miti- gation goals. Among other strategies, they have acquired and relocated vulnerable facilities to move them away from the flood plain. Although it was controversial at the time, stormwater planners insisted on relocating a nursing home that was situated in the flood plain, along

40 A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events with mobile homes, residences, and businesses. The purchases and relocations are credited with saving an estimated 100 lives during a major 1997 flood. After the flood, stormwater utility staff received a call of thanks from the retirement community (LeDuc et al. 2009). • The Northern Kentucky Health Department has established a regional outreach and infor- mation network of agencies and organizations that serve as conduits of public health infor- mation to people with access and functional needs. The network relays routine information as well as emergency alerts such as disease outbreaks and alerts to help the public stay safe during catastrophic natural disasters. The health department hosts an annual luncheon with network partners to keep them engaged, stay connected, and share information. Case Studies The following excerpts from the case studies in Section 3 provide more detailed examples of inclusive planning. See the full case studies for more information. • Case Study 2: Anchorage, Alaska. The Anchorage EMA has incorporated the needs of access and functional needs populations in several emergency planning initiatives, resulting in improved communication products and planning documents. The EMA formed a func- tional needs support services working group to review sections of the mass-sheltering annex of the Emergency Operations Plan. The EMA also worked collaboratively with several plan- ning partners to develop a disaster registry application and brochure that would meet the communication needs of target end users. • Case Study 6: City of Craig, Alaska. Tribal organizations are a part of the Craig local emer- gency planning committee (LEPC) and have been involved in the emergency planning pro- cess. Most Tribes have environmental planners responsible for emergency planning and response. The emergency planning process has helped to identify and better understand the differences in cultural priorities. The Craig planning director’s approach has been to draw on those cultural priorities to benefit the overall emergency planning process. The Craig Tribes culturally have a focus on elders and their members, and Tribal repre- sentatives want to be sure they are taken care of through the planning process. The Craig planning director can contact the Tribal Administrator and request assistance with notify- ing their elders and members with critical information. Through regular engagement with the Tribes, the city understands what is important to the Tribes and how to engage them in a way that helps them meet their cultural priorities while also meeting emergency planning and response priorities.

41 In most regions, transportation operations, law enforcement, and emergency response per- sonnel interact daily to handle small and large incidents on highways, transit and rail systems, waterways, and airports. Gaining experience for much larger multijurisdictional events usually requires a formally planned exercise, coordination of a large, planned event, or a combina- tion of the two. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and FEMA provide funding, resources, and protocols for many different types of training. An important consideration in the planning process for regional-level disasters and emer- gencies is the reality that these types of events occur infrequently—or may never occur. Such events have high consequence despite their low probability, however, so regional-level disas- ter and emergency plans must be carefully tested and evaluated. Testing—through planned exercises—identifies shortcomings and limitations and familiarizes stakeholders with imple- mentation and management of transportation systems and resources. Evaluation of the exer- cised plan allows planners and responders to consider the preferred outcome of an event before they decide how best to respond. High-Consequence Risks and Hazards Some regions face high-consequence risks and hazards frequently. For example, California faces earthquakes and wildfires; wildfires occur in most western states. Floods occur virtually everywhere in the United States. Hurricanes often make landfall along the Gulf Coast or Atlantic Coast, snow and ice storms bring power failures in northern regions, and tornados sweep across many areas, particularly in the Midwest. Most regions have the potential for more than one type of high- consequence risk for which they may be unprepared, and which could severely test their planning and their resilience. Characteristics of Exercised Planning The most realistic, effective exercises (tests) are those that include everyone affected by the plan. Important groups to participate in exercises include: transportation agencies, emergency management agencies, transit authorities, first responders (police, fire, and ambulance), com- munity advocacy groups, and private-sector stakeholders (manufacturers, distributors, major employers including universities and hospitals, and communication, power, and water utili- ties). For more details, see Tool 1: Checklist of Potential Stakeholders in Section 4: Tools. P R I N C I P L E 6 Exercised

42 A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events Because results, findings, and lessons learned from exercises can help shape and guide the planning process, exercises should be conducted soon after the development of initial plans. Doing this may permit modifications to counter shortcomings and problems before they are actually experienced under emergency conditions. Testing and drills also can be effective after an event. Observations of real-life processes that were not previously anticipated can be incor- porated into later testing and used to make incremental improvements of plans. Strategies Plan for high-probability and low-probability events. The strategies, tips, and examples pro- vided in Principle 7: Flexible also are relevant to Principle 6: Exercised. The following strategies are taken from Tool 8: Strategies to Exercise Regional Transportation Plans for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events in Section 4: Tools. • Initiate exercised planning by developing and executing an exercise (test) program that includes – Planned exercises on specific dates – Individual exercises – Improvement tracking • For each type of exercise to be conducted, develop specific documentation, consisting of (for example) – Situation manual – Exercise plan – Controller evaluator handbook – Master scenario events list – Exercise evaluation guides • Decide which type of exercise should be used to test the plan. Principles • Comprehensive • Cooperative • Informative • Coordinated • Inclusive • Exercised • Flexible • Continuous/ Iterative

Exercised 43 • Determine which target groups will be included. • Design the exercise format. • Develop a structured testing schedule. • Develop the evaluation of the exercise to assess performance. Tools The following tools, which are detailed in Section 4, provide resources for testing/exercising regional transportation plans and identifying the right partners to include. • Tool 1: Checklist of Potential Stakeholders • Tool 2: Checklist of Potential Transportation Assets (High Level) • Tool 3: Transportation Resources (Detailed Checklist) • Tool 5: Checklist for Emergency Events Affecting Multiple Jurisdictions, Transportation, and Interdependencies • Tool 8: Strategies to Exercise Regional Transportation Plan for Disasters, Emergencies and Significant Events Tips • Transportation planning agencies are often involved in testing because of their strengths and capabilities in GIS mapping and transportation and geographical information databases in particular. MPOs work with and connect agencies across numerous governmental and juris- dictional levels and across state boundaries. They know the roles, responsibilities, capabilities, and resources of most, if not all, transportation agencies in the region. • Exercised planning occupies its own unique niche within the FEMA Preparedness Planning Cycle (see Glossary). The preparedness planning cycle is a subset of the emergency planning cycle. Most training should be undertaken and accomplished according to NIMS principles. Two resources are particularly relevant to exercises: (1) The Simplified Guide to the Incident Command System (ICS) for Transportation Professionals (FHWA 2006) (listed under The Big Picture), and Volume 9, Guidelines for Transportation Emergency Training Exercises in the NCHRP Report 525: Surface Transportation Security, TCRP Report 86: Public Transportation Security series (TRB 2006) (see “Exercise Resources”). • The Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program (HSEEP) offers a capabilities and performance-based exercise program that provides a standardized policy, methodology, and terminology for exercise design, development, conduct, evaluation, and improvement planning (HSEEP website 2012). • Simplicity works when it comes to planning and conducting exercises. A scenario can be as sim- ple as “a fuel truck has spilled.” Discussion questions can be as simple as “Who would you call?” “Do you have their phone numbers?” “What questions do you have?” State agencies can also be good resources for developing exercise scenarios, messages, and other items to use in exercises. • Not all exercises have to be sink-or-swim activities. One emergency manager recommended making exercises a learning activity as well as a testing activity, saying “Apocalyptic scenarios don’t allow people to learn when they are afraid of their failures. The exercise has to be small enough that it is a learning experience but not a pass/fail test.” • Some exercises should be for catastrophic events. FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate has advocated planning for the “maximum of maximums.” Cascading and interrelated disasters like the 2011 Japan earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear plant failures demonstrate the danger of comfortable assumptions. • Plan for both notice and no notice events.

44 A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events Examples Full-scale drills and tabletop exercises are standard methods to test regional emergency transportation plans. • Each year, the Alabama Emergency Management Agency (Alabama EMA) works collabora- tively with the state police to test the state’s Contraflow Evacuation Plan on Interstate 65 between Mobile and Montgomery. While contraflow operations are not actually initiated during these drills, all personnel, vehicles, and control devices (signs, barricades, etc.) required to do so are transported to their field locations. This testing permits personnel new to the process a learning opportunity and gives field crews and police officers the opportunity to practice the process. • Jointly created by the TSA and the U.S. Coast Guard, the Port Security Training Exercise Programs (PortSTEP™) executed 40 port security drills between 2005 and 2007. Ports con- nect multiple modes for movement of goods as well as people. Ports are vulnerable to secu- rity risks and human-made hazards as well as natural disasters. The PortSTEP™ exercises engaged a broad range of port and regional stakeholders in tabletop drills. “The PortSTEP drills successfully emphasized the interconnected and interdependent relationships between maritime and surface transportation response and reaction” (LeDuc et al. 2009). Several notable examples illustrate the use of significant events to test or exercise regional transportation emergency plans. • The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) uses the annual Fourth of July fireworks on the national mall to assess the movement process of drivers and riders during a compressed duration of time and expanse of area. The Washington, D.C., Virginia, and Maryland transportation and traffic authorities also modify traffic signal timings and limit some turning movements to facilitate the movement of traffic during non-event peri- ods. This tests movement away from a threat area in a preferred direction during an emer- gency, and also tests communications and coordination among the jurisdictions. • When the City of Tampa, Florida, was awarded Super Bowl XLIII in March 2005, the city held a full-scale exercise in accordance with NIMS. The exercise was conducted during the Outback Bowl college game, which gave the City of Tampa Office of Emergency Management practice during a real-time event to prepare for the Super Bowl event. The exercise allowed agencies to test the unified command, coordination, and communication plans for Super Bowl XLIII, designated a Level 1 event by DHS. The Outback Bowl exercise revealed that each agency used its own system to track event information, which resulted in poor information sharing among agencies. To resolve this, each agency deployed liaisons to the operations centers of other agen- cies, thus increasing the communication among all participants. • In the Kansas City metropolitan area, special event planning involves a bi-state region (Kan- sas and Missouri). Transportation and emergency management planners in Kansas City and Jackson County, Missouri, benefit from their regular management of Royals baseball and Chiefs football games, while those in the Unified Government of Kansas City and Wyandotte County, Kansas, benefit from managing NASCAR race events and Sporting Kansas City soccer games. These experiences helped position the metro area to plan effectively for the All Star Baseball game in July 2012 and the All Star Major League Soccer game in July 2013. • Like many other areas, the Kansas City metropolitan area also uses traffic simulation mod- eling to develop and test regional plans. Traffic simulation modeling can be a valuable way to test theories and strategies prior to implementation. • Microscopic traffic simulation modeling was used to develop the New Orleans Contraflow Evacuation Plan. Louisiana DOTD officials evaluated the effect of contraflow loading options to increase the outbound flow and decrease the evacuation clearance time for the metropoli- tan area. Later iterations of the model were also used to evaluate various alternatives and conditions associated with the area’s CAEP, in which buses would be circulated around the

Exercised 45 city and suburbs to pick up people with mobility limitations, then transfer them to regional coach buses for transport out of the city. • Traffic simulation for evacuation modeling was applied to a large commercial shopping area around the Northwest Arkansas Mall and Spring Creek Centre in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The simulation area covered more than 3 square miles and included more than 8,000 parking spaces. Planners used the simulation to evaluate traffic movements to safe zones during a ter- rorist attack. The simulation examined the advantages that could be gained from providing guidance and direction to inbound and outbound traffic based on time, risk, and cost. The results of the research suggested that additional planning into the location of shelter destina- tions for evacuations can have beneficial impacts to the overall clearance of the network. On a theoretical level, the simulations showed that an optimized safe zone assignment model in which evacuees must travel to a specified destination based on their point of origin yielded significant benefits. In a real-world application of this concept, vehicles from specific areas or locations could be encouraged or required to follow routes that keep traffic flowing in optimal directions instead of overlapping and/or crossing one another. • A variation on this idea has been used in the New Orleans region where, once contraflow is initiated, evacuees are “forced” to move in certain directions along certain routes. Maps showing which routes lead where are widely disseminated using various means and are reinforced annually through special media coverage at the start of each hurricane season. Although most routes are kept open, some segments of major Interstate routes are closed during evacuations to prevent downstream confluence congestion. Case Studies The following excerpts from the case studies in Section 3 provide information about exer- cises that test regional planning efforts. See the full case studies for more information. • Case Study 1: Pacific Northwest Economic Region (PNWER) and the Center for Regional Disaster Resilience (RDR). RDR organizes Blue Cascades exercises to bring public- and private-sector partners together to explore problems in planning and preparedness. The exercises have proven worthwhile for identifying and addressing problems and establish- ing sound relationships across disciplines and state and national boundaries, and among private- and public-sector partners. A PNWER tabletop exercise, Blue Cascades III, posed an earthquake and tsunami with subsequent power outages, traffic gridlock, and damage to the power, transportation, water and sewer, and natural gas and fuel transmission infrastructures to representatives of five states and three Canadian jurisdictions. • Case Study 6: City of Craig, Alaska. The Craig planning director builds on relationships devel- oped through inclusive LEPC meetings and exercises to identify resources and enter into for- mal agreements with other agencies and organizations. Experience obtaining mutual aid for managing scheduled events has been a good lead-in to forming larger mutual aid agreements with other entities. For example, the City of Craig hosted a regional development meeting for approximately 300 attendees. The event required planning for housing, food, and transporta- tion for the attendees. The Craig planning director served as the transportation lead for the event, which required determining where people would stay and designing a public transporta- tion system. Bringing many people and agencies to the planning table has been a way to gather information about transportation resources and capabilities in the region. The event planning led to discussions about how to leverage this experience for emergency planning and for estab- lishing more formal mutual aid agreements among partners in the future.

46 Flexible regional transportation planning for disasters, emergencies, and significant events builds resilience, which can be defined as “a system’s ability to accommodate variable and expected conditions without catastrophic failure” and to restore normal operations quickly. Flexible planning includes planning for circumstances that may be unlikely but could cause significant harm if not considered beforehand (Litman 2006). Flexibility is an important consideration at the beginning of the planning process. Once the baseline conditions have been established for a regular day and scenario development begins, flexible planning has a role. Characteristics of Flexible Planning Flexible planning engages a diverse team of stakeholders to develop a broad range of event, impact, and response scenarios and identify possible flexible uses of the transportation system. Suggestions for the team include but are not limited to • Emergency management agencies • State and local DOTs • Transportation service providers • Utility providers • Departments of public works • Police departments • Fire departments • Emergency medical service providers • Hazardous materials response teams • Special facilities (hospitals, nursing homes, prisons, schools) • Local industries that may pose a threat and/or may have a role in response Flexible planning incorporates high- and low-probability scenarios and considers a range of resulting conditions, such as variations in the event characteristics, infrastructure condition, and citizen response (Murray-Tuite and Wolshon 2013). It also addresses failures in supporting infra- structure such as electric power and considers possible flexible uses of the transportation system. Strategies Strategies for incorporating flexibility into regional transportation planning include but are not limited to the following. P R I N C I P L E 7 Flexible

Flexible 47 • Plan for a wide range of possible conditions and scenarios. – High-probability and low-probability events – A variety of event characteristics – Infrastructure conditions – Citizen responses • Engage a diverse team to develop event, impact, and response scenarios and identify possible flexible uses of the transportation system. – How flexible and redundant is the transportation system (e.g., to accommodate and adapt to changing demands and patterns)? – How will impacts to capacity, level of service, and level of demand affect system performance? – How will impacts to supporting infrastructure, such as electric power, natural gas pipelines, communications, and water and sewer services, be addressed? – How will serious interruptions in the supply chain be addressed? – When evaluating responses to the scenarios, consider: What are the possible flexible uses of the transportation system? • Work with planning partners to identify the following: – How critical information will be collected and distributed under extreme conditions – Chain of authority if/when a particular decision-maker is unavailable – Most effective ways to prioritize resources, including traffic management and accessible transportation options – Mobility options and needs for all travelers, taking into account the needs of disadvantaged populations • Create a process for ongoing evaluation of transportation systems to detect possible problems and inefficiencies. – Can transportation facilities withstand extreme conditions? – Are there sufficient redundancies in the transportation system—parallel or alternate routes, bridges, and/or modes of transportation—to deal with catastrophic loss of one or more major assets? Principles • Comprehensive • Cooperative • Informative • Coordinated • Inclusive • Exercised • Flexible • Continuous/ Iterative

48 A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events – How resilient is the system? How quickly can the transportation network adapt to changing circumstances and return to normal operations? • Identify interdependencies and weak points. – Look for weak and single/limited points-of-failure. – Identify critical links in transportation routes and alternates that are in the plan. – Look at interdependencies and restoration of activities among the region’s other infrastruc- ture elements (such as electric power, water, and gas utilities). – Examine assumptions about the region’s telecommunications capabilities and dependence on electric power. • Gather data and information through regular exchanges with planning partners, GIS tools, and other resources. • Follow NIMS principles. The NIMS organizing principles of Unified Command and the ESFs for planning and response of the National Response Framework (NRF) are intended to be scalable and applicable to all incidents. For detailed information about NIMS, see the FHWA “Simplified Guide to the Incident Command System (ICS) for Transportation Professionals” (FHWA February 2006). Tools The tools listed below provide resources for incorporating flexibility into regional transpor- tation planning. • Tool 1: Checklist of Potential Stakeholders • Tool 5: Checklist for Emergency Events Affecting Multiple Jurisdictions, Transportation, and Interdependencies • Tool 6: Key Steps to Effective Collaboration • Tool 7: Questions for Collaborative Partners and Other Stakeholders to Ask Each Other • Tool 8: Strategies to Exercise a Regional Transportation Plan for Disasters, Emergencies and Significant Events Tips • Planning for low-probability events may reveal previously overlooked weaknesses in plans for higher-probability events. Even the higher-probability events and resulting impacts cannot be precisely predicted. Overall, plans should not be rigidly designed for the highest-probability events with a single estimate of the impacts, but rather include a broad spectrum that allows for the development of flexible plans that can be adapted to the actual situation that arises. • Redundancy of transportation infrastructure (such as availability of alternate routes, bridges, and modes of transportation) and resiliency go hand in hand. • No one ever knows what information may be important. It is vital to have rich and deep information sources through use of GIS and other data sources. One 2001 incident illustrates this: A flatbed tractor-trailer carrying eight Navy missiles from St. Louis, Missouri, to New Jersey hit a concrete barrier, slid down an embankment, and overturned outside Frederick, Maryland. Military personnel advised minimizing the movement of the damaged missiles and recommended detonating them at a safe site. Who could predict that knowing the loca- tion of a quarry near I-70 near Frederick, Maryland, would be essential information? Examples • In 2008, an ice storm in New Hampshire left approximately 63 percent of the population without power for up to 2 weeks (New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission 2009). The response to the ice storm provides an example of inability to collect critical information

Flexible 49 under extreme conditions and highlights the need for redundancies. A key deficiency was a lack of real-time information with mapping capabilities that showed which roads were closed statewide. The extended period without power also suggests that, because digital maps and plans may not be available in all situations, paper copies should be made available. • In 2005, the impact of Hurricane Rita in Houston provides an example of actual conditions not matching anticipated scenarios and emphasizes why plans should be flexible. Officials planned for hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate, but the actual numbers were much higher—more than 1 million, including many who did not need to leave. The high num- bers led to traffic bottlenecks out of the city and people were stranded for hours in extreme temperatures. • Also in 2005, some evacuees from Hurricane Katrina (in August) were housed in nurs- ing homes and other medical facilities in Houston. A month later, when Hurricane Rita approached, these evacuees—plus many more frail and elderly patients—had to be moved out of harm’s way, requiring extensive coordination and flexibility. • MWCOG established one full-time position that is co-located with the District of Columbia’s Homeland Security Emergency Management Agency (DCHSEMA) and serves as a regional coordinator for emergency response. DCHSEMA’s EOC is co-located with one of the Dis- trict Department of Transportation’s (DC DOT’s) Traffic Management Centers (TMCs) and with the regional Fusion Center. A liaison from the National Guard, who serves as a conduit to the Military District of Washington, is located at DCHSEMA. Liaisons from the Metro- politan Police Department and from D.C. Public Schools also are located at DCHSEMA. It houses the 911 call center and the 311 call center in the Office of Unified Communications. When the 911 system in Fairfax County failed in a 2012 power outage, many 911 calls were routed to the District. • In 1994, the Northridge Earthquake in California caused significant damage to the trans- portation infrastructure and tested Caltrans’ readiness for outages in other infrastructures. Caltrans’ Transportation Management Center had backup power generators and land- lines for telecommunications. Pagers, fax machines, and electronic data sharing via computer were used extensively in the response to the earthquake, especially while the landline system was temporarily disrupted (DeBlasio et al. 2002). Case Studies The following excerpts from the case studies in Section 3 demonstrate ways in which flex- ibility has been incorporated into regional transportation planning and response operations. See the full case studies for more information. • Case Study 1: Pacific Northwest Economic Region (PNWER) and the Center for Regional Disaster Resilience (RDR). PNWER established a Border Solutions Coordination Council to work on border issues in advance of the 2010 Winter Olympics, resulting in strategies that were implemented to facilitate travel during the Olympics and then later established to improve operations. Strategies included an advanced passenger manifest clearance project for common carriers and a Washington State Freight Mobility Plan to assess freight for priority status in case of a border closure or major highway disruption. • Case Study 3: All Hazards Consortium (AHC). The AHC has an enabling framework that allows various stakeholders to come together on specific projects and issues, often resulting in unique benefits to each group. Hurricane Sandy generated major power outages through- out the region. Knowing who had power and communications capabilities was important for prioritizing recovery operations. One of the AHC’s private-sector partners with satel- lite communication capabilities provided the AHC with “off and on” alerts throughout the region, which the AHC then provided to utilities and government officials with appropriate disclaimers.

50 A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events • Case Study 8: Hurricane Sandy. Transportation agencies’ abilities to modify services and restore operations during Hurricane Sandy recovery provide insights into key considerations for building flexibility into regional plans. Recovery efforts point to key partnerships and to collaboration and coordination between transportation agencies that helped to provide alter- native, multimodal transportation services and transportation access to residents within days after the storm. Subsequent planning efforts by various agencies also illustrate ways to incorporate flexibility into regional planning, such as by increasing transportation options and assessing and improving the physical conditions of infrastructure.

51 Regional transportation planning must be ongoing and regular. For readiness and resilience, planning for disasters requires a different focus in terms of longevity. Ongoing readiness and pervasive preparedness require a body of knowledge and set of relationships that increase with­ out interruption over time. Figure 3 and Figure 7 illustrate the cyclical nature and continual learning emphasis of the emergency planning cycle. Sustaining investment and participation in regional transportation planning for disasters, emergencies, and significant events comes from the willingness of partners to meet challenges as they arise. Regional transportation planning is continuous and iterative because it dem­ onstrates ongoing benefits to planning partners and the people and communities they serve. Characteristics of Continuous/Iterative Planning Regional planning that is continuous and iterative has an established framework or struc­ ture for regional coordination and collaboration and a core group of planning partners. It continues no matter what happens to funding sources and no matter who rotates in and out of the planning process. Continuous and iterative planning is strategic and guided by fundamental goals, objectives, strategies, and tactics for achieving regional coordination and cooperation. It puts into place resources, such as staffing plans, program plans, agreements, and reporting mechanisms, to document the evolution of planning efforts over time and ensure organizational memory. Continuous and iterative planning • Maintains and sustains relationships through ongoing interaction and engagement with planning partners and stakeholders • Finds opportunities for strategic growth and refinement and looks for ways to engage new partners who are critical to regional cooperation and coordination • Adopts policies and practices for institutionalizing planning efforts to ensure the continuous transfer of knowledge from one generation of personnel to the next and as partners’ roles and responsibilities change over time • Moves from informal handshakes to more formal agreements to solidify partners’ commit­ ments to and roles in regional cooperation and collaboration Continuous and iterative planning establishes procedures for both the planning and opera­ tional aspects of regional coordination and cooperation. It ensures that those procedures are regularly evaluated and improved by incorporating regular assessments and improvement planning after any event, whether the event was planned or unplanned. P R I N C I P L E 8 Continuous/Iterative

52 A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events Strategies The following strategies can support efforts to sustain regional transportation planning for disasters, emergencies, and significant events. • Set goals, objectives, and milestones. • Conduct regular meetings of core team members to maintain momentum and keep the multi­ jurisdictional perspective active. Team meetings are planned around substantive topics that – Offer succinct and repeated messages about the value of partnerships and working together – Incorporate outside resources – Tie the meetings to things that are happening in the region – Engage partners in ways that help them meet their priorities – Use training to lure new people and get them engaged, then turn the focus to relationship building • Invite key stakeholders, including representatives of community groups and businesses, to participate in after­action reports to discuss and document what went well and what did not go well in exercises, planned special events, and actual disasters or emergencies. • Use the after­action reports and lessons learned from an event to improve procedures, com­ munications, inclusion, and whatever shortfalls were uncovered in the exercise or event. • Evaluate the multijurisdictional planning group’s organizational structure and whether a more formal structure is needed. The U.S. DOT’s Regional Transportation Operations Col- laboration and Coordination: A Primer for Working Together to Improve Transportation Safety, Reliability, and Security provides suggestions and working steps (FHWA Office of Travel Management 2003). • Document all planning activities. Ensure that data collection and documentation proce­ dures are in place to – Keep track of meetings with planning partners, decisions, agreements, and action plans – Catalog available resources and assets Principles • Comprehensive • Cooperative • Informative • Coordinated • Inclusive • Exercised • Flexible • Continuous/ Iterative

Continuous/Iterative 53 – Identify gaps in transportation services – Record, investigate, and learn from demonstrated problems – Facilitate continual evaluation and improvement • Be sure there is always a successor in line to lead the regional planning efforts. Tools The tools listed here (all the tools, in this case) can be helpful to sustaining regional trans­ portation planning efforts. • Tool 1: Checklist of Potential Stakeholders • Tool 2: Checklist of Potential Transportation Assets (High Level) • Tool 3: Transportation Resources (Detailed Checklist) • Tool 4: Sample Transportation Security and Hazard Mitigation Strategies for Various Project Modes and Types • Tool 5: Checklist for Emergency Events Affecting Multiple Jurisdictions, Transportation, and Interdependencies • Tool 6: Key Steps to Effective Collaboration • Tool 7: Questions for Collaborative Partners and Other Stakeholders to Ask Each Other • Tool 8: Strategies to Exercise a Regional Transportation Plan for Disasters, Emergencies and Significant Events Tips • Continuous regional transportation planning requires having the right convener. The right convener understands the goals; can speak the language of different disciplines; knows (or can learn) NIMS and ICS language; and has the interest in and ability to build bridges between people. • Conveners allow the goals to drive the regional planning effort and provide the necessary tools to accomplish them. Effective leadership is a three­legged stool that requires social skills (communication, listening, conflict management and resolution, negotiation, and steadiness); technical knowledge (for credibility); and the ability to lead by example. • A convener’s job is never done, and turnover will be a constant challenge. The key is always to be looking for a successor and to ensure that succeeding generations of staff and planning partners receive the same level of training as those before them. Training new or younger staff can encourage them to challenge the way things have always been done. • Another key to continuous, iterative regional transportation planning is finding the right partners—that is, knowing who they are and doing everything possible to find out what they need and help them get it. Real partners speak up, act, support, and encourage others to act. It is the convener’s job to reinforce, support, and reward their partners. • The most common mistakes in multijurisdictional transportation planning are not having the right person or entity as the convener, not taking the time to figure out what the goals really are, and not knowing when to go slow or go fast. Examples • Kansas City Scout is a bi­state traffic management system designed by the Missouri and Kansas DOTs to lessen traffic jams by improving rush­hour speeds, increase safety by decreasing the number of rush­hour accidents, and improve the emergency response to traffic situations. In 2006, the DOTs decided to hire an incident management coordinator

54 A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events to direct motorist assist services and bring more people together to handle road incidents. As work to detect and mitigate incidents continued, the incident management coordinator realized more could be done to improve incident management in the region. • The coordinator’s approach was to get out in the field, see what was happening, and get to know people to have a better understanding of what the issues were and what did and did not work well. The coordinator first called in all of the big users of incident management among the local municipalities in the bi­state region. Media also were included right from the beginning. The coordinator stated the goals very simply: (1) to make a huge step forward for incident management and do it better and (2) to understand how Kansas City Scout could help participants do their jobs better. • Initially, eight to nine people attended meetings to discuss how to improve incident manage­ ment within the region. Eventually the meetings attracted more than 75 participants and were standing room only. Now the meetings happen three times a year and alternate between locations in Missouri and Kansas. Kansas City Scout has also hosted two symposia with more than 300 people in attendance from around the nation. Lessons learned about convening people include the following: – Always feed them. – Say “Thank you.” – Give them a toy or token. The incident management coordinator has given attendees low­ cost, often low­tech, but thoughtful tokens of appreciation, such as traffic wands, pop­up traffic cones, portable speed bumps, and laminated cards with important phone numbers and contact information sized for the car visor. – Be prepared to go back into difficult conversations when harsh words have been exchanged and there are bad feelings. Case Studies The following excerpts from the case studies in Section 3 are examples of continuous, itera­ tive regional transportation planning initiatives that have been sustained over the long term. See the full case studies for more information. • Case Study 1: Pacific Northwest Economic Region (PNWER) and the Center for Regional Disaster Resilience (RDR). This planning initiative has been sustainable for more than 16 years because of its governance structure and authorizations; full membership, active participation of stakeholders, and the development of a culture of trust; regular improvement planning from the learning that takes place in exercises and other events; and demonstrating value to its members through improved operations. • Case Study 3: All Hazards Consortium (AHC). What started with a trade show in 2004 has become a nonprofit organization involving eight states and several urban areas to facilitate multi­state collaboration efforts that result in coordinated planning, investments, research, projects and the creation of new partnerships and resources for members. AHC’s regular engagement with members and key stakeholders, and AHC’s ability to collaborate on com­ mon initiatives that result in unique benefits to each group both have been important to continuity. • Case Study 4: Southwest Missouri Council of Governments (SMCOG). SMCOG provides transportation and land use planning to its member counties and cities. A key component of SMCOG’s success has been collaborating with a range of entities on emergency planning initiatives. In addition to serving as a convener around transportation planning, SMCOG collaborates with other agencies and organizations, including another regional MPO that covers two portions of SMCOG counties, to address coordination of major thoroughfares

Continuous/Iterative 55 that run through both jurisdictions. SMCOG also helps local jurisdictions develop county­ wide, multijurisdictional, multi­hazard mitigation plans and helps electric cooperatives develop local hazard mitigation plans. • Case Study 5: The Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG). ABAG is primarily responsible for land use planning but has been involved in earthquake mitigation and plan­ ning for some time. ABAG has been a major leader in helping local jurisdictions and partner agencies complete individual emergency plans and identify interdependencies among differ­ ent systems to improve regional planning. ABAG developed a template and database of haz­ ards for local jurisdictions and partner agencies to follow in an effort to encourage consistent, coordinated planning across the region.

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TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 777: A Guide to Regional Transportation Planning for Disasters, Emergencies, and Significant Events uses foundational planning principles, case studies, tips, and tools to explain implementation of transportation planning for possible multijurisdictional disasters, emergencies, and other major events. In addition to the guide, there is a contractor's final research report and a PowerPoint presentation describing the entire project.

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