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34 APPENDIX A Agency Survey Questionnaire NATIONAL COOPERATIVE HIGHWAY RESEARCH PROGRAM Project 20-5, Topic 32-06 PUBLIC BENEFITS OF HIGHWAY SYSTEM MAINTENANCE AND OPERATIONS Elected officials, senior managers, and the general public sometimes fail to appreciate fully the importance of regular highway maintenance. Some observers suggest that highway professionals could do a better job of measuring and explaining the public benefits of maintenance. This survey is part of a project to document the state of current practices and examples of best practices in evaluating these benefits, presenting them to decision makers, and ensuring that these benefits are appropriately reflected in management decisions. Through this survey, we wish to learn about your agencyâs activities in three primary areas: 1. Understanding your customersâ perceptions of maintenance activities and their outcomes (e.g., through surveys, road-user focus-group discussions), 2. Assessing the net benefits of highway maintenance (e.g., through life-cycle costing, cost-of-ownership analysis, willingness-to-pay studies), and 3. Presenting these benefits so as to influence decision making and public opinion (e.g., through legislative briefings, press releases, brochures, websites). âMaintenanceâ in this study means periodic activities intended to ensure the satisfactory performance of highway structures and associated equipment. Such activities may be termed routine, corrective, preventive, proactive, or reactive; examples include crack filling, drain cleaning, pavement striping, bridge painting, and mowing. âOperationsâ in this study means traffic controls and operational measures related to maintenance, such as detour routing, workzone speed controls, signal retiming, and lane closures. Please complete this questionnaire and return it with any supporting documents, by July 20, 2001, to Andrew C. Lemer, Ph.D. The MATRIX group, LLC 4701 Keswick Road Baltimore, MD 21210-2322 Telephone: 410-235-3307 Fax: 410-235-0838 Email: alemer@ecostructure.com Please provide the name of the person completing the questionnaire or another agency representative who may be contacted for clarification or additional information: Name: Title: Agency: Address: City/State/Zip: Telephone: Fax: Email: Thank you for your help and participation. Your individual responses will be kept confidential; your candor will help improve maintenance management practices!
35 Please add comments on separate pages if you wish, but use the question numbers at the right on the following pages to make clear where your comments apply. We would welcome copies of relevant studies and examples of your agencyâs successful and not-so-successful programs. A. AGENCY BACKGROUND What systems (e.g., software) does your agency use for Question No. pavement management? 1 bridge management? 2 maintenance management (e.g., for work-orders, crew scheduling)? 3 vehicle-fleet management? 4 Within the past five years, has your agency conducted âcustomer satisfactionâ surveys or other activities to identify public interests and preferences? Yes ___ No ___ Donât know ___ 5 If so, were maintenance activities explicitly included? Yes ___ No ___ Donât know ___ 6 Does your agency use contracting methods that include road-user costs in bidding and award (e.g., lane rental, âA+Bâ bidding)? Frequently ___ Experimental ___ No ___ Donât know ___ 7 Does your agency have continuing activities to inform the public about agency activities, other than those required for environmental reviews of specific projects or regional plan development? Yes (please describe) __________ No ____ 8 If so, are maintenance issues regularly included in these activities? Yes ___ No ___ 9 Is an agency staff member assigned explicitly to deal with maintenance issues in communicating with elected officials and the public? Yes ___ No ___ 10 Does your agency have continuing activities to solicit public opinion about agency activities, other than those required for environmental reviews of specific projects? Yes (please describe) __________ No ____ 11 If so, are maintenance issues regularly included in these activities? Yes ___ No ___ 12 B. MAINTENANCE PROGRAM STATUS In your opinion, are highway system maintenance activities of your agency viewed favorably, in general, by top-level agency management? Definitely ___ Somewhat ___ No ___ Canât say ___ 13 responsible elected officials? Definitely ___ Somewhat ___ No ___ Canât say ___ 14 the public at large? Definitely ___ Somewhat ___ No ___ Canât say ___ 15
36 Please give the basis for your opinion (e.g., survey data, news media reports, legislative resolutions). 16 Does your agency have dedicated or earmarked funds for highway maintenance? Yes ___ No ___ 17 Does your agency delegate to other agencies or contract with them to perform maintenance of federal-aid (provincial) highways? Yes ___ No ___ 18 If yes, what parts of the system are maintained by others? Secondary system only ___ Secondary and other ___ 19 Does your agency make an official estimate of highway system maintenance backlog? Yes ___ No ___ 20 If yes, how frequently is it updated? Monthly ___ Annually ___ Less than annually ___ 21 Is the estimate made public? Yes ___ No ___ 22 If yes, by what means? (check all that apply) News release ___ Briefing for elected officials _______ Direct mail ___ Website ___ Other (please specify) _____________ 23 C. MAINTENANCE OUTREACH AND âMARKET RESEARCHâ Within the past five years, has your agency conducted maintenance-targeted briefings for state or provincial legislators to discuss agency highway-system maintenance program activities and their impacts? At least annually ___ Yes, less frequently ___ No ___ 24 Within the past five years, has your agency conducted maintenance-targeted briefings for local-government officials? At least annually ___ Yes, less frequently ___ No ___ 25 If your agency has conducted maintenance-targeted surveys or briefings within the past five years, how have these activities influenced your agencyâs maintenance programs? (check all that apply) Not at all ___ Results were discussed by managers ______________________ Influenced program budgets ___ Influenced work scheduling ___ Other (please specify) _____________ 26 Does your agency use road usersâ notifications or complaints as a basis for issuing maintenance work orders? Regularly ___ Occasionally ___ Seldom or never ___ 27 Does your agency publicly acknowledge or reward such notifications or complaints? No specific response ______________ Individual response to informant ____ Reports in local press ___ Other (please specify) _____________ 28 Within the past five years, has your agency conducted âcustomer satisfactionâ surveys or other activities to assess public perception and preferences with respect to highway maintenance and highway system performance? Yes ___ No ____ 29
37 If yes, what groups were targeted? (check all that apply) Road-user groups (AAA, trucking) __ Travel and tourism ___ General public ___ Other (please specify) _____________ 30 What methods were used? (check all that apply) Focus group discussions ___ Telephone survey ___ Mail-back or email survey ___ Web-based or âhotlineâ system ___ Other (please specify) _____________ 31 Are such activities repeated or updated at least annually? Yes ___ No ____ 32 Is the information used in agency management (e.g., maintenance planning, budgeting)? Definitely ___ Somewhat ___ No ___ Canât say ___ 33 Does your agency issue at least annually a public report on highway maintenance program activities and accomplishments? (check all that apply) Yes, exclusively for maintenance ____ Yes, as part of agency-wide reports __ No ___ 34 If so, does the report include estimated maintenance program benefit measures? (check all that apply) Maintenance backlog reductions ____ Other dollar-valued benefits _____ Travel- or delay-time savings _____ Crash and crash-severity reductions _____________________ Other non-monetized benefits ___ 35 Does your agency brief elected officials at least annually on highway maintenance program activities and accomplishments? (check all that apply) Yes, exclusively for maintenance ___ Yes, as part of agency-wide reports ___ No ___ 36 D. ASSESSING NET BENEFITS OF HIGHWAY MAINTENANCE Does your agency regularly report output or productivity measures to monitor maintenance program activities (e.g., tons of asphalt placed monthly, lane-miles of crack sealing completed monthly)? (check all that apply) No, not at all ___ Yes, in operations management ___ Yes, in agency-level management ___ Yes, in reporting to the public ___ In other ways (please specify) ________ 37 If so, how frequently are these measures reported? At least quarterly ___ Annually ___ Less frequently ___ 38 Does your agency regularly report outcome or performance measures to monitor maintenance program activities (e.g., lane-miles with âacceptableâ or better roughness, numbers of âhigh accidentâ locations)? (check all that apply) No, not at all ___ Yes, in operations management ___ Yes, in agency-level management ___ Yes, in reporting to the public ___ In other ways (please specify) _______ 39 If so, how frequently are these measures reported? At least quarterly ___ Annually ___ No ___ 40
38 Does your agency use benchmarking to monitor maintenance program activities? Yes, period-to-period self-comparison __ Yes, inter-agency comparison _______ No benchmarks ___ 41 If so, are benchmark comparisons reported to the public? Yes ___ No ___ 42 Does your agency routinely use life-cycle costing or other benefitâcost methods to plan and program highway system maintenance activities? Yes, for all maintenance ___ Yes, but for major projects only ___ Not for maintenance activities ___ 43 If so, are maintenance analyses compared with new construction in agency-wide programming and budgeting? Yes, for all maintenance _______ Yes, but for major projects only ___ No ___ 44 E. OTHER COMMENTS Do you have any comments or suggestions you wish to add? Please refer to specific question numbers if your remarks apply to preceding questions. 45 Please send any reports or other documents to support your responses or that you feel may be useful to your colleagues in other agencies. Thank you again for your help and participation.
