David Crawford talks to Dennis Motiani about the role of the new National Operations Centre of Excellence.
Consolidating the collective experience of the US transportation system’s management and operations (TSM&O) community, streamlining its information gathering, while cutting research times and costs are the key drivers behind the country’s new National Operations Centre of Excellence (NOCoE). Launched in January at the annual meeting of the
The NOCoE is a partnership initiative bringing together three existing agencies, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) and ITS America, with governmental support from the US Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). So, why the need for yet another body?
Newly-appointed executive director, Dennis Motiani told ITS International: “These organisations all have huge remits that stretch across the whole of transportation. We are focusing specifically on the immediate practical needs of TSM&O engineers working on the ground for easy access to information to help them do their jobs better.
“We also aim to make their efforts more productive by integrating the results into a constantly developing central knowledge base, so avoiding the risk of duplication, and pooling research activity – all with a single point of access.”
NOCoE has two main activity streams. Its www.transportationops.org web portal represents the delivery of a specific product, the need for which had been identified in the reliability focus area of the TRB’s second Strategic Highway Research Program.
Appointed for an initial one-year term, with prospects of a two-year extension, Motiani wants to see the portal being constantly referred to by state DOTs, metropolitan planning organisations, local officials, consultants and academia to share their achievements. Equally important, he wants it to capture worthwhile information that could otherwise be lost.
“Engineers can develop a useful solution to a specific highway construction or maintenance problem - sit on it and sleep on it, without sharing it for others to benefit from – and then lose sight of it altogether when they move onto their next project. We want to give them a convenient way of ensuring that the information is available to the next DOT or metropolitan planning organisations facing a similar issue.
“Users will also save time by making us a single entry point to lead them to information that they need to find quickly, without having to track their way through a whole list of individual websites. Saving 20 minutes here, half an hour there – it all adds up when your time’s valuable.”
Among discussion themes so far initiated on the website, one is on the future of dynamic message signs. Another opens up the potential for sharing experience with the Management & Operations Working Group set up in 2014 by the 14-member New York State Association of metropolitan planning organisations specifically to encourage state-wide collaboration on TSM&O strategies and initiatives.
The centre’s other main activity is its operations technical services programme. The first event, on 3 March, was a webinar introducing the US National Performance Management Research Dataset, which the FHWA has recently acquired from
This resource uses vehicle probe-derived data to calculate average travel times on the US national highway system every five minutes, and generate reliability indices. The FHWA is now making it available to state DOTs and metropolitan planning organisations as a tool for performance measurement. The webinar invited exchanges on how participants are using it.
The highlight will be an annual get-together for TSM&O practitioners to discuss a major topical issue – for example, data management, strategic research planning, or connected vehicle impacts on the road infrastructure.
Motiani stresses that ITS will be a major focus area across the NOCoE’s workplan, as “a key technological force in the ongoing transformation of transport – how we drive cars in an era of automated and connected vehicles; and what the roads of the future will look like. I can, for example, foresee a time, within the next 20 years, when vehicles will routinely be drawing power – possibly solar – from the roads that they are travelling on, and we need to start looking ahead to that.
“But we’re not setting out to duplicate what
Bowling along
As an example of the kind of success story that the website aims to disseminate, it cites the winter 2013/2014 hosting of Super Bowl XLVIII at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. At that time Motiani was assistant commissioner in charge of the New Jersey DOT’s transportation systems management and while in post he received the request for proposals for his present role.
Super Bowl Sunday is widely taken as an unofficial American national holiday.
For the first time, two US states - New Jersey and New York - co-hosted the game and its supporting programme, with New York supplying much of the hotel capacity needed. “We worked together as equals”, said Motiani. The two states are already partners in the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey joint venture, which oversees much of the regional transportation infrastructure within a 3,900km² area, while pre-game events straddled the border.
Motiani told ITS International: “NJDOT and its partners routinely plan and staff transportation management for scheduled special events. Super Bowl XLVIII was a special event of exceptional size and complexity, with a full week of lead-up events which posed challenges to the whole transportation infrastructure.”
Particular issues included using an open-air stadium in a ‘cold-weather’ location - previous such events having been under cover. The choice generated considerable controversy over the threat of heavy snow, which the game itself just escaped, and the dislocation that this would bring to the network of bus services that carried spectators.
In addition, the road transportation network is intricate, with bridge and tunnel chokepoints. One of which is New Jersey’s Pulaski Skyway bridge/causeway, which links up with the Holland Tunnel under the Hudson River to connect the state with New York City.
Long seen as one of the most unreliable routes in the US, it closed shortly after the Super Bowl for deck reconstruction - one of Motiani’s final responsibilities before leaving NJDOT after 25 years.
Not least there was a strong policy emphasis on public transit, with buses carrying the most fans, followed by metro. There was no pedestrian access. Did this work? “Yes, there was no traffic congestion. One media reporter drove from his Long Island home to the stadium in 45 minutes – a record.”
Could this set a precedent for future largely transit-based sporting events “Yes, if they’re planned properly in advance.” Were there problems this time? “Yes, three times as many spectators as had been expected came by rail, and trains are a lot less flexible to manoeuvre for upping service levels than buses. So the possibility has to be built into future plans.”
HRP 2
Specially authorised by the US Congress, SHRP 2
has focused on the country’s major highway transportation challenges: an ageing network; public demand for more efficient reconstruction; mounting levels and costs of congestion and pollution; and the threat to maintaining low road traffic accident levels from in-vehicle technologies competing for drivers’ attention.
Products developed to date, in addition to the NOCoE website, include:
• A naturalistic driving study database based on data garnered from 5.4 million trips accounting for nearly 80 million km of driving, to supplement information from crashes, observations and surveys.
• Guidance on implementing strategies for increasing the reliability of travel time information, and incorporating the results into the TRB’s Highway Capacity Manual, a widely used road transportation reference documents in the US and around the world. Travel time accuracy is a major policy preoccupation for the TRB.
• The SmartGAP free, open-source software tool for estimating the effects of smart growth strategies on regional peak-hour travel demand.
