ITS Professional Capacity Building Program

T3 Webinars

Webinar Overview

Description

Congestion is one of the greatest threats to the nation’s economy. Businesses lose an estimated $200 billion per year due to freight bottlenecks; and drivers waste nearly 4 billion hours of time, and more than 2 billion gallons of fuel, in traffic jams each year. The greatest concentration of congestion is often along critical transportation corridors that link residential areas with business centers, sports arenas and shopping areas. New road construction alone will not solve the growing problem of congestion—travel demand on our nation’s roadways is outpacing new freeway capacity by a factor of five.

ITS is now widely recognized as key to improving the management and operation of highways and arterials. Metropolitan areas are Increasingly integrating ITS into their transportation planning and programming processes through congestion management processes in order to assure that economic growth and quality of life will be supported by the region’s surface transportation system.

Albuquerque, New Mexico is facing rapid population growth and shifting land use patterns. Although ITS applications are been deployed throughout the region, in 2005 the MPO for the region, the Mid-Region Council of Governments (MRCOG), concluded that congestion management process had not been fully integrated into the programming and transportation decision making process at the regional or local levels. MRCOG turned to the ITS Peer-to-Peer Program, and MRCOG was connected with the Wilmington Area Planning Council (WILMAPCO) in Delaware because of WILMAPCO’s decade of experience with congestion management systems.

In this T3 webinar, WILMAPCO’s experience in integrating operations into the planning process will be detailed. MRCOG will describe the gaps that it identified in Albuquerque’s congestion management process, and how it is filling them through Lessons Learned from Wilmington.

Audience

Transportation planners and engineers, and transportation system managers and operators involved in congestion management, will most benefit from this presentation.

Learning Outcomes

• Understanding of what a congestion management process is, and the factors that should be considered when evaluating its appropriateness for your region
• Insights from the WILMAPCO-MRCOG Lessons Learned on congestion management processes
• How to request the support of the Peer-to-Peer Program
• Where to find additional resources on congestion management

Host

Robert Fijol, ITS & Research Engineer, New Mexico Division Office, FHWA
As ITS and Research Engineer for FHWA’s Division Office in New Mexico, Rob is responsible for ensuring that state and local ITS projects conform to the National ITS Architecture, and that a systems engineering approach is used when ITS projects are developed. He is also responsible for the Office’s research, Technology Transfer (T2), and Local Technical Assistance (LTAP) programs. Rob received both his undergraduate and graduate degrees in Civil Engineering from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, with a focus on Transportation.

Presenters

Dan Blevins, Principal Transportation Planner, WILMAPCO
Dan is Principal Transportation Planner for the Wilmington Area Planning Council (WILMAPCO), where he has worked for the past seven years. His areas of expertise include freight and goods movement, Congestion Management Process (CMP) development, and Performance Measurement. Before joining WILMAPCO, Dan worked as a program manager for the University of Delaware, and as a GIS technician for the New Castle County Water Resources Agency. He is a 1995 graduate of the University of Delaware, with a Bachelors Degree in Geography.

Rodolfo Monge-Oviedo, AICP, Transportation Planner, MRCOG
Rodolfo is a Transportation Planner working with the Mid-Region Council of Governments (MRCOG) of New Mexico, the metropolitan planning organization (MPO) for the Albuquerque Metropolitan Planning Area (AMPA). He manages the Congestion Management Process and oversees regional Pedestrian and Bicycling Planning for the MPO. He is also responsible for the development and operation of the Transportation Accessibility Model (TRAM), a tool that analyzes and maps modes of transportation and their relationship to people and places. Rodolfo spearheaded the development and application of a Pedestrian Composite Index that identifies and prioritizes areas by their potential for pedestrian activity. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from National University in Costa Rica, and Master of Arts degrees in Community and Regional Planning and in Latin American Studies from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. Rodolfo is a member of the American Planning Association and the American Institute of Certified Planners.