Office of Operations
photos of traffic merging onto congested highway, congestion in snowstorm, variable message sign, cargo, variable speed limit sign in a work zone, and a freeway at night
21st Century Operations Using 21st Century Technologies

What are FHWA's Measures of Success for Access Management?

Access Management

Program Purpose

The purpose of the Access Management program is to bring attention to the importance and value of proactive management of access points. Ideally, this will be accomplished through the production and distribution of resource materials targeted to "spread the word" that good access management principles result in improved safety, reduced congestion along corridors, and will not impart a negative effect on the local economy.

Program Goals

The goals of the Access Management program are to incorporate good access management principles whenever land development is pursued, and to revisit and improve upon existing facilities' operations. These goals will be realized when it is apparent that national, regional, and local business groups and authorities have, at a minimum, acknowledged the importance of good access management, and, ideally, state and local jurisdictions have incorporated and apply written guidelines, strategies, and "positions" that promote these practices.

Program Objectives

The program objectives are 1) to develop a toolbox of resources that can be used as references, models, examples, or measures to offer to interested stakeholders, and 2) champion the application of AM techniques. The primary stakeholders are the planners and authorities responsible for reviewing and permitting site plans, roadway improvements, and long-range master plans, and also the authorities responsible to maintain the roadway facilities. Secondary stakeholders include property owners adjacent to whichever corridors are relevant to respective access discussions, decision makers, as well as the motorists who travel those corridors.

Program Outcomes

The program outcomes will realize the benefits of managing access to all hierarchy of roadways. In simplest terms, access management is defined by the "yin and yang" relationship between property access and vehicular flow. As one is increased, the other usually decreases, in terms of driver satisfaction and expectancies.

Planners and engineers can glean successful program outcomes in terms of increasing dialogs and increasing acceptance of AM principles. Said groups would realize the benefit of proactively including these dialogs in their site- and roadway improvement planning, and retroactively improving existing facilities when opportunities avail themselves.

Program Measures

The success of the Access Management program may be measured in the following ways.

  1. The number of State DOTs that have adopted AM policy plans will increase.
  2. "Champions" will promote AM principles and products in their respective regions or program areas.
  3. The NHI Access Management course is available to be offered at approximately 10 locations each year, training a total of 900 participants each year.
  4. The number of tools developed in, stored in, or linked to the "toolbox" that is intended as a product of this program area will help to measure the program's success.
  5. FHWA staff will identify and include national business organizations, in their stakeholder groups, to establish new partnerships, and align interests of mobility, safety, and economic health.