Congestion & Transportation Demand Management

The Congestion and Transportation Demand Management focus page contains resources about ridesharing, congestion, and transportation demand management. It includes links to publications, legislation and guidance, recent peer events, upcoming calendar events, and related websites.

• Regional Models of Cooperation   NEW!
  This Every Day Counts (EDC-3) effort provides a framework and process for state departments of transportation (DOTs) and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) to develop multi-jurisdictional transportation plans and agreements to improve communication, collaboration, policy implementation, technology use and performance management across agency boundaries.
• Developing a Regional Approach to Transportation Demand Management and Nonmotorized Transportation: Best Practice Case Studies   NEW!
  This report highlights four MPOs that are working with their transportation partners to embrace TDM and nonmotorized transportation in an ambitious, conscious, and holistic manner at both regional and local scales.
• Congestion Management Process: A Guidebook   NEW!
  This guidebook provides practitioners with an understanding of the individual elements of a CMP and includes practical examples of how to implement a successful process based on lessons learned from MPOs across the country. The Process Model included in this document is intended to assist practitioners in their efforts to integrate the CMP into the metropolitan transportation planning process, including the development of the MTP and the TIP.

Ridesharing

• Ridesharing, Technology, and TDM in University Campus Settings: Lessons for State, Regional, and Local Agencies - This report examines how university campus transportation departments are using new technologies and supportive polices to advance ridesharing and transportation demand management (TDM) as alternatives to driving alone to campus. It looks at university campuses as "ridesharing and TDM laboratories" where innovations may be first attempted in a relatively more controlled environment, from which elements could potentially be transferred to broader, more complex metropolitan transportation planning contexts. The report features case studies of successful ridesharing and TDM practices at six U.S. universities which have dramatically lowered drive-alone rates.
• Moving Together in the 21st Century: How Ridesharing Supports Livable Communities - This report provides an update to current ridesharing options and explores technology and policy developments that make new methods of ridesharing possible. The report also assesses ridesharing as a key contributing factor to supporting livable communities.
• Ridesharing Options Analysis and Practitioners' Toolkit - This report serves as both an analysis of current trends in ridesharing and a toolkit for public agencies, large and small, to create ridesharing programs tailored to meet the needs of their respective constituencies. Best practices from around the U.S. are illustrated in a series of case studies, and the report also contains a step-by-step "how to" guide for implementation.

Congestion Management

• Advancing Metropolitan Planning for Operations: An Objectives-Driven, Performance-Based Approach - A Guidebook - This guidebook presents an approach for integrating management and operations (M&O) strategies into the metropolitan transportation planning process that is designed to maximize the performance of the existing and planned transportation system.
• Advancing Metropolitan Planning for Operations: The Building Blocks of a Model Transportation Plan Incorporating Operations - A Desk Reference - This Desk Reference is a resource designed to enable transportation planners and their planning partners to build a transportation plan that includes operations objectives, performance measures, and strategies that are relevant to their region, that reflect the community's values and constraints, and that move the region in a direction of improved mobility and safety.
• Congestion Relief Toolbox - Many tools and resources are available for the transportation professional to apply in trying to address the effects of congestion. The Congestion Reduction Toolbox is a resource that contains information on the various methods for decreasing the effects of congestion on roadways. The FHWA divides the solutions into five major groups aimed at getting as much congestion relief from the current system and using technology and innovative strategies to increase capacity and expand travel options for people and freight.
• Showcasing Visualization Tools in Congestion Management - This publication is a summary report describing visualization practices used as part of the congestion management process (CMP), and is a supplement to the CMP Guidebook. These visualizations include maps, charts, graphs, photographs, videos, and computer illustrations and simulations. The report is organized both in terms of the type of visualization and the type/source of data, and includes many examples of visualizations used in CMPs around the nation. 
• Statewide Opportunities for Integrating Operations, Safety and Multimodal Planning: A Reference Manual - This reference manual is designed to provide "how to" information to assist transportation professionals in taking action to integrate these activities. It identifies and describes opportunities at various levels of decisionmaking--statewide, regional, corridor, and project level--and the benefits of these approaches. It also highlights overarching themes such as the important role of multidisciplinary teams; data collection, sharing, and analysis; and broad use of performance measures within each of these levels.
• The Role of Transportation Systems Management & Operations in Supporting Livability and Sustainability: A Primer - This primer describes the role of transportation systems management and operations (M&O) in advancing livability and sustainability. The document highlights the connections between M&O and livability and sustainability objectives and the importance of a balanced, comprehensive approach to M&O in order to support those objectives.

Transportation Demand Management

• Developing a Regional Approach to Transportation Demand Management and Nonmotorized Transportation: Best Practice Case Studies. - This report highlights four MPOs that are working with their transportation partners to embrace TDM and nonmotorized transportation in an ambitious, conscious, and holistic manner at both regional and local scales.
• Integrating Demand Management into the Transportation Planning Process:  A Desk Reference - This document has been developed to serve as a desk reference on integrating demand management into the transportation planning process. The desk reference is organized around two fundamental aspects of transportation planning - policy objectives and scope of the planning effort. The report discusses how demand management relates to seven key policy objectives that are often included in transportation plans, such as congestion and air quality. It then discusses how demand management might be integrated into four levels of transportation planning from the state down to the local level. The report also includes information on tools available for evaluating demand management measures and on the known effectiveness of these measures.
• Incorporating TDM into the Land Development Process - The goal and objectives of this study were based on the premise that transportation demand management is a critical component in conjunction with land use planning, transportation system construction and transportation systems management for the development of a cost-effective and functional intermodal and multimodal transportation system. The report provides information for municipal planners, traffic engineers, land development proposal reviewers and transportation demand management professionals working for commuter assistance programs, transportation management associations and in other capacities. This study was sponsored by the Florida Department of Transportation and funded through the National Center for Transit Research. 
• Integrating Transportation Demand Management into the Planning and Development Process Commute: A Reference for Cities - Transportation demand management is a key component of the San Diego Association of Governments 2050 Regional Transportation Plan and Sustainable Communities Strategy as a cost effective means for easing traffic congestion and reducing air pollution, while improving the commute for thousands of San Diego region residents.

• To browse all events on the TPCB website or to add new ones, please visit the events calendar or the TPCB Resource Index.

• FHWA Congestion Management Process
• FHWA Focus on Congestion Relief
• FHWA Planning for Operations
• FHWA Travel Demand Management
• The Association for Commuter Transportation - An international trade association that supports individual mobility management professionals and organizations in their efforts to reduce traffic congestion, conserve energy, and improve air quality. Commonly referred to as transportation demand management, our industry provides services that are key to combating global warming and oil dependency while maintaining mobility options that can be sustained indefinitely.