Performance-Based Planning

The Performance-Based Planning focus area page is a one-stop shop for resources about performance-based planning and performance measures on the TPCB website. It includes links to publications, legislation and guidance, recent peer events, upcoming calendar events, and related websites.

• Advancing Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety: A Primer for Highway Safety Professionals   NEW!
  Communities across the country are encouraging walking and biking to meet safety, health, livability, equity, and mobility goals. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) released a new resource for introducing pedestrian and bicycle safety measures, "Advancing Pedestrian Safety: A Primer for Highway Safety Professionals." The Primer, developed as a reference for non-engineers, is intended for highway safety professionals, including State Highway Safety Officials, as well as their partners and grantees, as a reference for an integrated and comprehensive effort to improve pedestrian and bicycle safety and support broader transportation-related goals.
• Guidebook for Developing Pedestrian and Bicycle Performance Measures   NEW!
  FHWA’s “Guidebook for Developing Pedestrian and Bicycle Performance Measures” is designed to help communities develop performance measures for their pedestrian and bicycle efforts and to integrate those measures into their larger planning process. The guide describes the myriad ways bicycle and pedestrian investments, activities, and impacts can be measured and offers instruction on how to best track and document those measures. The performance measures can then be used to plan, fund, and implement pedestrian and bicycle projects that offer the highest level of benefit. The guidebook was developed by Kittelson and Associates in collaboration with the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center (HSRC.)
• New FHWA Guidebook: Applying Safety Data and Analysis to Performance-Based Transportation Planning   NEW!
  The Offices of Safety and Planning have jointly released a new guidebook entitled Applying Safety Data and Analysis to Performance–Based Transportation Planning. This guidebook provides State and regional planners with information on how to effectively use safety data and analysis tools in performance-based transportation planning and programming processes. The safety data and analysis results help States DOTs and regional transportation agencies determine safety goals, objectives, measures, and targets. Qualitative and quantitative analyses are essential to understanding safety issues and needs; and to effectively planning and programming projects and strategies. This guidebook will help transportation planners understand the types of safety data they need and how to access them; analysis questions to consider; and opportunities to use the data and analysis to inform planning and programming decisions. Real and hypothetical examples are included throughout the guidebook to demonstrate approaches to addressing each of these topics.
• Advancing Metropolitan Planning for Operations: An Objectives-Driven, Performance-Based Approach - A Guidebook - This guidebook presents an approach for integrating management and operations strategies into the metropolitan transportation planning process that is designed to maximize the performance of the existing and planned transportation system.
• Non-Traditional Performance Measures - The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials' Standing Committee on Planning has released a report that explores how state departments of transportation, metropolitan planning organizations, and public transportation agencies use non-traditional performance measures in their transportation planning and decision-making processes.
• Transportation Performance Management: Insight from Practioners: NCHRP Report 660 - This guidebook provides insights from selected transportation agencies who are successfully integrating transportation performance management programs into a range of key decision-making processes in order to improve their effectiveness and transparency. This guidebook will assist transportation agency staff challenged with turning performance data into meaningful information that will influence agency decisions and actions. It should be of immediate use to those who have mastered the basics of performance measurement but who will benefit from a deeper understanding of what similar organizations have done in order to successfully integrate these systems into key decision-making processes.
• Transportation Project Prioritization and Performance-based Planning Efforts in Rural and Small Metropolitan Regions - This new NADO Research Foundation report provides an overview of the state of the practice in non-metro regional transportation planning, including the contract amounts, RPO tasks, and committee structures. The research also examines rural long-range planning efforts and criteria used to rank regional priority projects. With case studies on the statewide and regional planning processes in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Washington, the document provides examples for rural and small metro regions looking to formalize their planning process. This report was developed with support from the Federal Highway Administration.

Click here to access a full list of Legislation, Regulations, and Guidance related to performance-based planning on the TPCB website.

• Upcoming conferences and webinars related to performance-based transportation planning:
  • NHI Training: MAP-21 Transportation Performance Management Overview (Including FAST Act Updates)
  • NHI Training: MAP-21 Transportation Performance Management Overview (Including FAST Act Updates)
  • NHI Training: MAP-21 Transportation Performance Management Overview (Including FAST Act Updates)
  To browse all existing events on the TPCB website or to add new ones, please visit the events calendar or the TPCB Resource Index.

The TPCB peer program is a free resource for agencies in need of transportation planning assistance. Visit the peer program page to learn more or apply for a peer event.

• Recent peer events related to performance-based transportation planning:
  • West Virginia Statewide and Metropolitan Transportation Planning Processes Peer Report
  • Establishing and Integrating Performance Measures (April 2015)
  • Scenario Planning Peer Workshop: Concord, NH (November 2014)
  Read other peer event reports.

• Congestion Management Process
• DOT State Stats - State Stats is an online pathfinder to transportation publications and reports. It harnesses the Internet by encouraging agencies to post and identify their own key state performance resources. It can help administrators interested in benchmarking, and it can help researchers find unique data. Idaho Transportation Dept Dashboard.
• MoDOT Tracker - MoDOT's Tracker is a tool to assess how well we deliver services and products to our customers. Much like a GPS tracking system, this tool can only show the direction in which the department is headed. We must determine if it is going in the right direction to best serve our customers. Lessons Learned from Maryland SHA.
• Performance Based Planning and Programming
• Planning for Operations - This website contains numerous resources to help planners and operators gain insight into the links between the two fields. This site has a resource library of documents, presentations, and reports on current practices. It also contains a toolbox that gives examples of best practices, a calendar of upcoming relevant events, as well as a listing of courses that span the two disciplines.
• TRB Committee on Performance Measurement (ABC30) - The TRB committee supports the development and use of performance measurement and performance management across all modes of transportation, public and private, including passenger and freight transportation systems.This committee also promotes the use of performance measurement in all aspects of an organization's responsibilities to support public accountability and effective systems management. This includes planning, programming, budgeting, program and service delivery, and system operations. Performance Measures and Targets for Transportation Asset Management-Current state of practice; includes a framework for identifying performance measures and setting target values.
• TRB Performance Measurement Exchange Site - This site allows people with common interests, goals or expertise to share their experiences and knowledge, collaborate on work, identify and exchange best practices and advance the state-of-the-art in their field. This site allows visitors to contribute their thoughts and ideas in an open forum.
• Washington State DOT Performance Measurement Library - Washington State DOT (WSDOT)is not alone in using performance measurement and strategic planning to promote accountability. Almost every state uses strategic planning in one form or another, and all DOTs use performance measurements at various programmatic levels. To help practitioners make effective comparisons of measures and reporting systems, WSDOT maintains a list of 51 state, commonwealth, and federal district transportation authorities and their online performance measurement and strategic planning mechanisms.