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Summary

On December 8, we issued our final report on FHWA’s management and oversight of the $54 million awarded under the Transportation Technology Innovation Demonstration Program (TTID), which we performed at the request of Senator Orrin Hatch and Representative Anthony Weiner. We plan to publicly release and post this report on our website at 3:00p.m. on Monday, December 14.

Our audit objectives were to assess whether FHWA: (1) achieved statutory goals and optimized TTID benefits for the public partners; and (2) complied with 2005 statutory provisions for a competitive private partner selection process. We reported that TTID addressed statutory goals, but FHWA did not optimize the program’s benefits for the public partners. The private service provider deployed traffic data collection systems in metropolitan areas; shared revenues; and produced software to generate traffic reports for Federal and state agencies. However, FHWA allowed the service provider to control significant aspects of the program and, as a result, diminished TTID’s value to the public partners.

We recommend that FHWA (1) define and document a more optimal methodology for revenue sharing between the service provider and the metropolitan areas, considering any exclusions or deductions from the service provider’s gross revenues, (2) test the service provider’s revenue sharing for accuracy according to the documented methodology, (3) develop and implement options to increase integration of traffic information and posting on highway message signs, and (4) develop and implement a data service plan that requires timely communication of test results and prompts remediation of any results below the minimum performance level.