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7
Implementation Approach for SHRP 2
A successful implementation program must be based on an in-depth, detailed analysis of products, users, market factors, incentives and barriers, benefits, and costs. A full analysis of these factors is beyond the scope of this report and is premature at this time because most of the SHRP 2 products are as yet incomplete. Nonetheless, it is possible to outline an implementation approach for SHRP 2 based on the principles and key strategies set forth in Chapter 6. This approach encompasses a principal implementation agent, application of the key implementation strategies to each of the four SHRP 2 focus areas, and an estimate of the financial resources required for the implementation effort.
PRINCIPAL IMPLEMENTATION AGENT: ATTRIBUTES AND ACTIVITIES
While many stakeholders will be involved in SHRP 2 implementation, the effectiveness of a coordinated implementation program depends in large part on a strong principal implementation agent. Chapter 8 presents the committee’s specific recommendations with regard to the administrative structure of SHRP 2 implementation. This section provides a general outline of the tasks and responsibilities to be carried out in the administration of the program.
The mission of the principal implementation agent for SHRP 2 will be to promote and support the effective implementation of the program’s products wherever these products can help achieve the goals of the Safety, Renewal, Reliability, and Capacity focus areas. With the principles of
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successful implementation described in Chapter 6 as a foundation, this mission would be carried out through such actions as the following:
Develop implementation plans for each SHRP 2 product or for groups of related products. These plans should include technical requirements, marketing and communication activities, budgets, timelines, milestones, performance measures, specific implementation mechanisms to be employed or activities to be undertaken, and stakeholders to be engaged. The plans should allow for divergent, serendipitous implementation. They should be living documents that are modified as circumstances require and incorporate lessons learned as the implementation program unfolds, and they should be made publicly available.
Ensure that appropriate information technology (IT) and knowledge management1 resources and expertise are made available. This provision is essential to facilitate the conversion of data and information from SHRP 2 research, especially the safety naturalistic driving study, into meaningful improvements in highway safety and performance.
Assess the readiness for implementation of each SHRP 2 product. The following categories are illustrative of the potential stages of readiness:
Products ready for immediate implementation;
Products suitable for demonstration projects;
Products requiring pilot testing, beta testing, or other formal evaluation; and
Products requiring additional research.
Package SHRP 2 products to maximize acceptance and usability. Branding of products may be appropriate in some cases.
Identify the most effective implementation strategies and activities for each product.
Administer competitive processes to provide for the additional research, testing, evaluation, demonstration projects, training, technical support, and other activities required to support implementation.
Arrange for stakeholder involvement at the executive/strategic and technical/tactical levels throughout the program.
Coordinate with other related programs and external stakeholder groups. Promote collaboration to expedite implementation, leverage resources, and increase the effectiveness of SHRP 2 products. Coordination
1
Knowledge management is discussed in Box 6-2 in Chapter 6.
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includes working with standards-setting organizations, stewards of professional and technical manuals and guidebooks, and providers of technical training and certification, as appropriate.
Provide technical and, where appropriate, financial support to users, especially lead users. Technical support can include training, workshops, expert consultation, peer support services, printed and electronic information, and other aids.
Track the progress of implementation, measure results, and report the results to stakeholders.
Publish reports, manuals, guidebooks, websites, brochures, and other electronic and print products.
Assist in the development or amendment of standards.
Effective administration of the SHRP 2 implementation program will depend on a strong partnership between the principal implementation agent and key stakeholders, including state and local transportation agencies and the academic and private-sector organizations that help these agencies achieve their transportation goals. Strong leadership, coupled with open communication and flexibility to respond to changing circumstances, new opportunities, and unexpected challenges, is critical.
Resource requirements are an essential consideration. In addition to the financial resources discussed later in this chapter, the importance of human resources in the principal implementation agent’s organization cannot be overemphasized. The diversity of SHRP 2 products and the boldness of the new ideas they embody call for highly trained staff to plan and execute the implementation program. Implementation of innovations requires technical knowledge, good judgment about people and opportunities, communication and diplomatic skills, foresight, flexibility, and a willingness to become directly involved in real-world applications. It is a time- and people-intensive task that generally requires dedicated focus; implementation support is unlikely to thrive in competition with other work tasks. Implementation staff must be ready to act when an innovation becomes available and must have managers who understand their need to remain focused on implementation efforts.2
2
It is understood that some of the implementation support work for SHRP 2 will be provided by contractors to the principal implementation agent. Nevertheless, these contractors should possess the characteristics described here and be managed by staff who share these characteristics.
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IT and knowledge management are particularly important areas of expertise needed for effective implementation of SHRP 2. A number of products of the research, such as the safety database and the Collaborative Decision-Making Framework (CDMF), require IT infrastructure and services, including hardware, software, collaboration and communication technologies, and user support. Across the entire program, a wide variety of knowledge management tools and techniques will advance implementation. The principal implementation agent will need to have access to IT and knowledge management expertise and technologies.
One example of the importance of knowledge management is in the Safety focus area. The safety database will be a highly valuable resource for researchers and practitioners, but the value of the study is not in the accumulation of data. The study’s value will be realized only through active management of the database and its availability to a broad range of researchers who will examine the data; search for patterns, connections, and priorities; convert the data into understanding of specific collision conditions; and identify potential countermeasures. This process will increase knowledge, and the application of this knowledge will improve roadway safety. This conversion of data to knowledge and insight is an example of knowledge management.
In addition to adequate quantity and quality of technical staff, administration of the SHRP 2 implementation program will require strong leadership. There must be a single point person at a high enough level in the institution to ensure that SHRP 2 implementation receives the necessary visibility and priority in the organization. While this person would ideally be fully dedicated to SHRP 2 implementation, it is conceivable that this dedicated role would be incompatible with a high-level position, depending on the institutional home of the principal implementation agent.
Those administering SHRP 2 implementation should recognize the diversity among the four focus areas while also exploiting their linkages or similarities in implementation needs. Each focus area has its own stakeholder communities, although there is some overlap. Certain implementation mechanisms will work well in one focus area and not in another. On the other hand, a mechanism that is traditional in one area may also turn out to be effective in another area, perhaps with some modification.
The temptation to align the four focus areas of SHRP 2 with four traditional management structures commonly found in highway agencies must
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be resisted. The Safety focus area cannot be reduced to traditional roadway infrastructure safety because one of its salient characteristics is the integration of driver, roadway, and vehicle factors in highway safety. The Renewal focus area cannot be reduced to roads and bridges because the essence of the research approach involves such concepts as risk management, institutional strategies, and operational objectives in addition to infrastructure concerns. The Reliability focus area, while fitting squarely within the operations arena, takes a multifaceted approach to part of the operations mission—improving travel time reliability. If it is expected to address the full range of operations issues, it is likely to be deemed inadequate or to be diluted in its effectiveness. The Capacity focus area places strong emphasis on planning and environmental issues, but since these agency program areas have often suffered from the same fragmentation that occurs in their respective regulations and processes, implementation of SHRP 2 Capacity products will require breaking through both internal and external institutional barriers.
KEY IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGIES APPLIED TO SHRP 2 FOCUS AREAS
Chapter 6 outlined a number of key implementation strategies:
Strategic packaging and branding;
Technical assistance;
Standards, specifications, guidebooks, and manuals;
Follow-on research, testing, and evaluation;
Lead users and demonstration projects;
Training and education; and
Long-term stewardship.
This section provides an overview of implementation approaches for each of the SHRP 2 focus areas, structured on the basis of these key strategies. Table 7-1 summarizes the major implementation activities under each key strategy that might be carried out for each focus area. Administration of the implementation program is presented as a cross-cutting activity because it would be carried out in a centralized manner, although each focus area could have some unique needs in this category. Technical assistance is also shown as cutting across the four areas, although the specific focus areas
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TABLE 7-1 EXAMPLES OF MAJOR IMPLEMENTATION ACTIVITIES FOR EACH IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY IN SHRP 2 FOCUS AREAS
Implementation Strategy
Safety
Renewal
Reliability
Capacity
Administration
This category covers all the activities that must be carried out across the implementation program, including contract management and support staff; oversight and technical committees; planning, analysis, evaluation, and performance measurement; IT and knowledge management infrastructure and expertise; and marketing, outreach, publication, and other communication activities. Administration would be carried out by the principal implementation agent.
Strategic packaging and branding
Packaging and branding of technology and project delivery products
Packaging and branding of institutional, planning, programming, and design products
Branding of the CDMF
Technical assistance
Substantial technical assistance will be required in each focus area to make its products available to users. Such assistance would range from highly specific technical expertise to help users implement particular products to more wide-ranging assistance in change management for organizations that wish to make systemic improvements. A range of tools, from traditional on-site consultations to web-based assistance, should be used.
Standards, specifications, guidelines, and manuals
Data standards for roadway data; guidelines for conduct of naturalistic driving studies; input to new safety initiatives from automobile manufacturers; input to safety initiatives of the Federal
Performance specifications, materials and equipment specifications, new designs, design examples, and construction details
Incorporation of travel time reliability into planning, design, and operations standards and manuals; standards for travel time data; model data-sharing agreements
Contributions to national travel forecasting handbook; hand-books for ecological and economic tools; standards for data needed to support tools and CDMF
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Highway Administration and possible regulatory initiatives of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
Follow-on research, testing, and evaluation
Additional analyses using data from the SHRP 2 naturalistic driving study; characterization of collision load cases by type; assignment of frequency and cost and harm metrics to collision load case types; prioritization of research and countermeasure needs
Decision-making tools to aid agencies in the most effective use of products; research to adapt generic products to unique situations; pilot testing of new technologies; long-term evaluations; model validations
Pilot testing of institutional approaches and technical products; follow-on work for promising results of Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis and future-oriented Reliability projects; additional behavioral research using data from naturalistic driving studies
Benefit-cost analyses to demonstrate benefits of collaborative decision making; pilot testing of economic and travel modeling tools
Lead users and demonstration projects
Demonstration of site-based technology; use of advanced roadway data for safety planning; development of vehicle-based technologies for improved driver behaviors and performance; field studies to assess effectiveness and costs
Demonstration of individual pr grated use of Renewal products by lead users; collaboration tools to enable lead users to assist other users
Demonstration of individual products and integrated use of Reliability products by lead users; collaboration tools to enable lead users to assist other users; deployment incentive programs
Demonstration of CDMF; collaboration tools to enable lead users to assist other users; demonstration of ecological approaches
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Implementation Strategy
Safety
Renewal
Reliability
Capacity
Training and education
Workshops, stipends, sabbatical opportunities; materials for graduate curricula in highway safety and human factors; tools to enable researchers to share new analytical techniques
Workshops for practitioners; material for National Highway Institute, Local Technical Assistance Program, and online training; material for university curricula
Incident response training and pursuit of possible certification; training in use of planning and design manuals and models; training in use of data from naturalistic driving studies for travel time reliability efforts
Training in use of CDMF and ecological, economic, and travel modeling tools; curricula for graduate programs in planning
Long-term stewardship
Stewardship of data from the SHRP 2 naturalistic driving study, including oversight committee; availability of data to researchers in remote locations
Institutional structure for travel time reliability data archive
Stewardship of CDMF, including oversight committee; mechanism to add cases to economic case-based reasoning tool, including advisory body
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will require differing technical expertise. IT and knowledge management activities are required across all strategies. IT support and cross-cutting knowledge management capabilities are included under administration of the program. These capabilities include, for example, the capacity to set up Internet-based communication and collaboration tools such as webinars and wikis; development of communities of practice; and the means to capture learning and knowledge gleaned both in individual focus areas and about implementation itself. Certain aspects of knowledge management are highlighted under training and education and long-term stewardship to call attention to specific needs in each of the focus areas.
Safety Implementation Approach
Naturalistic Driving Study Data
The principal product of SHRP 2 Safety research will be data from the naturalistic driving study. This product differs from most of the other SHRP 2 products in that the data will not directly affect highway practice but will be used by researchers and analysts to develop and improve safety countermeasures. The direct users of the data will be researchers in the academic, private, and public sectors; highway practitioners will be indirect users in that they will make decisions about the application of safety countermeasures on the basis of analyses of the data. For this reason, the Safety implementation approach focuses on ways to make the data accessible and usable for improving actual safety outcomes.
Long-Term Stewardship First and foremost, a mechanism must be established to house and maintain the raw data and the data sets that will be derived from the raw data. The intent behind this data resource center is to make all the data available to qualified researchers. Because data of a private nature, such as video of the faces of the volunteer drivers, will be included in the raw data set, safeguards must be instituted to prevent such data from being accessed by unauthorized persons. Future researchers desiring access to the data will have to meet all requirements included in the consent forms signed by the volunteers and will most likely need to submit their research plans to an institutional review board (IRB) for research involving human subjects. Therefore, procedures must be established to provide for IRB oversight and allow for secure authorized access to private
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or sensitive data. Meeting this need may mean having a secure physical location to which authorized researchers will go to view data that cannot be released from the database. A tiered approach to data access—with more open access to less sensitive data and more stringent credentialing for access to more sensitive data—could be considered. An independent oversight group could be charged with ensuring that the scientific objectives and ethical commitments associated with the naturalistic driving study are preserved and promoted in future use of the data.
Technical Assistance To carry out all these tasks, a stable funding stream is needed, and an appropriate entity or institution must be identified to provide database administration, data reduction, technical support, training, and other services that will ensure the availability, usability, integrity, and security of the data. The magnitude of the task and the need for periodic upgrades to hardware and software necessitate a stable, reliable, multiyear funding stream that is not dependent on annual decisions or individual project support. This funding would support maintenance of the data center, periodic upgrades, basic staff and services, communication and outreach activities, some level of ongoing analytical work, and publication of results. Because it is expected that public, private, and academic researchers will want to make use of this national resource beyond a basic level of analysis using reduced data sets, the entity responsible for the data center should be able to receive further funding from these sources as fees for additional services provided.
Follow-On Research, Testing, and Evaluation The raw data alone from this project are expected to amount to nearly one petabyte (1,024 terabytes). To be maximally useful to the largest number of safety researchers and professionals, the raw data will need to be reduced and stored in smaller, more manageable databases. Some of this reduction will take place under SHRP 2 through the analysis projects focused on high-priority safety questions, but much more work will need to be done after SHRP 2 has ended. Funding for additional studies to answer more of the safety questions identified under SHRP 2 for which funding was insufficient would accelerate the application of the data to actual safety improvements. The full implementation program should include additional support for research and development
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efforts aimed at quickly instituting highly cost-effective safety countermeasures, which would, in effect, pave the way for a wide range of companion efforts that could be funded from other sources. Research partnerships with government and industry, including automobile manufacturers and suppliers, as well as with academic and public health institutions, will make it possible to identify safety priorities, propose countermeasures, and assess the potential benefits of deploying those countermeasures and the possible need for voluntary or regulatory initiatives to implement findings from applied research.
Training and Education Potential users need to know about the availability of these data and their usefulness. Training must be provided so that researchers can become familiar with the new data and analytical techniques and the research community can access and use the databases to convert the data into insight and knowledge. In addition to traditional classroom and online training courses, training approaches may include short sabbaticals for visiting professors to work at the data resource center, stipends for graduate students who wish to focus their research on naturalistic driving, and the development of curricula and classroom materials for use by professors in university courses on highway safety and human factors. State and local agency highway safety professionals may have limited time for training, and many of them will not be interested in delving into the safety databases directly. Therefore, special outreach and training should be developed to focus on the needs and interests of these individuals—for example, how the data can be used to answer practical safety questions, how this type of research can expand horizons for asking new questions and developing new kinds of safety countermeasures and strategies, and how these professionals can work with their local universities and research firms to extract what they need from the existing data or even to conduct smaller-scale studies in their own jurisdictions.
Research Analysis Tools
The implementation of research analysis tools will take place in part through the normal academic channels of refereed journals, presentations at conferences by the researchers who develop the tools, and the application of the tools by automobile manufacturers and technology suppliers
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well known among practitioners. Competitive processes should be used to determine where such demonstrations will be carried out to ensure that the most appropriate site is chosen for a given technology or strategy. In addition to the training received for projects in their state, lead states can be trained to provide support to later adopters. They should also receive some funds to cover the delta costs associated with being early users of innovative products.
Training and Education
Training and education programs will need to be developed for public agencies and the private sector to produce the knowledge and skills necessary to implement Renewal products. The training could include workshops on tools that can assist public agencies throughout the decision-making process. The training materials will need to be tailored to the intended audience and could include both traditional classroom approaches and web-based methods. The training could be administered through the National Highway Institute (NHI) or the Local Technical Assistance Program centers.
Reliability Implementation Approach
Reliability is the area of SHRP 2 research most directly oriented toward the users of the highway system, but it involves some of the more complex concepts, strategies, and implementation paths. While concepts such as “congestion” and “being late for work” are readily grasped, “travel time reliability” requires some explanation. The wide variety of users and stakeholders for Reliability products increases the implementation challenge. Leaders of transportation agencies, technical experts, nontransportation professionals, and researchers will each need different types of information and outreach. In addition to these direct users of SHRP 2 Reliability products, many others may be indirect users or beneficiaries of improved travel time reliability. For example, buses operate in the same congestion that plagues cars; operators of bus transit systems are among the customers of highway agencies and are potential users of travel time reliability tools. Freight shippers and truckers are also customers of the highway system and are often sensitive to changes in travel time reliability. Examples of implementation strategies for the Reliability program are described below.
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Strategic Packaging and Branding
As is the case with Renewal products, implementation of Reliability products will yield maximum benefits when the products are used together as part of an integrated, systemic approach that includes institutional, analytical, and technological components. Packaging and possibly branding these components will facilitate users’ understanding of the overall benefits of the products. Leaders of transportation agencies in particular will need clear articulation of the performance benefits of managing nonrecurring incidents; a laundry list of research products will not impress them. A focus on decision-making tools that can help determine which reliability strategies to use may be most meaningful for this audience. The packaging effort might include outlining one or more incremental implementation strategies that can show clear impacts on customer outcomes; such an incremental approach to implementation would be less daunting to many organizations. Special packaging or branding may be needed to attract the attention and support of nontransportation professionals, such as police, firefighters, emergency medical teams, special event managers, and others who are affected by reliability but do not consider highway operations to be their primary concern. Packaging for the public safety community, for example, might focus on increasing awareness of the safety implications of better incident management and response and of the opportunities for achieving better performance in this area.
Standards, Specifications, Guidebooks, and Manuals
Transportation professionals rely on dependable guidelines and sources of information to carry out their work. To the extent possible, changes in planning, design, or field procedures need to be incorporated into standard references or models with which these professionals are familiar. In the design area, the Highway Capacity Manual and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials’ Policy on Geometric Design of Highways and Streets have already been identified as standard sources into which SHRP 2 Reliability results may be incorporated. The committees responsible for these documents must be engaged from the beginning of the research efforts in this area. If new guidelines or models must be developed, they must be “owned” by an institution that can stand behind their quality and ensure their long-term support and improvement. New or modified design
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documents and planning models must be supported by training that is tailored to the needs and circumstances of each user group. Reliability depends on accurate and timely data about traffic flow and roadway conditions. In some cases, states will need to collect new data in order to use a new design approach or planning model; guidance on what data are needed and how they can be acquired should be provided. In other cases, appropriate data may be available from the private sector. Guidance on how to obtain these data and model data-sharing agreements should be produced.
Follow-On Research, Testing, and Evaluation
Technical products, such as analytical methods for determining the impacts of various operations strategies on travel time reliability, should be pilot tested before being made widely available. New institutional approaches can be pilot tested by more innovation-oriented agencies. Innovations Deserving Exploratory Analysis projects addressing reliability may require additional research, development, and testing. Follow-up research can be conducted to identify the implications of future-oriented concepts developed under the Reliability program and to elicit operations-relevant insights from the driver behavior data collected in the Safety focus area of SHRP 2.
Lead Users and Demonstration Projects
Deployment incentive programs could be developed for which transportation agencies and their partner organizations could compete. Such programs would provide some funding, training, and technical support for agencies that are prepared to engage in bolder implementation efforts using more integrated sets of Reliability products. The agencies that won these competitions would become lead users who would provide peer assistance to other agencies wishing to implement the demonstrated products. A special component of this peer support could be focused on agency leaders—secretaries and directors of transportation—to assist them in fostering institutional change to achieve better operational performance.
Training and Education
Accomplishing the objectives of the SHRP 2 Reliability focus area will entail a profound change in the way transportation agencies understand and carry
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out their mission. This change is often characterized as a shift from a focus on designing and building infrastructure to a focus on providing mobility and accessibility, which includes managing operations and information in addition to constructing and maintaining facilities. Such a shift requires transportation professionals to think in terms of random events, probability distributions, and statistical measures. For agencies to incorporate reliability performance measures into plans, program assessments, operations, and decision-support tools, they must begin to think of their system in statistical terms. Education and training programs that communicate the basic concepts of reliability, as well as more in-depth and practical results of the SHRP 2 Reliability research program, will be essential. These education and training courses might be offered through NHI, the Operations Academy,3 executive short courses, and a variety of online courses. Specialized training will be required for practitioners to learn how reliability concepts can influence their daily work. Universities will need to teach these concepts to future transportation professionals so they start their careers with an operations mentality. In the area of incident response, SHRP 2 is developing joint training for responders from within and outside of transportation agencies. Methods to support implementation in these communities should make the fullest possible use of organizations trusted by these practitioners. Incident response training may need to be integrated into existing training programs for each group (e.g., police, firefighters). However, common training of diverse groups can lead to better teamwork in the field. Such common training would need to be organized and carried out by an appropriate institution or organization respected by all the incident response constituents. Differences in institutional cultures call for careful, step-by-step implementation strategies that respect each culture’s specific requirements.
Long-Term Stewardship
Researchers and analysts will want to use data contained in the travel time reliability data archive being developed under the Reliability program. The data archive must have stable ownership and funding. The costs of maintaining large data archives and providing services to data users can be sub-
3
The Operations Academy is an intensive, 2-week program sponsored by the I-95 Corridor Coalition that trains transportation professionals in surface transportation management and operations.
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stantial; few if any institutions would be able to absorb these responsibilities without additional revenue. Training in the use of these data resources will also be necessary.
Capacity Implementation Approach
Collaborative Decision-Making Framework
The principal product of SHRP 2 Capacity research is CDMF. Several implementation practices for CDMF are described below; the two most critical are establishment of long-term administrative and technical stewardship for the framework and its tools, and demonstration of its effectiveness in real-world applications.
Strategic Packaging and Branding “Collaborative Decision-Making Framework” has been the working name for this product, but it may be helpful to develop a shorter “brand name” that communicates the essential philosophy of the approach. Communication and marketing efforts should be undertaken to create broader awareness of CDMF among prospective users and other stakeholders.
Follow- On Research, Testing, and Evaluation Follow-on research should develop accounting approaches to show the costs and benefits of CDMF. Benefits will include reduced delay in delivering projects because of less opposition from community and environmental groups and less risk of lawsuits.
Lead Users and Demonstration Projects Competitively awarded demonstration projects should be conducted in a small number of states that are willing to act as lead users of CDMF. These projects would involve working with the framework and observing the results and changes in an agency’s business processes that may ensue. Funding should be provided to these lead users to cover training and delta costs associated with the demonstration projects.
Training and Education Training will be required to help users reap the greatest benefits from CDMF. The training could be provided at two levels: to support managing change within a department of transportation (DOT) or metropolitan planning organization and with partner agencies, and to support use of CDMF, especially for high-risk key decision points.
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Long-Term Stewardship CDMF requires an “owner” to maintain, make available, and update its documents and electronic resources. The owner will need to establish an oversight committee of users, manage the website that contains the electronic version of the framework, perform updates as needed, and engage in continuing outreach. The costs associated with these tasks include provision and support of an electronic, web-based platform; staffing of a board charged with oversight, deployment, and updating of CDMF; marketing and outreach; staff time; periodic updates and revisions; and training.
Ecological, Travel Behavior, and Economic Impact Theme Areas
Implementation of products in the other three theme areas of Capacity research—ecological, travel behavior, and economic impact tools—can be promoted in concert with that of CDMF. These products can also be implemented as independent sets of tools. In all three areas, the following implementation approaches would be useful.
Lead Users and Demonstration Projects Lead agencies should be identified that are willing to demonstrate the tools in one or more of the three areas, document the process and its outcomes, and provide peer support for other agencies interested in adopting the demonstrated tools.
Training and Education Specific training should be developed in use of the tools in each of the three areas. Mechanisms should be developed for delivering this training to public- and private-sector agencies. A national travel forecasting handbook has been proposed by FHWA; SHRP 2 could contribute to this handbook. Similar handbooks may be useful in the ecological and economic areas. Implementation of the economic impact tools would also benefit from training in communicating the results of such analysis to decision makers and the public. Relevant stakeholders, such as the environmental community and groups interested in travel behavior modeling or economic development, should be targeted for outreach. Communication with these stakeholders should be repeated and sustained, making use of existing meetings and conferences as well as specialized focus groups to identify their interests and address their concerns. As a cadre of stakeholders becomes convinced of the benefits of the Capacity products, specialized workshops and training can be developed and provided.
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Long-Term Stewardship The economic impact tools of SHRP 2 would increase greatly in value if a mechanism were developed for adding new cases to the case-based segment. To this end, an owner or steward of the product would need to provide a method for users to add cases, as well as trained staff to review and edit the cases and integrate them into the product.
FINANCIAL RESOURCES
Good estimates of the cost of implementing research products are difficult to derive. Different terminology is used in different industries; the boundaries between research and development and between development and field trials or demonstrations are not clearly or consistently defined. The private sector often considers breakdowns of these costs to be proprietary information. The costs of implementation are sometimes borne by numerous entities, so reports from one source may underestimate the real costs. An “off-the-record” estimate from a major U.S. firm set the cost of the implementation phase of new product development at approximately 10 times the cost of research.
In the case of the first SHRP, approximately $150 million (1991 dollars) was appropriated for FHWA specifically for the first 6 years of the implementation effort; this figure is equivalent to nearly $240 million in 2008 dollars. Additional federal support for SHRP 1 implementation came from other FHWA discretionary research and technology funds but was not tracked by the agency as SHRP 1 implementation spending. Estimates of federal support are only part of the equation. The National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) contributed $14 million to SHRP 1 implementation when federal funds proved insufficient. No comprehensive data are available, but anecdotal accounts from state and federal officials suggest that state DOTs spent at least as much in state funds to implement the results of SHRP 1 as FHWA spent in federal funds.
Inasmuch as this report was requested by Congress, the committee confines itself to assessing the financial requirements for SHRP 2 implementation that would most appropriately be provided at the federal level. These are costs that individual users would find difficult or impossible to bear or that would be handled more effectively in a centralized manner. Table 7-2 provides rough estimates of required federal funding for SHRP 2 implementation over a 6-year period for each key implementation strategy. These budget estimates were developed by assessing the implementation needs of
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TABLE 7-2 ESTIMATED COSTS FOR KEY IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGIES
Key Implementation Strategy
Estimated Cost over 6 Years (millions of dollars)
Administration of the implementation program, including funding for contract management and support staff; oversight and technical committees; planning, analysis, evaluation, and performance measurement; IT and knowledge management infrastructure and expertise; marketing, outreach, publication, and other communication activities, including strategic packaging and branding
63
Technical assistance contracts
68
Support for development of standards, guidelines, and manuals
23
Support for follow-on research and pilot testing to refine and assess SHRP 2 research products
63
Technical and financial support for demonstration projects and for lead users who host these products and provide peer support to other users
51
Development and delivery of training and education
46
Provision of long-term stewardship of tools, models, databases, and archives as national resources; focused oversight committees
86
Total estimate
400
each focus area on the basis of the anticipated products listed in Appendix B, the example activities in Table 7-1, and cost estimates from similar federal and Transportation Research Board programs, adjusted for inflation. The line items in Table 7-2 include the following components:
Administration—staff for all four focus areas, as well as management and support staff for the program as a whole; communication and marketing; publications; travel, committee support, meetings, and international coordination; knowledge management and information technology; evaluation and performance measurement;
Technical assistance—one or two contracts per focus area to augment technical expertise at the principal implementation agent’s organization;
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Development of standards, guidelines, and manuals—an estimated 40 documents of this type;
Follow-on research and pilot testing—an estimated 60 research projects and 60 pilot tests;
Demonstration projects—an estimated 40 demonstration projects and support for 100 lead users;
Training and education—courses, curriculum materials, workshops, and stipends for academic sabbaticals; and
Long-term stewardship—the safety database and approximately three other major databases, and 15 minor databases or software products.
The scale of the work—including estimates of full-time equivalent positions; of numbers of committees, meetings, and publications; and of the size of technical assistance contracts—is based on estimates from people involved in implementation of the first SHRP. Estimates for the development of standards, guidelines, and follow-on research are based on typical projects from NCHRP. Estimates for demonstration projects and for development of manuals and training courses were provided by FHWA staff. Costs for the first 6 years of stewardship for the safety database are based on estimates provided by Virginia Tech Transportation Institute and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA); these estimates were modified to provide estimates for similar activities in the other focus areas. The committee also took into consideration the reduction in FHWA staff since SHRP 1 implementation, which means that a higher proportion of staff support for SHRP 2 implementation would likely come from contractors. Contractor expenses would be covered by funding for the SHRP 2 implementation program, while FHWA salaries are funded from a separate source. The combination of a bottom-up estimate based on expected products and required implementation activities and a rough comparison with implementation costs for the first SHRP, taking into consideration the differences between SHRP 1 and SHRP 2 and adjusting for inflation, led the committee to conclude that an overall estimate of $400 million in federal funds for SHRP 2 implementation is reasonable.
To put this cost estimate in perspective in terms of the potential benefits to society, if implementation of SHRP 2 research reduced congestion by just 1 percent, $780 million would be saved in a single year—nearly twice the recommended total funding for SHRP 2 implementation. Every 1 percent
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reduction in congestion would also save 42 million person-hours, or nearly 4,800 person-years, and 29 million gallons of fuel. Similarly, every 1 percent improvement in highway safety from implementation of SHRP 2 research would save more than 400 lives, avoid more than 25,000 injuries, and save $2.3 billion in costs associated with injuries and deaths annually. And implementation of SHRP 2 can be expected to yield much more than the 1 percent improvement used for these examples. (Estimates are based on data given by Blincoe et al. 2002 and TTI 2007, Exhibit B-11, p. B-19.)
The 6-year costs shown in Table 7-2 are predicated on the assumption that the next surface transportation authorization will cover a period of this length. Implementation of all SHRP 2 products is unlikely to be completed within this time frame. It took approximately 15 years for the main product of the first SHRP, Superpave, to be adopted by all the state DOTs. A similar time frame may be expected for implementation of some of the bolder or more comprehensive products of SHRP 2. Implementation costs after the 6-year period should be assessed by the principal implementation agent when it is timely to do so.
Products requiring long-term stewardship, such as the safety data and CDMF, will continue to require funding for maintenance, updating, and provision of customer services. Funding for these products beyond the next authorization period should be reassessed toward the end of the authorization cycle on the basis of demand for the products and benefits to be achieved through appropriate federal support. The safety database, given its size and the variety and characteristics of the data it contains (most of the data will be in video form), will require significant support to ensure its effective application in addressing safety needs. Preliminary estimates from NHTSA and Virginia Tech Transportation Institute for basic stewardship of the safety database are in the range of $30 million to $35 million for 6 years.4 These estimates do not include additional analysis, new data reduction, training, or other specialized user support, which are essential to making these data as available and useful as possible. Costs for the long-term stewardship of other SHRP 2 products, such as CDMF and the reliability data archive, should be significantly lower than those estimated for the safety databases.
4
Note that the figure for long-term stewardship in Table 7-2 is for databases and archives across all four focus areas of SHRP 2 and includes funds for focused committees to oversee the databases, as well as some funding for additional user support.
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REFERENCES
Abbreviation
TTI Texas Transportation Institute
Blincoe, L., A. Seay, E. Zaloshnja, T. Miller, E. Romano, S. Luchter, and R. Spicer. 2002. The Economic Impact of Motor Vehicle Crashes, 2000. NHTSA Technical Report No. DOT HS 809 446. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Washington, D.C.
TTI. 2007. 2007 Urban Mobility Report. http://mobility.tamu.edu/ums/.
