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1INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND Travel time reliability marks an increasingly important measure for travelers; any trav- eler who uses the transportation systemâby car, bus, freight vehicle, and even emer- gency response vehicleâcan relate to the frustration of having a trip take longer than expected. Travelers tend to develop assumptions of how long a trip will take and plan accordingly on the basis of their personal historical experience, time of day, or day of the week, among other parameters. A traveler who routinely takes a specific route at a specific time of day may expect some level of congestion; typically, this is a reliable assumption. When factors such as a crash, work zone restricting travel lanes, special event, hazardous weather, or other anomaly unexpectedly affect the network, the reli- ability diminishes. Unforeseen delays account for almost half of the congestion on the nationâs roadways. Effective traffic management and operations are the result of a number of different business processes working together. Business processes comprise two general types of activities: operational processes and institutional or programmatic processes. At the operations level, various processes evolve and are coordinated among those who are responsible for overseeing or carrying out operational initiatives. Processes at the programmatic level involve higher levels of decision makers and often more than one department or agency. Within a transportation agency, there is a range of operational processes aimed at maintaining safe and efficient network operations even when unforeseen events affect overall network reliability. Transportation management agencies plan their standard operational strategies on the basis of assumed âtypicalâ travel conditions, which vary with time of day, day of week, and route. These procedures may be modified occasion- ally to sustain current operations and improve efficiency as roadway conditions and technologies change. Event-specific processes are set in motion by different triggers 1 PURPOSE
2GUIDE TO INTEGRATING BUSINESS PROCESSES TO IMPROVE TRAVEL TIME RELIABILITY or events that affect typical conditions. When an event-specific process is found to be effective, an agency may incorporate it into its program for use during a similar future event. Both standard and event-specific operational processes are designed to provide specific responses or actions to improve conditions for users of the transportation network. At a broader, institutional level, there also are important processes that work toward improving the reliability of the network. These institutional or programmatic processes are often more challenging to implement, but they have the potential to yield tremendous benefit. Institutional processes may include policies, training, interagency agreements, and reporting strategies. Managing a transportation network is a col- laborative endeavor that relies on equally effective business processes of key partners, such as law enforcement, emergency responders, and adjacent jurisdiction transpor- tation operations and management agencies, and even participants from the private sector, among others. This guide examines the integration of business processes at the two key lev- els: operational and programmatic. It provides a step-by-step guide for agencies to assess their operational processes and identify opportunities to change or develop new processes. This guide also provides agencies with recommendations related to documenting and institutionalizing operational processes to improve their sustain- ability within the organization once they are effectively implemented. Finally, it sum- marizes the benefits and challenges associated with integrating and institutionalizing processes related to travel time reliability. Additional information from the research is presented in the SHRP 2 L01 report, Integrating Business Processes to Improve Travel Time Reliability (2). CONTENTS AND ORGANIZATION Chapter 2 provides an introduction to business processes and an overview of process integration concepts. It gives the reader context for subsequent discussions that focus on operational and programmatic processes. The chapter also includes a brief discus- sion on business process modeling as a tool for agencies to assess and document their processes. Chapter 3 presents the proposed seven-step integration approach for analyzing, implementing, documenting, and institutionalizing business processes. This methodol- ogy is illustrated through two case studies, detailed in Chapter 4, that show how dif- ferent steps in the business process development and integration approach are applied using real-world operational examples. Chapter 5 presents some of the typical benefits and challenges of process integration and strategies for aligning the process for inte- gration with other established planning activities (including regional intelligent trans- portation system [ITS] architectures and the congestion management process). Last, Chapter 6 provides a brief summary of the guide and the material presented. This guide examines the integration of business processes at the two key levels: operational and programmatic.
3GUIDE TO INTEGRATING BUSINESS PROCESSES TO IMPROVE TRAVEL TIME RELIABILITY INTENDED READERSHIP The intended readership of this guide includes managers within state and local agen- cies that are responsible for overseeing operations programs for traffic management, maintenance, traveler information, and incident response and management. The con- tent and context of operational processes described here are focused on managers who develop programs, who liaise with internal and external departments within a department of transportation (DOT) or law enforcement agency, and who can influ- ence programmatic components. Their responsibilities would include recommending training needs, recommending or developing policy, or requesting funding through programming processes.
