Institutional Architectures to Improve Systems Operations and Management (2012)

Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

As described in this chapter, interviews and a survey were used to identify the business process and institutional characteristics of the states that had more comprehensive SO&M programs (identified initially from secondary data). Interviews and Survey Based on the hypothesis presented in Chapter 2 and the insights provided by organizational development and process improvement theory and practice in Chapter 3, a survey approach was developed to systematically identify key busi- ness processes essential to more effective programs and the institutional features that appear to support these processes. The purpose of the survey and interviews was not to iden- tify specific states as exemplary; rather, it was to determine general relationships, business processes, and institutional architecture that appear to be associated with the more effec- tive states. This three-step approach was followed: • Step 1: Identification of clusters of states with similar com- mitment to and development of effective SO&M programs. • Step 2: State DOT management interviews and surveys of selected states. • Step 3: Analysis of the survey and interviews to identify key relationships between business processes and institutions. The range of business process and institutional differences among states was also assessed. Step 1: Identification of More Effective States—Reliance On Indirect Indicators There is no available performance outcome data that can be used to directly identify the more effective transportation agency SO&M programs on an absolute scale. Therefore, only a broad category evaluation of a transportation agency’s relative commitment and probable effectiveness could be made. Identification of more mature transportation agency programs versus those that are still transitioning toward more comprehensive and effective programs was assessed by com- bining the few sources that cover most or all transportation agencies. As indicated in the following list, the data include sources that indicate levels of deployment, performance report- ing (if any), self-evaluation of the status of applied strategies, issue self-reporting, level of participation in national programs, topic-specific citations, and anecdotes. The indicators and sources included the following: • Survey on the extent of deployment of ITS infrastructure— reported at the metropolitan level for the top 70 metro- politan areas in terms of percentage of freeway miles under detection and surveillance, coverage of safety service patrols, level of ITS integration. (Source: U.S. Department of Trans- portation, Research and Innovative Technology Adminis- tration, 2009b.) • State programs in traveler information—511 program and travel time information on dynamic message signs. (Source: U.S. Department of Transportation, FHWA, 2011.) • Incident management—self-assessment score (72 regions). (Source: U.S. Department of Transportation, FHWA, 2009a.) • State authorizing legislation regarding quick incident clear- ance. (Source: Dunn and Latoski, 2003.) • Level of participation in operations/ITS initiatives including the following:  ITS deployment activities. (Sources: I-95 Corridor Coali- tion, 2009; Gary-Chicago-Milwaukee Corridor Coalition, 2009.)  TMC pooled fund participation. (Source: U.S. Depart- ment of Transportation, FHWA, 2009e.)  Road weather management and Remote Weather Infor- mation System (RWIS) stations. (Source: U.S. Department C H A P T E R 4 Survey Research Methodology 31

of Transportation, Research and Innovative Technology Administration, 2009c.)  Integrated corridor management projects. (Source: U.S. Department of Transportation, FHWA, 2009c.)  VII demonstration projects. (Source: U.S. Department of Transportation, Research and Innovative Technology Administration, 2009a.)  Congestion management partnerships. (Source: U.S. Department of Transportation, FHWA, 2009b.)  AASHTO Subcommittee on Systems Operations and Management (SSOM) meetings. (Source: Authors’ notes, 2005–2009.) • Application of performance measures. (Source: Cambridge Systematics et al., 2006.) • Institutional issues, including the following:  Systems Operations as a Core Function: A Scan of the State of the Practice. Interview-based survey of selected state DOTs, conducted for the Virginia DOT, covering planning, DOT configuration, budgeting, partnerships, marketing, and operations practices. (Source: Virginia Transportation Research Council, 2005.)  Regional transportation operations collaboration and coordination self-assessment that included a combination of institutional and process issues. (Source: U.S. Depart- ment of Transportation, FHWA, 2002a.)  State DOT organization charts that were made available by AASHTO. • States were not ranked, given the varied and unweightable indicators, but were instead divided into the following three clusters based on the previous seven categories of information:  Mature states—the 20% of state DOTS with the highest levels of deployment in metropolitan areas, highest self-evaluation score, most comprehensive state legislation, and the highest levels of participation in the range of national, regional, and association activities.  Transitioning states—the next 30% of state DOTs, using the same clustering scheme.  Other states. Ten states appear consistently across the range of indicators and were clearly identifiable as the most active states. These states were distinguishable as more mature. An additional 15 states, while less clearly distinguishable, fell into the second (transitioning) group, where significant progress toward a more comprehensive SO&M program (as measured by the indicators) appears to have been made. These states had ongoing plans to introduce improved strategy applications and business processes supportive of SO&M (such as output performance measures). The remaining 25 states are in the earlier stages of SO&M program development. The top two clusters provided the basis for selecting states for the survey and interviews. Both methodologies were designed to identify the relationships between these state DOTs—in terms of program scope and effectiveness—and their business processes and institutional characteristics. The purpose of this evaluation was primarily to identify the generic characteristics of the more mature states as a group, as differentiated from the transitioning states. Step 2: State DOT Management Interviews and Survey Brief but structured telephone interviews were carried out with eight key state DOT operations staff personnel to attempt to identify the business processes and institutional character- istics that are common among the ten mature states as differ- entiated from the transitioning states. Interviews were also conducted with program management personnel from the mature and transitioning states to provide a wider represen- tative sampling. Business process-related questions included the following: • Scope of the program as indicated by the program description; • Technical processes—status of standard concepts of oper- ations and architecture, documentation of field procedures, communications platforms, performance measures report- ing, and use; • Technology and systems development as reflected in deploy- ment data and participation in applications specific initia- tives; and • Use of performance measures. Institutional-related questions included the following: • Departmental structure—number of districts with trans- portation management centers (TMCs) and range of strate- gies applied; • Culture and leadership—formality of operations mission, relative program priority, expression in policy documents, dashboards, degree of senior championship of SO&M at central office and districts, accountability for operations attainments; • Authorization—existence of state budget category for SO&M, key legal authorities for field activities; • Planning and resource allocation—formal resource alloca- tion for SO&M, staff positions; • Organization—degree of consolidation within central office and districts, executive level of responsibility (compared to other programs), core capacities identified; and 32

• Partnerships—degree of formality with PSAs, level of outsourcing and private-sector contract management approach. The interviews were designed to determine the presence or absence of these features and their basic qualitative character- istics, based on the personal views of the interviewee. Because interview responses were not for attribution by individual or specific state, the candid responses provided previously undocumented perspectives on strengths and weaknesses of the agency’s programs and business processes and the institutional context to draw general conclusions about the transportation agencies. In addition to the selected interviews, a brief written response survey was administered to 22 state DOT representatives at the 2008 annual meeting of the AASHTO Subcommittee on Systems Operations and Management. The same basic questionnaire structure was used for both the interviews and the survey, addressing both program/process and institutional issues, but the survey only required yes/no or short-phrase answers. The survey instrument is included as Appendix C. Step 3: Analyze Data, Survey, and Interviews The empirical data, survey, and interviews were conducted to identify key relationships between SO&M programs and business processes, comparing mature states with transition- ing states to determine key institutional characteristics that support effective programs. To relate institutional architecture to the apparent level of SO&M program impacts, the approach needed to identify the key business processes that appeared to be essential to effective programs, as well as to distinguish varying levels of effectiveness. Therefore, in this step, the range of responses in the survey was analyzed in two parts. The first part determined the range of practices in the business processes that directly supported the SO&M program. This included an identification of the institutional implications of the key processes. This analysis was then used, in the second part, to consider the institutional differences among the state DOTs surveyed to more rigorously determine the key institutional differences and their relative roles in supporting improved business processes. These two analyses are discussed in the next chapter. 33