Decision-Making Toolbox to Plan and Manage Park-and-Ride Facilities for Public Transportation: Guidebook on Planning and Managing Park-and-Ride (2017)

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108 C h a p t e r 9 Purpose of This Chapter A park-and-ride facility is a transit agency asset and therefore needs to be strategically managed according to the transit agency’s asset management plan to be maintained in a state of good repair. This chapter discusses: • How to determine the state of good repair for a park-and-ride. • How to manage park-and-ride transit assets. State of Good Repair SGR “is a condition in which assets are fit for the purpose for which they were intended” (APTA 2013). FTA further defines SGR as: State of Good Repair and Asset Management P h ot og ra ph c ou rt es y of O ra n V ir iy in cy .

State of Good repair and asset Management 109 The condition in which a capital asset is able to operate at a full level of performance. This means the asset: 1. Is able to perform its designed function, 2. Does not pose a known unacceptable safety risk, and 3. Its life-cycle investments have been met or recovered (FTA 2016b). For transit agencies with park-and-ride facilities, this means maintain- ing the park-and-ride so it is structurally sound and safe for customers and employees for the useful life of the parking facility (usually defined as around 40 years according to FTA Circular 5010.1D, Chapter IV, Sec- tion 3, Paragraph f [FTA 2008]). SGR was introduced under the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century legislation and continued under the FAST Act. When transit agency assets (e.g., vehicles, rails, and facilities) are not maintained well, condi- tion deteriorates, maintenance backlogs grow, and asset conditions become poor or marginal. The result is decreased safety and reliability, increased maintenance costs, and the potential for having to replace assets sooner than would have otherwise been necessary. Park-and-rides are collections of many components (e.g., pavement, signage, electrical sys- tems, plumbing, structures, and fare collection equipment), and all of these components need to be kept in an SGR. Asset management is a strategy for keeping transit agency assets in an SGR by assessing asset conditions and prioritizing operating and capital investments to main- tain the SGR. Transit Asset Management The FTA issued its final rule for Transit Asset Management (49 Code of Federal Regulations Part 625) in July 2016. This section discusses the FTA TAM rule and some of its basic applica- tions to transit agencies with park-and-ride facilities. Transit agencies must conduct an asset inventory and condition assessment and report asset conditions to the FTA. However, this chapter should not be construed as providing exhaustive TAM guidance for all transit agencies and transit assets. Tier Definition The TAM rule’s requirements vary slightly, depending on whether a transit agency is classified as a Tier I or Tier II provider. Figure 17 provides the definition of Tier I and Tier II providers. TAM Plan Requirements The TAM rule requires public transportation providers to develop a TAM plan. Tier I pro- viders must develop their own TAM plans, and Tier II providers may either develop their own TAM plans or participate in a group plan. Requirements for Both Tiers The contents of the TAM plan are different for Tier I and Tier II providers. However, both Tier I and Tier II providers must include the following four components in TAM plans: • Inventory of capital assets. • Condition assessment. • Decision support tools. • Investment prioritization. A parking facility’s useful life is usually around 40 years.

110 Decision-Making toolbox to plan and Manage park-and-ride Facilities Inventory of Capital Assets. Transit agencies must inventory assets and then assess the condition of each asset. Transit assets fall into asset categories and classes. Park-and-rides are in the facilities asset category and passenger facilities asset class. (The passenger facilities asset class includes both parking and passenger facilities [FTA 2016e].) When creating an asset inventory, the transit agency should decide the level of detail to use for inventorying assets. In general, the FTA recommends breaking down passenger facilities into components (e.g., substructures, interiors, elevators and escalators, plumbing, electrical systems, and sites) and then breaking these components down into subcomponents (e.g., a site is com- posed of roadways and associated signage, markings, equipment, and utilities) (FTA 2016e). Condition Assessment. Once a transit agency has a complete inventory of its park-and-ride assets and components, it must next assess the condition of each component. The transit agency is required to prepare a condition assessment for any asset for which the transit agency has direct responsibility for capital maintenance. The FTA released the Facility Condition Assessment Guidebook for public comment in July 2016. The guidebook provides an in-depth description of conducting facility condition assess- ments (FTA 2016a). In the guidebook, the FTA recommends using the Transit Economic Requirements Model (TERM) 5-point scale for assessments. (Figure 18 shows an example.) After assessing the condition of facility components, transit agencies should calculate the condition of the entire facility. The FTA recommends that a transit agency use a consistent, repeatable method for this calculation and suggests several alternative approaches in the TAM guidebook to aggregate system-level condition data into a single overall value for facility condi- tion (FTA 2016e). Decision Support Tools. Transit agencies must be able to describe and display analytical tools and processes used to make investment prioritization decisions to best maintain the SGR Figure 17. Definition of Tier I and Tier II public transportation providers under the TAM rule. Source: FTA 2016e. Tier I Operates rail OR ≥ 101 vehicles across all fixed-route modes OR ≥ 101 vehicles in one non-fixed-route mode Tier II Subrecipient of 5311 funds OR American Indian Tribe OR ≤ 100 vehicles across all fixed-route modes OR ≤ 100 vehicles in one non-fixed-route mode

State of Good repair and asset Management 111 (FTA 2016d). These tools may be as simple as a spreadsheet or as complex as a transit-agency– wide asset management database. Investment Prioritization. A TAM plan must include a ranked listing of proposed projects and programs ordered by year of planned implementation (FTA 2016d). Transit agencies are allowed to prioritize projects using local policies and needs. However, investment prioritiza- tion must adequately take into consideration identified unacceptable safety risks and accessi- bility require ments. The listing of projects should be fiscally constrained based on estimated funding levels. Additional Requirements for Tier I Tier I transit agencies have five additional requirements in TAM plans: • A TAM and SGR policy. • Implementation strategies. • A list of key annual activities. • Identification of resources. • An evaluation plan. Because these requirements are more general in nature, this guidebook does not discuss them. However, FTA’s Transit Asset Management website, www.transit.dot.gov/TAM, provides more information. Setting SGR Targets and Reporting to the National Transit Database In addition to the TAM plan, which documents the transit agency’s assets and how it plans to achieve or maintain an SGR, transit agencies must also set SGR targets for each asset class and Figure 18. Example facility component condition assessment. Source: FTA 2016d.

112 Decision-Making toolbox to plan and Manage park-and-ride Facilities report the targets and current performance to the National Transit Database (NTD). For park- and-rides, the performance measure is related to the condition assessment and is reported as the percentage of facilities with a condition rating below 3.0 on the FTA TERM scale (1 [poor] to 5 [excellent]). Table 13 provides a hypothetical example of reporting SGR performance for a transit agency with 10 park-and-ride facilities. The transit agency reports a score of 60 percent in its NTD report- ing for passenger parking facilities. (Lower scores indicate better SGR.) Each year, transit agencies must update SGR performance measures and the next year’s SGR targets in the NTD’s Asset Inventory Module. In addition, transit agencies need to provide a nar- rative about: • Changes in the transit agency’s conditions since the previous year. • Progress toward the current fiscal year’s targets. • Targets for the next fiscal year. Summary Park-and-ride facilities are part of a transit agency’s capital assets and must be part of ongoing efforts to achieve and maintain a system-wide SGR. Asset management is the process to achieve or maintain an SGR. The FTA’s TAM rule establishes industry-wide TAM procedures and require- ments for recipients of FTA funds. The main requirements are for transit agencies to develop a TAM plan and to report SGR performance and targets to the NTD. TAM plans must include an inventory of all transit agency assets, including park-and-ride facilities and components. TAM plans must also contain a condition assessment of all assets, a list of decision support tools used by the transit agency to prioritize investments, and a fiscally constrained list of all planned SGR projects ordered by anticipated year of implementation. Large transit agencies and transit agencies that operate rail (Tier I transit agencies) have addi- tional TAM plan requirements that are outside the scope of this chapter. Table 13. Example SGR performance metric calculation for park-and-ride facilities. Facility Name Condition Assessment Score Park-and-Ride 1 5 Park-and-Ride 2 2 Park-and-Ride 3 4 Park-and-Ride 4 2 Park-and-Ride 5 2 Park-and-Ride 6 2 Park-and-Ride 7 5 Park-and-Ride 8 4 Park-and-Ride 9 2 Park-and-Ride 10 1 Number of park-and-rides with score <3 6 Percentage of park-and-rides with score <3 60%