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Institutional Architectures to Improve Systems Operations and Management (2012) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix A - U.S. Institutional Arrangements Compared with England and Australia
Pages 71-73

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From page 71...
... • No line item in state budget for operations • Functional divisions do not include operations at first level -- stovepiping • Congestion management is given high priority • HA has a Network Operations division covering traffic operations and network strategy • Single strategy for Strategic Road Network • Performance measures relating to journey time reliability, maintenance standards, and response times • Operations (on road and control room) included in planning and budgeting process at national level for the next four years • HA and police roles clearly set out following review in 2003 • Traffic Management Act requires highway authorities to work together to secure the expeditious movement of traffic • Congestion management is becoming more important, but priority is still given to providing new highway infrastructure • Congestion management is responsibility of state and/or local government • Different strategies among the states • Privately owned toll roads are operated by the concessionaire • Performance measures tend to focus on reducing accidents rather than improving journey time reliability or congestion • Operations is not listed separately in most state budgets • Queensland identifies operations as 2% of total highways budget (continued on next page)
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From page 72...
... • Targets tend to focus on improving safety but only on maintaining the status quo with regard to congestion and journey time reliability • Focus tends to be on providing new infrastructure 72 Systems engineering technical capacity • Organizational structure • Allocation of responsibilities between central office and regions Regional, situational awareness Sustainability and transparency of budget for congestion management Interagency cooperation • Operational; management and coordination; agency cultures and priorities • Formality of relationships Coordinated execution Performance focus via use of objective-related performance measures • DOT regions quite independent in program development • Lack of availability of trained technical and management staff • Police and fire have incident command by law but different priorities form DOTs • DOTs support and communicate • Some outsourcing of TMCs, SSP, ITS maintenance • Relationship with public safety agencies subsidiary and informal • Cultures of law enforcement not interested in traffic • Performance measures limited to outputs, not outcomes • Operations is a key part of Highway Agency's work • HA directly employs and trains traffic officers and control room operators • Regional structure based around seven regional control centers • National Traffic Control Centre provides traffic information and strategic diversion routing on a national basis • HA is at forefront in using ITS to deal with recurrent congestion • National standards for technology on motorways and trunk roads • Adequate resources for motorway network • HA is looking into diverting some existing resources onto trunk road network • HA is taking on vehicle recovery role for broken down vehicles on trunk road network • Incidents are generally led by HA • Police have different priorities than HA and only take lead for injury accidents and suspected criminality • Roles and responsibilities of HA and police are formally agreed upon • Highway infrastructure and ITS maintenance is outsourced • Formal relationship between HA, police, and other emergency services • HA is measured on safety and journey time reliability • Culture of continuous improvement Table A.1.
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From page 73...
... International Differences Institutional Issues Related to Preconditions for Effective United States England Congestion Management (Typical Large State DOT) The Highways Agency (HA)
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Key Terms

  • journey time
  • management center
  • owned toll
  • privately owned
  • time reliability

  • traffic management
  • budgeting process
  • arrangements compared
  • asset management
  • institutional arrangements

  • toll roads
  • highway authorities
  • safety agencies
  • strategies employed
  • maintenance standards

  • highway infrastructure
  • trunk road
  • improving journey
  • national traffic
  • law enforcement

  • seven regional
  • tions division
  • targets tend
  • agencies subsidiary
  • incident command

  • queensland identifies
  • effective united
  • requires highway
  • evant external
  • target response


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