The Federal Highway Administration is looking to help transportation agencies shift their focus from simply measuring transportation system performance to directly using those performance measures within their project identification, project selection, and decision-making processes. A potential tool for accomplishing that is the Capability Maturity Model (CMM). The CMM describes the degree of formality and optimization (“maturity”) of an organization’s processes, from reactive, ad hoc practices; to formally defined steps; to managed consistency through measurement; to optimization and continual performance improvement. As a subcontractor to Cambridge Systematics, Inc., TRAC researchers will help refine the CMM to examine how state agencies manage roadway performance. TRAC and Cambridge Systematics will develop a primer that will discuss the difference between simply reporting operations performance measures and actively managing the roadway system using those measures. The primer will also present how using the CMM can help agencies assess the maturity of their existing roadway operations management processes and provide actions that agencies can take to more effectively use performance measures to select and apply the best roadway operations management strategies.
Principal Investigator: Mark E. Hallenbeck, Washington State Transportation Center, UW
Sponsors:
Cambridge Systematics, Inc.
FHWA
Scheduled completion: October 2020