Regional transportation operations collaboration and coordination demonstration initiative

In an effort to stimulate greater emphasis on Transportation Systems Management & Operations (TSM&O), the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is sponsoring projects in three metropolitan areas to demonstrate development and implementation of a regional concept of transportation operations (RCTO). The RCTO requires regional collaboration of multiple entities - local and state governments, departments of transportation, police and rescue squads, etc. n order to accomplish various objectives that are beneficial to regional transportation operators and transportation system users in the metropolitan areas. The University of Virginia, working as part of a team led by Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), is supporting the FHWA by assisting in evaluating the success of these demonstration projects and providing assistance to the demonstration project participants as they seek to develop their RCTO through regional collaboration and coordination. More specifically, the team assisted FHWA by reviewing and commenting on demonstration applications and in designing and developing metrics and a score-card to assess the extent to which the demonstration projects achieve their objectives.