Opening Plenary Session, Part 3 -- Holding Us Accountable: Do we make the grade?
Moderator: Mr. Lance A. Neumann, President, Cambridge Systematics
Ms. Marianne A. Trussell, Chief Safety Officer, Florida Department of Transportation
Dr. Tim Lomax, Mobility Analysis, Texas Transportation Institute
Mr. Ben Warner, Deputy Director, Jacksonville Community Council (JCCI)
In the communities around the state/nation, those who develop social indicators have an interest in transportation and the impacts on communities. A collaboration is needed to further the efforts of measuring the impact transportation has on regions and communities and how communities impact transportation.
Safety is a good example of being accountable to many people, agencies, and entities.
What is the impact of congestion on quality of life? Of communities? It’s not just the numbers but how we use the data and how we can prioritize projects and make improvements.
In becoming a data-driven society, we are becoming used to seeing data, charts, and information – the example given was the USA Today newspaper. We have gotten used to expecting good, managed data and use it to tell a story. When governments do that it’s magic.
There are a lot of people out there that need each other in data sharing. Collaboration is imperative in providing a full analysis.
Safety is very data intensive. Data are collected by law enforcement from a long-form crash report, the data is entered into a database and is used by all safety and DOT programs. The FDOT has a grant to expand data capability for all public roads and also to include a GIS component.
Not hitting a target does not mean failure. You measure results, not efforts. Performance measures can measure both. When the effort is expended, results will follow. Once efforts are reviewed, then take a look at results.
Multi-step performance measures are useful. With travel time reliability, there are vital components to reliability – good vehicles, roads, etc. Let’s try to use the data we have and measure what we can. As data improves, so does measurement.
If you don’t have a good performance measurement system, how do you develop measures without data? Find those who have invested in data collection and build a data program.
There are many using data and performance measures to show how well (or not) their program is doing. It explains so much about a program. If you set goals, use performance measures to show progress.
How can we look forward and forecast? Setting future performance measurements must be done with other folks such as land-use planning, economic development, housing, and other community components. We need to step outside of transportation and collaborate.
FDOT needs to get developers involved. Start with small steps and think outside little boxes. For a community to develop, small-step initiative need to expand past only one agency. First goal could be to stop doing dumb growth – developers are there to make money so there needs to be a collective effort in developing transportation.
It is important to recognize that it takes more than transportation to develop community transportation needs. It involves to actions of the community.
There is so much data out there. Should there be a state data center? Those who collect data for their own purposes have the best data. Those entities that only collect data, there is no quality ownership. Data could be warehoused though to make it accessible for others.
If data collectors know their customers and what is needed, data quality and appropriateness improves.
Safety data isn’t available for everyone. There are limits to data sharing and this could minimize collaborative use.
Measuring efforts can be useful in measuring achievement and a part of measuring a performance exercise. We need to ask the question of, “Is there another way to do the same task.”
Some people use performance measures to support a program. How do you develop the right measures to support a goal? Use several approaches, several measures. Seldom is there one measure to support a goal.
When measures are used against an organization, how can an organization respond? First, agree that data wasn’t a weapon. Develop a shared responsibility for the goal. Data becomes a tool for improvement and to guide decisions.
It can be better to give an answer to a question then explain what it means and provide context behind the numbers and show what the goal is and the path to achieve it.
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