Applying a Regional ITS Architecture to Support Planning for Operations: A Primer

Overview

This primer offers transportation planners and operations managers a menu of opportunities for applying the regional ITS architecture to enhance planning for operations. Because many TSM&O strategies are underpinned by ITS, the coordination of planning for ITS among agencies at the institutional and technical level is an essential element to planning for operations. This primer focuses on the use of an “objectives-driven, performance-based” approach to planning for operations; an approach that increases the potential support from the regional ITS architecture given the approach’s emphasis on data and performance measures.

Opportunities to leverage the regional ITS architecture in support of planning for operations include:
 

• Sustain and build on the collaborative relationships from the regional ITS architecture development
• Consult the architecture to identify available sources of operations data to track measurable objectives
• Gather information on operations needs from the architecture and ITS stakeholders.
• Examine service packages in architecture when identifying ITS-based M&O strategies
• Include the architecture as part of the transportation improvement program (TIP) development process
• Use the architecture’s operational concepts, functional requirements, and other contents to kick-start project development