Measuring the performance of programs and services is increasingly recognized as a critical component of effective management strategy for state departments of transportation (DOTs). The renewed interest in performance measures has been triggered by several factors, including (1) the need to support strategic planning and strategic management processes with information on the performance of DOTs, (2) demands for increased accountability from the public, legislatures, and governors' offices, (3) govemment-wide mandates in many states for agencies to develop strategic plans and supporting performance measures, (4) threats of privatization and the need to be competitive, and (5) growing commitments to identify and meet customers' needs. As the DOTs respond to these new challenges for effective leadership, charting new strategic directions and mounting efforts to strengthen their own management capacity, appropriate performance measures are essential for monitoring and improving performance over the long run. This synthesis reviews current use of performance measures by state DOTs and concludes with observations on their development and meaningful application as an effective management tool. State DOTs traditionally have been data rich agencies, where substantial resources are used to maintain and update data files on transportation facilities, equipment, materials, program activity, operations, finances, travel patterns, accident statistics, and other areas, but this does not necessarily mean that OOTs use these data to measure the performance of their programs or transportation systems. However, over the past two decades the concept of performance measurement has been generating increased interest among state DOTs, as reflected in the kinds of highway maintenance management systems and pavement management systems adopted by many states and in the use of performance measures in allocating funds to local transit agencies by some state DOTs. Currently, many DOTs are developing new generations of performance measures, in part to facilitate implementation of the various management systems envisioned by the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) of 1991. This synthesis identifies the kinds of performance measures presently used by state DOTs, across all transportation modes and program areas, focusing on what is being measured and bow it is measured. To obtain this information, a detailed survey instrument was mailed to the 50 state DOTs, and the synthesis is based principally on the completed surveys received from 36 states and follow-up telephone interviews conducted with staff in numerous DOTs from November 1995 to July 1996, to clarify and expand the information they provided. Tue most widely cited performance measures pertain to "traditional" program areas such as highway maintenance and traffic safety, where there is a long history of tracking work activity and needs. Substantial numbers of states also reported using performance measures in the areas of highway construction, public transportation, and aviation, while fewer states reported using measures in program areas where DOTs have less uniform involvement, such as rail transportation, ferry service, and ports and waterways. Relatively few DOTs reported the use of performance measures for driver licensing and vehicle registration, but in many states these functions are carried out by separate motor vehicles or public safety departments. Only a few states indicated that they track measures of multimodal transportation development on a regular basis. Areas in which performance measures are most likely to be tracked on a monthly basis include licensing and registration, and ferry service, followed by general administrative performance, highway maintenance, aviation, and ports and waterways. Measures of performance for multimodal transportation, traffic safety, rail transportation, and public transit tend to be tracked primarily on an annual basis. The most frequent management uses of these performance measures are program planning and evaluation, strategic planning, and external reporting. At the other end of the spectrum, relatively few of the DOTs indicated using these performance measures for evaluating managers' performance or operationalizing incentive systems. Moderate numbers of states reported using performance measures for setting performance targets and determining budget allocations. A variety of innovative practices were revealed by the survey, as illustrated by the following examples: * The Wisconsin DOT monitors a set of "corporate" measures to track quality of highway design and construction activities as perceived by contractors and maintenance managers, in addition to on-time and on-budget performance, delivery costs, control of unprogrammed costs, and productivity in relation to staff costs. * Reflecting the current customer service orientation of many DOTs, the Minnesota DOT surveys motorists in the state to assess the percentage who are satisfied with their travel times for work and other kinds of trips, and the Pennsylvania DOT uses surveys to gauge motorists' ratings of the roads maintained by the state. * To measure traffic congestion on a state-wide basis, the New Jersey DOT monitors the number of vehicle miles and the number of person miles travelled on segments of its highway system by different gradations of volume/capacity ratios. * The Maryland DOT uses a peer review program in which the roads surveyed in a given comity each year to measure highway condition are inspected by a team of resident engineers from other counties in the state. * Several state DOTs, such as the Illinois DOT, measure the actual costs per accident (or fatality or injury) avoided by safety improvement projects 2 years or so after they are completed. * The Washington DOT is in the process of developing a transit mobility index which is intended eventually to track the availability, connectivity, and affordability of both fixed-route public transit and paratransit service in Washington counties. * The Minnesota DOT not only tracks the number of carloads shipped or received on project rail lines annually, but also estimates the additional revenue earned by farm producers when shipping grain and other commodities via these rail lines. * The Pennsylvania DOT is planning to measure congestion at truck/rail intermodal facilities. * Other DOTS, such as those in New Jersey and Minnesota, track the miles of roads in their highway systems that are compatible for bicycle usage. * The New Jersey DOT also conducts large scale telephone surveys to measure modal choice and track the percentages of short-range commuting trips made by carpooling, vanpooling, public transit, bicycles, or walking as opposed to single-occupancy vehicles. * The California DOT tracks estimates of lhe number of vehicles in use, vehicle miles traveled by mode, fuel consumption, and fuel economy on an annual basis. * As gross indicators of the productivity of its own workforce, the Maryland DOT tracks such measures as the number of transit passenger trips per Maryland Transit Administration employee and the number of passengers enplaned per Maryland Aviation Administration employee. In summary, many state DOTs are taking significant steps to measure the performance of their programs and services, moving beyond the traditional operating level systems oriented to monitoring inputs and immediate outputs. The new generation of performance measures tends to be focused more strategically, with greater emphasis on quality and impact from the customers' perspective. These measures are being used increasingly to report on DOTs' performance to external audiences-governors' offices, legislatures, the media, and the public-in addition to internal decision-makers, in response to demands for increased accountability. However, these measurement systems seem to be perceived as more useful when they are created out of a genuine commitment to manage programs more effectively, rather than simply to comply with reporting requirements. The development of such perfonnance measures tends to be an iterative process, and currently there is considerable experimentation with and refinement of content, methodology, reliability, cost, and usefulness. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting