Draft Memorandum for the Record
Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization
Congestion Management Process (CMP) Committee Meeting
December 21, 2017, Meeting
9:00 AM–10:00 AM, State Transportation Building, Conference Rooms 2 and 3, 10 Park Plaza, Boston
Jay Monty, Chair
The CMP Committee of the Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) agreed to the following:
Follow-up tasks are cited on page 4.
All present introduced themselves. (See the attendance list on the last page.)
The minutes of the prior meeting were approved.
The CMP Committee agreed to the following tasks in the CMP work plan:
This task consists of several duties, including preparing meeting agendas, meeting minutes, and other materials for meetings and presentations. It is estimated that the committee will meet four times during FFY 2018.
The main focus of this task is data collection to update the MBTA bicycle parking and MBTA automobile parking inventories. FFY 2018 will be the second year of the three-year data collection effort. MPO staff has already surveyed approximately 40-50 percent of MBTA lots. A memorandum summarizing the first year of data collection and noting the MBTA stations that were surveyed will be prepared during this FFY. A final memorandum and analysis of the park-and-ride and bicycle parking for all MBTA stations will be produced in FFY 2019.
A CMP Committee member asked if surrounding private parking lots and on-street parking are included in the inventory. MPO staff explained that the on-street parking is included if MBTA commuters can park there all day. However, two-hour parking spaces are not counted in the inventory. Additionally, all nearby private lots are included as long as MBTA commuters can park at the specific lot all day.
Staff stated that the task to evaluate new roadway data sources will commence in early January and the work will take a couple of months. The INRIX dataset will be compared to the National Performance Management Research Data Set (NPMRDS). NPMRDS is partially derived from INRIX data, but does not contain confidence scores or C-values. The NPMRDS only covers the National Highway System, a more limited network than the Boston Region MPO’s CMP network (which the INRIX dataset covers in its entirety).
Additionally, MassDOT’s Go-Time dataset may be analyzed to see if the dataset is useful. Other datasets will also be evaluated if deemed to be potentially useful for roadway monitoring. The most suitable datasets for use for the CMP would be recommended through this task.
One committee member asked how often the MPO will buy INRIX data. MPO staff answered that the INRIX data was purchased approximately once every three years. The first INRIX dataset was purchased for the year 2012 and a second dataset was purchased for the year 2015. The member also asked about the timeframe that is covered by the NPMRDS. Staff answered that the data are updated on an ongoing basis and updates to the dataset are released every month.
The Federal Highway Administration requires all MPOs and state departments of transportation to monitor two new performance measures. The performance measures are the Level of Travel Time Reliability (LOTTR) and Person Hours of Delay (PHED). The purpose of these performance measures is to measure travel time reliability. The NPMRDS was specifically created to calculate these performance measures.
A committee member asked staff to elaborate on the LOTTR performance measure. Staff responded that the LOTTR performance measure is calculated for four distinct time periods: AM, PM, off-peak, and weekends. The 80th percentile travel time for a roadway segment will be compared to the 50th percentile travel time for each time period to determine LOTTR for a roadway segment.
The purpose of this task is to document and compare 2012 and 2015 INRIX datasets. According to an analysis of the INRIX datasets, the travel speeds at many of the locations on the CMP network decreased between 2012 and 2015. MPO staff will analyze the changes of the speeds between 2012 and 2015.
MPO staff planned to present the “Fall 2016 Monitoring of MBTA Bus Performance Measures” memorandum to the CMP Committee, but this presentation was postponed due to time constraints. The analysis of MBTA bus performance measures began this year through the CMP and monitoring could potentially be done annually. During the meeting, members discussed the possibility of creating transit snapshots showing the results of from bus performance measurement for the entire region. Another idea that was mentioned during the meeting was the possibility of creating an interactive dashboard for the Boston Region MPO’s website. This memorandum will be presented at a future MPO meeting.
The idea of an intersection improvement program in the Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) was mentioned by a CMP committee member. This potential program would recommend low-cost improvements that could be easily implemented at the discretion of local communities. Members recommended that the idea be submitted through the Unified Planning Work Program (UPWP) project selection process. Staff and MPO members will follow-up with the Certification Activities group as regards this proposal.
The meeting adjourned at 9:50 AM.
| Members |
Representatives and Alternates |
|---|---|
At-Large City (City of Everett) |
Jay Monty (Chair) |
At-Large Town (Town of Lexington) |
Richard Canale |
City of Boston |
Thomas Kadzis |
MassDOT Highway Division |
John Romano |
Regional Transportation Advisory Council |
Tegin Teich |
| Other Attendees |
Affiliation |
|---|---|
Steve Olanoff |
Three Rivers Interlocal Council (Town of Norwood) |
| MPO Staff/Central Transportation Planning Staff |
|---|
Mark Abbott |
Ryan Hicks |
Scott Peterson |