Highway Congestion: Intelligent Transportation Systems' Promise  
for Managing Congestion Falls Short, and DOT Could Better	 
Facilitate Their Strategic Use (14-SEP-05, GAO-05-943). 	 
                                                                 
Congestion is a serious and growing transportation problem for	 
the nation. Many strategies--like adding new lanes--have the	 
potential to alleviate congestion but can be costly and have	 
limited application. Another strategy is the use of		 
communications, electronics, and computer			 
technologies--intelligent transportation systems (ITS)--to more  
effectively utilize existing transportation infrastructure by	 
improving traffic flow. Congress established an ITS program in	 
1991, and the Department of Transportation (DOT) subsequently set
an ITS deployment goal. In this report GAO (1) describes the	 
federal role in deployment; (2) assesses DOT's ITS goal and	 
measurement efforts; (3) identifies what ITS studies have found  
regarding the impacts of ITS deployment; and (4) identifies the  
barriers to ITS deployment and use.				 
-------------------------Indexing Terms------------------------- 
REPORTNUM:   GAO-05-943 					        
    ACCNO:   A36757						        
  TITLE:     Highway Congestion: Intelligent Transportation Systems'  
Promise for Managing Congestion Falls Short, and DOT Could Better
Facilitate Their Strategic Use					 
     DATE:   09/14/2005 
  SUBJECT:   Federal aid for transportation			 
	     Highway research					 
	     Program evaluation 				 
	     Public roads or highways				 
	     Strategic planning 				 
	     Traffic regulation 				 
	     Transportation					 
	     Program costs					 
	     Program goals or objectives			 
	     Program implementation				 

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GAO-05-943

     

     * Report to Congressional Committees
          * September 2005
     * HIGHWAY CONGESTION
          * Intelligent Transportation Systems' Promise for Managing
            Congestion Falls Short, and DOT Could Better Facilitate Their
            Strategic Use
     * Contents
          * Results in Brief
          * Background
          * The Federal Role in ITS Deployment Includes Goal Setting,
            Funding, and Activities to Support States' Deployment of ITS
               * Congress Set Broad Goals and Established Funding for ITS
                 Deployment through Recent Legislation
               * DOT Established a Goal for ITS Deployment in 1996 and
                 Incorporated It into DOT's Performance Plans
               * DOT Has Established Several Roles to Facilitate ITS
                 Deployment
          * Although Progress Has Occurred, DOT's ITS Goal and Measures Have
            Limitations and Fall Short of Capturing Impact on Congestion
               * Some Progress Has Been Made Toward Achieving DOT's
                 Deployment Goal, but DOT's Measures and Rating System
                 Overstate the Status of ITS Deployment
               * DOT's ITS Goal and Measures Fail to Capture Important
                 Dimensions of Evaluating ITS Status, Including, Similar to
                 Other Highway Programs, Evaluating Outcomes
                    * DOT's ITS Goal and Measures Do Not Take into Account
                      the Level of ITS Needed to Accomplish Local Goals
                    * DOT's ITS Goal and Measures Do Not Capture the Extent
                      of ITS Operations
                    * DOT's ITS Goal and Measures Do Not Capture Evaluation
                      of Outcomes, Similar to Other Highway Programs
               * Four Case Studies Illustrate Limitations of DOT's Goal and
                 Measures
          * Studies Have Found Positive Impacts of ITS Deployment Depend on
            Effective Operations, but Few Have Included Cost- Effectiveness
            Analyses
               * Studies Indicate ITS Deployment Can Provide Benefits
               * Studies Suggest That ITS Benefits Depend on Effectively
                 Operating ITS Technologies to Meet Local Conditions
               * Few ITS Studies Include Analysis of ITS Projects' Cost
                 Effectiveness
          * Several Barriers Limit the Widespread Deployment of ITS
               * ITS Projects Are Sometimes Seen as a Less Appealing
                 Investment Option for Mitigating Congestion
               * Lack of Operational Funding and Misunderstanding of Federal
                 Funding Policy Are Barriers to Deployment
               * ITS Deployment Is Hampered by a Lack of Technical Expertise
               * ITS System Integration Is Limited by Delayed Technical
                 Standards
          * Conclusions
          * Recommendations for Executive Action
          * Agency Comments
     * Scope and Methodology
          * Organizations Contacted
               * Department of Transportation
               * Chicago Metropolitan Area
               * Indianapolis Metropolitan Area
               * Las Vegas Metropolitan Area
               * San Francisco Metropolitan Area
               * Highway Associations
               * Other
     * Summary of DOT's Deployment Tracking Methodology
     * Metropolitan Area Case Studies
          * Chicago, Illinois
               * Level of Congestion
               * Transportation System
               * Transportation Challenges
               * ITS Applications
               * Factors Impacting ITS Deployment
               * Future ITS Initiatives
          * San Francisco, California
               * Level of Congestion
               * Transportation System
               * Transportation Challenges
               * ITS Applications
               * Factors Impacting ITS Deployment
               * Future ITS Initiatives
          * Las Vegas, Nevada
               * Level of Congestion
               * Transportation System
               * Transportation Challenges
               * ITS Applications
               * Factors Impacting ITS Deployment
               * Future ITS Initiatives
          * Indianapolis, Indiana
               * Level of Congestion
               * Transportation System
               * Transportation Challenges
               * ITS Applications
               * Factors Impacting ITS Deployment
               * Future ITS Initiatives
     * GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

                 United States Government Accountability Office

Report to Congressional Committees

GAO

September 2005

HIGHWAY CONGESTION

Intelligent Transportation Systems' Promise for Managing Congestion Falls Short,
              and DOT Could Better Facilitate Their Strategic Use

                                       a

GAO-05-943

HIGHWAY CONGESTION

Intelligent Transportation Systems' Promise for Managing Congestion Falls
Short, and DOT Could Better Facilitate Their Strategic Use

  What GAO Found

The federal role in ITS deployment includes goal setting, funding, and
facilitating states' investment in ITS. In 1991, Congress set broad goals
and established funding for ITS, and in 1998, Congress established a
program to support ITS deployment. In a 1996 speech, the Secretary of
Transportation established a vision for ITS deployment to save time and
lives and improve quality of life. As part of this vision, the Secretary
also established a goal that the 75 largest metropolitan areas deploy a
complete ITS infrastructure by 2005 and measures to track progress toward
this goal. DOT has taken several actions to support this goal, though it
does not plan to update it.

Progress has been made toward achieving DOT's deployment goal, but DOT's
goal and measures have limitations and fall short of capturing ITS's
impact on congestion. Among other things, the measures do not capture the
extent to which deployed ITS technologies are effectively operated, and we
found that some metropolitan areas' operations of ITS technologies are
limited. For example, Chicago developed 10 traffic management centers to
monitor and respond to traffic congestion by notifying emergency
responders of traffic accidents, among other things; however, 6 centers do
not have full-time operators, which is likely to limit their impact on
congestion mitigation.

Many of the ITS studies we reviewed suggest that ITS deployment can have
benefits such as relieving congestion, traffic throughput, safety, and air
quality. Results from some studies suggest that ITS benefits depend on
effectively operating ITS technologies to meet local conditions. However,
few studies provided information about cost effectiveness of the ITS
deployments, which is essential for maximizing public investments.

According to transportation officials GAO spoke with, barriers to ITS
deployment and use include the limited public awareness of the impact of
ITS, difficulty of funding ITS operations, limited technical expertise,
and lack of technical standards. DOT actions have had limited success in
overcoming these barriers.

A Chicago Metropolitan Area's Traffic Management Center That Lacks Staff
Dedicated throughout the Day

United States Government Accountability Office

Contents

  Letter 1

Results in Brief 5 Background 8 The Federal Role in ITS Deployment
Includes Goal Setting, Funding,

and Activities to Support States' Deployment of ITS 12 Although Progress
Has Occurred, DOT's ITS Goal and Measures

Have Limitations and Fall Short of Capturing Impact on

Congestion 18 Studies Have Found Positive Impacts of ITS Deployment Depend
on

Effective Operations, but Few Have Included Cost-Effectiveness

Analyses 27 Several Barriers Limit the Widespread Deployment of ITS 30
Conclusions 37 Recommendations for Executive Action 38 Agency Comments 38

  Appendixes

Appendix I:

Appendix II: Appendix III:

    Appendix IV:

              Scope and Methodology 40 Organizations Contacted 44

Summary of DOT's Deployment Tracking Methodology 46

Metropolitan Area Case Studies 49 Chicago, Illinois 49 San Francisco,
California 53 Las Vegas, Nevada 58 Indianapolis, Indiana 60

    GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 64

Table 1: Examples of Deployment Impacts from Our Review of ITS

  Tables

Studies 28 Table 2: DOT's Deployment Component Indicators and Threshold

Values 47 Table 3: DOT's Integrated Deployment Classification Scheme 48

Figure 1: Select ITS Technologies Used to Manage Congestion 9

  Figures

Figure 2: Examples of ITS Technologies That Can Be Deployed and Integrated
in Metropolitan Areas 11 Figure 3: ITS Deployment Ratings for 75
Metropolitan Areas, 1997 to 2004 21

Page i GAO-05-943 Highway Congestion

Contents

Figure 4:  A Chicago Metropolitan Area's Traffic Management          
              Center That Lacks Staff Dedicated to Monitoring Traffic   
              throughout the Day                                           53 
Figure 5:  Artist's Depiction of Real-Time Travel Information in San 
              Francisco                                                    58 
Figure 6:  Indiana Hoosier Helper Van                                   63 

                                 Abbreviations

    CMAQ          Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement          
                  program                                                    
    DOT           Department of Transportation                               
    FHWA          Federal Highway Administration                             
    ISTEA           Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 
    ITS           intelligent transportation systems                         
    JPO           Joint Program Office                                       
    NHS           National Highway System program                            
    NTOC          National Transportation Operations Coalition               

SAFETEA-LU Safe, Accountable, Flexible, and Efficient Transportation
Equity Act: A Legacy for Users

SDO standards development organization

STP Surface Transportation Program

TEA-21 Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century

This is a work of the U.S. government and is not subject to copyright
protection in the United States. It may be reproduced and distributed in
its entirety without further permission from GAO. However, because this
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copyright holder may be necessary if you wish to reproduce this material
separately.

A

United States Government Accountability Office Washington, D.C. 20548

September 14, 2005

The Honorable James M. Inhofe Chairman Committee on Environment and Public
Works United States Senate

The Honorable Christopher S. "Kit" Bond Chairman Subcommittee on
Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on Environment and Public
Works United States Senate

The Honorable Sherwood L. Boehlert Chairman The Honorable Bart Gordon
Ranking Minority Member Committee on Science House of Representatives

Increasing passenger and freight travel has led to growing congestion in
the nation's transportation system, which has posed a burden on the
nation's quality of life through wasted energy, time, and money; increased
pollution; and threats to safety. According to transportation researchers,
even with slow growth in jobs and travel in 2003, the cost of congestion
to the nation's economy in terms of extra fuel used and time spent in
congestion was $63 billion.1 Moreover, passenger and freight traffic are
expected to grow substantially in the future, increasing the challenge of
preventing congestion from overwhelming the transportation system. For
example, by 2010, the Department of Transportation (DOT) forecasts that
travel on roads will have increased by about 25 percent from 2000, while
freight traffic will have increased by 43 percent from 1998. One tool
available to help reduce congestion is the use of intelligent
transportation systems (ITS), such as electronic technologies designed to
monitor or control traffic flow, in order to improve transportation system
operations, management, and performance.2

1David Schrank and Tim Loma, Texas Transportation Institute, 2005 Urban
Mobility Report (College Station Texas, 2005).

2ITS technologies are also used for a number of other purposes, including
improving safety. However, safety impacts are not in the scope of this
review.

We have previously reported that there are a range of strategies to
mitigate the effect of increasing congestion, including building capacity
through construction, corrective and preventative maintenance,
rehabilitation, managing system use through pricing or other techniques,
and operations and system management, including the use of ITS.3 We have
also reported that using the full range of these strategies offers the
promise of being more effective than placing emphasis on any one
technique. For example, building new infrastructure can ease congestion,
but it is not always a viable solution due to constraints such as the cost
of construction or limited availability of land. Moreover, improving
system operations, management, and performance through the strategic use
of ITS technologies has the potential to reduce congestion without major
capital investments. ITS technologies range in complexity from ramp
meters, which are small traffic light-like devices that control the
traffic flow on ramps leading to freeways or tollways, to fully integrated
systems in which several technologies work together to process information
and respond to traffic conditions. For example, a traffic-sensing device
could collect data on traffic flow by monitoring traffic volume and speed,
which could be used to alter the timing of freeway ramp meters and
arterial road traffic signals to improve traffic flow as well as to alert
travelers to specific traffic conditions using variable message boards or
other devices.

Over the past 14 years, the federal government has provided billions of
dollars for investment in surface transportation projects through the
Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA) and its
successors, the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21)
and the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, and Efficient Transportation Equity
Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU).4 Recognizing the potential of ITS as
a tool to improve mobility, among other benefits, Congress established a
federal ITS research program and some dedicated ITS funding in ISTEA and
continued this program and funding in TEA-21 and SAFETEA-LU. Dedicated
funding for integrating ITS deployments from TEA-21 has

3GAO, Surface and Maritime Transportation: Developing Strategies for
Enhancing Mobility: A National Challenge, GAO-02-775 (Washington, D.C.:
Aug. 30, 2002).

4State and local governments provide an even greater share of the funding
for surface transportation investments than the federal government. For
example, in fiscal year 1999, state and local governments contributed 61
percent of the total public sector spending for public roads.

Page 2 GAO-05-943 Highway Congestion

averaged about $113 million a year.5 Although it continued to fund the ITS
research program, SAFETEA-LU did not directly reauthorize the ITS
integration deployment program. It did create a new program, known as the
intelligent transportation infrastructure program, that will help states
monitor real time traffic and travel conditions on major U.S. highways. In
addition to dedicated ITS funding, state and local governments may choose
to spend some of the billions of dollars of federal funds provided through
other surface transportation programs on ITS technologies. Among many
activities DOT has undertaken in support of the ITS program, in 1996, it
established a goal that 75 of the nation's largest metropolitan areas
would have a complete intelligent transportation infrastructure by 2005.

SAFETEA-LU authorized billions of dollars more in federal funding for
surface transportation projects through fiscal year 2009. As we have
reported, for these funds to have the greatest effect on the congestion of
the existing transportation system, transportation planners and decision
makers need to select the appropriate mix of tools and resulting projects
to efficiently use available funds. Making appropriate and cost-effective
investment choices will become even more critical if, as we and other
analysts have been reporting, the nation faces a sustained period of
deficits and fiscal imbalance, resulting from the growing mandatory
commitments for programs including Social Security and Medicare as well as
a large investment in homeland security. Given these fiscal challenges,
careful decisions will need to be made to ensure that transportation
investments maximize the benefits of federal highway funds and achieve
projected performance outcomes. However, as we have noted previously,
there are currently no mechanisms in the federal-aid highway program that
link federal funding to project performance.6

In order to assess the extent to which ITS is being effectively used as a
tool to reduce congestion, this report has the following objectives:7 (1)
describe the federal role in ITS deployment; (2) assess progress toward
DOT's ITS deployment goal and DOT's measures for assessing the status of
ITS; (3)

5SAFETEA-LU authorized funding for the 2005 ITS integration deployment
program.

6GAO, Federal-Aid Highways: Trends, Effect on State Spending, and Options
for Future Program Design, GAO-04-802 (Washington, D.C.: Aug. 31, 2004).

7Although the federal ITS program has also included a research component
and ITS technologies are used for a number of purposes, in this report we
are focusing on the federal role in the deployment and use of ITS
technologies to mitigate congestion rather than on the research and
development of such technologies.

identify what ITS studies have found regarding the impacts of ITS
deployment; and (4) identify barriers to ITS deployment and use.

To describe the federal role in ITS deployment for mitigating congestion,
we reviewed legislation, the Secretary of Transportation's 1996 speech for
the Transportation Research Board's annual conference, as well as
documents from DOT, including performance plans and other relevant
materials. To assess progress toward DOT's ITS deployment goal and DOT's
measures, we reviewed DOT's status reports on ITS deployment and
interviewed DOT ITS officials who track deployment of ITS technologies in
over 75 metropolitan areas. We also selected four congested areas to study
in depth by sorting the 75 largest U.S. metropolitan areas according to
both congestion level and DOT's integrated deployment rating and selecting
two areas that DOT has determined have deployed ITS to a great extent and
two areas that DOT has determined have deployed ITS to a lesser extent.
During our visits to these four areas-Chicago, San Francisco,
Indianapolis, and Las Vegas-we interviewed federal, state, and local
transportation officials about their experiences with ITS and the ITS
technologies deployed in each area. To identify the impacts of ITS
deployment on congestion, we reviewed 38 studies issued since 2000 that we
obtained from our site visits and DOT's ITS benefits database, a
repository of academic and government papers evaluating the deployment of
ITS technologies in U.S. and international locations, including any
cost-effectiveness information encompassed in the studies. A DOT
contractor reviewed the studies for methodological soundness before
including them in DOT's benefits database. We also reviewed the DOT
benefit database studies we selected to ensure these studies were based on
sound methodologies and determined these studies were sufficiently
reliable for describing actual and potential impacts of ITS technologies.
We selected only studies on U.S. deployments, since our review is focused
on ITS deployment in the United States and the federal ITS program. In
addition, we did not assess the potential benefits of any one technology,
such as open road electronic tolling, on the nation's transportation
system. To determine barriers to ITS deployment in congested metropolitan
areas, we discussed barriers to deploying and maintaining ITS technologies
with the federal, state, and local transportation officials we visited at
our four case study locations. Although ITS technologies can be used for
many purposes, including improving highway safety, we focused this
analysis on the role of ITS for mitigating congestion. We conducted our
work from October 2004 through August 2005 in accordance with generally
accepted government auditing standards. (See app. 1 for more information
about our scope and methodology.)

  Results in Brief

The federal role in ITS deployment includes setting goals, providing
funding, and performing other activities to facilitate states' and
localities' investment in ITS. Congress set broad goals and established
funding for ITS through ISTEA in 1991. In 1998, TEA-21 established the ITS
integration program with the goal of improving ITS deployment through
supporting the integration of ITS systems across and within metropolitan
and rural areas. TEA-21 authorized about $113 million annually for the
integration program since 1998, and each year since, Congress has
designated these funds to specific states or projects. In addition, other
federal-aid highway funds are available for states to use for ITS
technologies. In a 1996 speech, the Secretary of Transportation, Federico
Pena, DOT established a vision for ITS deployment to create an intelligent
transportation infrastructure across the United States that would save
time and lives and improve the quality of life for Americans. In this
speech, Secretary Pena articulated an ITS deployment goal-to achieve a
complete ITS infrastructure in the country's 75 largest metropolitan areas
within 10 years-by the end of fiscal year 2005 according to DOT officials.
The Secretary also emphasized the importance of strategic investment in
ITS technologies; projected impacts of increasing infrastructure capacity
and reducing Americans' travel time by at least 15 percent; and emphasized
the cost effectiveness of ITS. The Secretary's goal was incorporated into
subsequent DOT performance plans with interim measures under its mobility
and economic growth goal. DOT does not plan to update the deployment goal
once it expires at the end of 2005. DOT has undertaken several roles to
facilitate states' ITS deployment, such as showcasing ITS benefits through
a benefits database available on its Web site. DOT also developed measures
to track progress toward the ITS deployment goal. DOT biennially surveys
the 75 metropolitan areas' transportation-related agencies and rates the
areas' deployment levels according to its measures.

Progress has been made toward achieving DOT's deployment goal, but DOT's
goal and measures have limitations and fall short of capturing ITS's
impact on congestion. According to DOT, 62 of the 75 metropolitan areas
had met its goal of deploying integrated ITS infrastructure in 2004. DOT
defined the Secretary's goal of complete intelligent transportation
infrastructure to include two elements-deployment, meaning the extent that
certain technologies are installed over certain areas such as freeways,
and integration, meaning the extent of coordination between different
agencies that deploy ITS technologies. However, although the Secretary's
goal calls for a "complete" ITS infrastructure, according to DOT's
criteria, metropolitan areas with relatively low thresholds of ITS
infrastructure- such as 20 percent of freeway miles and 33 percent of
signalized intersections covered by certain ITS technologies-may meet the
goal. DOT officials stated they established these relatively low
thresholds because they did not have a way to determine the extent to
which ITS should be deployed in each metropolitan area, and they also
stated that complete deployment is a very long-term goal that perhaps will
never be reached. In addition, although DOT's goal and measures give a
sense of progress of ITS deployment, they fail to capture a number of
important dimensions of evaluating the status of ITS that the Secretary
alluded to in his 1996 speech: they do not take into account the level of
ITS needed to accomplish local goals and priorities; they do not capture
the extent to which deployed ITS technologies are being effectively
operated; and they do not evaluate the impact or cost-effectiveness of
ITS. The lack of evaluation of outcomes, including impact or cost
effectiveness, also has been identified as a limitation of other highway
programs. The status of ITS in the four metropolitan areas we visited
illustrate the shortfalls of DOT's ITS deployment goal and measures.
Although San Francisco and Chicago, both of which DOT counted toward
meeting the deployment goal, have made considerable strides in
implementing ITS, they face limitations related to operating their ITS
technologies. For example, Chicago developed 10 traffic management
centers, which monitor traffic conditions and can respond to traffic
incidents by dispatching emergency vehicles to quickly clear highway
accidents, thus reducing traffic delays. However 7 of the 10 centers do
not have full-time operators, which limits the centers' potential
congestion mitigation benefits. Similarly, although neither Indianapolis
nor Las Vegas were rated by DOT as contributing toward meeting the
deployment goal, transportation officials in these metropolitan areas
stated they had deployed the amount of ITS needed to meet their local
needs. For example, Las Vegas was rated as not meeting the goal because
the area had not yet deployed ITS technologies on freeways-a key measure
in DOT's rating of ITS deployment. However, Las Vegas officials said they
had focused on deploying ITS on arterial roadways because they experienced
more congestion on the arterials than on the freeways.

While studies show that ITS technologies can provide benefits including
reducing congestion and increasing safety, the studies also indicate that
the existence and level of most benefits depends on the extent to which
ITS technologies are effectively operated to coordinate with local traffic
conditions. In addition, most studies do not include an analysis of cost
effectiveness. Although congestion is a serious problem, ITS is one tool
that has the potential to reduce the delay due to congestion. The Texas
Transportation Institute, a leading transportation research institution,
estimated that in 2003, congestion caused 3.7 billion hours of travel
delay, while operations improvements, including ITS, reduced the hours of
delay by 336 million hours in 85 urban areas. In addition to congestion
benefits, ITS deployment can improve traffic throughput (number of
vehicles accommodated on highways), safety, air quality, and traveler
behavior. However, studies also suggest that the effectiveness of ITS
technologies depends on local conditions and how state and local agencies
implement and operate the ITS technology. For example, one study suggested
that ramp metering in Detroit would be most effective during major events
or traffic incidents when freeway congestion was higher, because during
average conditions, the improvement of traffic flow on the freeway due to
ramp metering did not outweigh the delays on entrance ramps and arterials
leading to the freeway. In addition, 33 of the 38 studies we reviewed did
not include a review of cost effectiveness. Cost information in relation
to benefits is necessary to help states and localities choose the best
tool for addressing their congestion problem while maximizing the return
on their transportation investments. This is especially important because
ITS applications may have different cost structures and life cycles as
compared to other types of highway investments-for example, relatively low
initial deployment costs but ongoing operational costs-that need to be
understood in order to strategically evaluate ITS as a tool.

State and local agencies responsible for deploying ITS technologies have
faced several barriers to deploying ITS. One barrier to deployment is that
state and local transportation officials often view other transportation
investment options, such as adding a new lane to a highway, more favorably
than ITS when deciding how to spend their limited transportation funds.
DOT has worked to make ITS projects a more appealing option by emphasizing
the benefits of ITS technologies through its benefits database on its Web
site and field office support to local transportation officials. However,
in prior work, we found that information on benefits does not have a
decisive impact on the final investment choices made by state and local
officials.8 Another barrier to ITS deployment cited by state and local
transportation officials is a lack of funding for ITS installations and
operations. We also found that officials in four areas we visited were not
aware that federal funds could be used for operational costs. DOT
officials said they have attempted to inform state transportation agencies
that

8GAO, Surface Transportation: Many Factors Affect Investment Decisions,
GAO-04-744 (Washington, D.C.: June 30, 2004).

Page 7 GAO-05-943 Highway Congestion

operational costs are eligible for federal assistance, but confusion on
this issue remains. State transportation officials also told us that a
lack of technical expertise has hindered ITS deployment. Finally, state
transportation officials said that a lack of technical standards for ITS
technologies makes it difficult to ensure that systems purchased by
different localities can be integrated. DOT has taken steps to support the
issuance of technical standards by standards organizations, but they have
had difficulty keeping up with the pace of technological advances.
According to transportation officials we spoke with, these barriers have
reduced the amount of ITS deployed, and therefore have likely limited the
impact of ITS on mitigating congestion on our nation's roads.

Generally, the promise of ITS as an integrated tool for managing
congestion has not yet been met. Although we recognize that DOT can not
always influence ITS investments, limitations of DOT's efforts in goal
setting, measuring, and other activities such as evaluating outcomes have
reduced DOT's ability to facilitate state and local governments' strategic
investment in ITS. We are making a recommendation to improve DOT's ITS
deployment measures. We also are making recommendations to improve DOT's
efforts to address some barriers to ITS deployment to help state and local
governments invest strategically in ITS. We provided a draft of this
report to the Department of Transportation for its review and comment. DOT
officials generally concurred with the report and agreed to consider the
recommendations.

ITS technologies use communications, electronics, sensors, and computer

  Background

hardware and software to improve the performance or safety of freeway and
transit systems that are designed to improve traffic flow. Traffic
congestion results from many sources such as recurring high levels of
daily traffic as well as nonrecurring events such as traffic incidents,
special events and bad weather that can limit the usable physical capacity
of existing roadways. Therefore strategies, such as ITS, that are designed
to improve the operations or efficiency of existing roadways may improve
traffic flow and reduce congestion.

The ITS technologies that local transportation agencies deploy to manage
traffic in congested areas typically are ones that have gone through
research and development and are readily available. Some technologies,
like pavement loop detectors (devices that indicate the presence or
passage of vehicles), have been around for at least 40 years, while
others, like adaptive traffic control systems (traffic light systems that
are timed according to current traffic conditions) are just beginning to
be deployed. Figure 1 depicts some examples of ITS technologies that are
used to address congestion.

          Figure 1: Select ITS Technologies Used to Manage Congestion

Source: GAO analysis of FHWA information.

In highly congested metropolitan areas, ITS infrastructure tends to be
more complex because it typically consists of a set of systems deployed by
multiple agencies. For example, the state transportation department, city
traffic department, transit agency, and toll authority may each deploy
different ITS technologies that address their transportation needs.
Transportation agencies may integrate their ITS technologies by
coordinating ITS information sharing and other operations. For example, a
city transportation department that deploys loop detectors designed to
measure the number and speed of vehicles passing through an intersection
may use technology to provide the traffic volume data collected by the
loop detector to the state highway agency, in order that a different ITS
technology can create travel time reports for variable message signs.
Integration like this can facilitate the flow of information between a
number of technologies and involved institutions and improve the overall
traffic flow throughout a system. ITS can be further refined-and made more
"intelligent"-by the deployment of technologies that adjust automatically
to current traffic conditions, such as adaptive traffic control systems.
Figure 2 illustrates some of the ITS technologies that can be deployed and
integrated to improve transportation system management.

 Figure 2: Examples of ITS Technologies That Can Be Deployed and Integrated in
                               Metropolitan Areas

                                  Source: GAO.

  The Federal Role in ITS Deployment Includes Goal Setting, Funding, and
  Activities to Support States' Deployment of ITS

Funding for transportation projects, including ITS, comes from a variety
of sources, including federal, state, and local governments; special
taxing authorities and assessment districts; and user fees and tolls.
Federal transportation funds primarily come from the federal Highway Trust
Fund-the mechanism to account for federal highway user tax receipts. These
funds are distributed to states through formulas that determine the amount
of money given to each state.

As we reported earlier, although DOT has established goals and performance
measures for the federal-aid highway program to enhance mobility and
economic growth, the program's current structure does not link funding
with performance or the accomplishment of these goals.9 In addition,
because the federal-aid highway program is primarily funded under a
formula program, projects are not subject to an evaluation process at the
federal level, and there are no federal requirements for performance
evaluation of highway investments-although the Federal Highway
Administration (FHWA) does ensure that federal highway funding is being
spent on an eligible roadway for eligible purposes. State and local
transportation officials have the flexibility to select projects on the
basis of their communities' priorities and needs.10 ITS technologies,
which can be developed as projects in their own right or as one component
of a larger project (for example, a project to replace the surface of a
roadway could include the installation of loop detectors), are among the
many types of projects transportation officials may consider during the
project selection process.

Congress set broad goals for ITS through ISTEA and TEA-21 and established
funding for ITS deployment in TEA-21. In 1996, DOT established a goal for
ITS deployment that was incorporated into DOT's performance plans. DOT
also has taken on several roles and activities related to facilitating ITS
deployment.

9 GAO-04-802.

10GAO, Highway and Transit Investments: Options for Improving Information
on Projects' Benefits and Costs and Increasing Accountability for Results,
GAO-05-172 (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 24, 2005).

Page 12 GAO-05-943 Highway Congestion

    Congress Set Broad Goals and Established Funding for ITS Deployment through
    Recent Legislation

The federal ITS program was established by ISTEA, when Congress authorized
the program to support the development and field testing of ITS systems.
During ISTEA, Congress provided the ITS program with about $1.3 billion
for research and testing of ITS technologies such as adaptive traffic
signal control and advanced vehicle control systems. This funding included
$645 million for ITS under ISTEA and $624 million provided through the
appropriations process. While ISTEA did not establish a deployment program
per se, the field test program consisted of testing and evaluating the
application of ITS technologies in real world conditions.

In 1998, TEA-21 authorized a total of about $1.3 billion for ITS. It
provided about $679 million-an average of about $113 million annually-for
a newly established ITS integration program with the broad goal of
improving ITS deployment through supporting and accelerating the
integration of ITS systems across and within metropolitan and rural areas,
and about $603 million primarily for ITS research.11 TEA-21 also directed
DOT to fund projects that demonstrated or considered a number of elements,
including cooperation among agencies and ensuring long-term operations and
maintenance, among other things. In practice, however, the appropriations
and authorizing committees together have fully designated the amount of
funding for the ITS integration program through legislative earmarks. For
example, in fiscal year 2001, Congress designated about $128 million to 92
projects in 41 states and the District of Columbia. DOT reviews the
projects to ensure that the projects being funded meet guidelines DOT
established based on legislative direction, but has not had a role in
directing the funding to specific projects.12

In addition to the congressionally designated funds, Congress has made
federal funding available to state and local governments for ITS
technologies through other federal transportation programs within the
federal-aid highway program. For example, ITS projects are funded through
the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement program (CMAQ),
which provides funding for projects that contribute to air quality
improvements and congestion mitigation in areas with poor air quality; the

11These projects, like most federal-aid highway projects, would require
some matching of federal funds. The federal share of the cost of a project
from integration program funds cannot exceed 50 percent, with the total
federal share from all sources of funding not to exceed 80 percent.

12GAO-04-744.

Page 13 GAO-05-943 Highway Congestion

    DOT Established a Goal for ITS Deployment in 1996 and Incorporated It into
    DOT's Performance Plans

National Highway System program (NHS), which provides funding for
improvements to rural and urban roads that are part of the NHS, including
the Interstate System; and the Surface Transportation Program (STP), which
provides funding for projects on any federal-aid highway. In general, FHWA
distributes highway program funds to state transportation departments
through formulas; and the states, in turn, allocate the funds to urban and
rural areas primarily on the basis of local priorities and needs.
Consistent with requirements protecting state and local agencies' ability
to select projects, the federal government does not control the allocation
of these formula funds to projects. To determine which projects they will
fund, state and local governments go through a planning process that
involves the participation of many stakeholders and entails evaluating
goals, finances, and other factors. DOT estimates that states and
localities annually invest between $500 million to $1 billion in ITS
projects, but DOT does not track the actual amounts invested in ITS.
According to DOT and local transportation officials, tracking would be
difficult because often ITS is funded as one element of a larger project,
such as building a road, and the funds that go toward the ITS application
are not separated from the funds for the overall project.

In a 1996 speech, 2 years before TEA-21 established the ITS integration
program, the Secretary of Transportation, Federico Pena, established a
broad vision for ITS deployment to create an intelligent transportation
infrastructure across the United States that would save time and lives and
improve the quality of life for Americans. In articulating this vision,
Secretary Pena compared the potential for ITS to past accomplishments
including building the interstate system and landing a man on the moon. He
also compared it to the development of the Internet, saying that the next
frontier for surface transportation would be in the information age, and
that if Americans could surf on the information superhighways, they should
be able to drive on high-tech highways. As part of this speech, the
Secretary articulated an ITS deployment goal-to achieve a complete ITS
infrastructure in the country's 75 largest metropolitan areas within 10
years-by the end of fiscal year 2005 according to DOT officials.13 The

13The Secretary of Transportation also included a commitment to upgrading
technologies in 450 other communities and on rural roads and interstates.
We did not focus on this area of the goal as DOT included the goal for the
75 metropolitan areas in its performance plan and has put greater effort
into tracking and reporting progress toward this goal and because ITS for
rural areas are less likely to be focused on congestion mitigation.

Page 14 GAO-05-943 Highway Congestion

Secretary emphasized that achieving this goal would require partnerships
between federal, state, and local officials and the private sector.

The Secretary also projected several results or impacts of this goal:
reduced congestion-related costs and commuting times and increased safety
through reduced response time for emergency vehicles responding to traffic
accidents, and he declared that DOT would measure progress toward this
goal and report on it annually. He also included an outcome-oriented
measure for the goal, declaring that the initiative would reduce the
travel time of Americans by at least 15 percent, whether they traveled by
car, bus, train, or subway-an amount that he declared was the equivalent
to an extra week of vacation every year for Americans who commute one hour
a day.

In addition, the Secretary emphasized the importance of integration so
that the different technologies could be used together. He described nine
components that should make up ITS in the 75 metropolitan areas, including
such systems as traffic control systems and freeway management systems.14
He stated that the federal role in making this goal a reality included
developing a national architecture and standards for ITS technologies to
ensure that local ITS investments would be interoperable, investing in
model deployment sites to serve as examples for the rest of the country,
and investing in training to expand technical expertise for deploying ITS
technologies. He emphasized strategic investment to pay for this
infrastructure, alluded to the fact that federal-aid funds could be used
to fund it, and emphasized the cost effectiveness of ITS, saying that
building the needed highway capacity for 50 cities in the next 10 years
would cost $150 billion, while implementing an intelligent transportation
infrastructure for these 50 cities would cost $10 billion and gain
two-thirds of the capacity needed.

The metropolitan deployment goal established by the Secretary in this
speech was incorporated into subsequent DOT performance plans as a measure
under the broader goal of mobility. In addition, in DOT's 2004 Performance
Plan, ITS was included as a strategy to achieve another performance
measure under the goal of mobility-to limit annual growth of

14The other seven mentioned in the speech were transit management systems;
incident management programs; electronic toll collection for roads and
bridges; electronic fare payment systems for such things as the bus,
train, and toll lanes; railroad-grade crossings; emergency response
providers; and traveler information systems.

Page 15 GAO-05-943 Highway Congestion

    DOT Has Established Several Roles to Facilitate ITS Deployment

urban area travel time under congested conditions to 0.2 percent below the
otherwise expected increases in congestion.

DOT officials indicated that they do not plan on updating the ITS
deployment goal once it expires at the end of 2005. They noted that
SAFETEA-LU provides for or implies several other challenging goals for the
ITS program, such as reducing metropolitan congestion by not less than 5
percent by 2010. DOT officials are reviewing the statute and considering
how to implement these new provisions.

DOT has established several roles to facilitate ITS deployment in line
with the federal roles laid out in the Secretary's 1996 speech. Although
DOT originally included creating funding incentives for ITS as one of its
roles, it has since dropped that role because Congress, through the
authorization and appropriations process, has fully designated the
locations and amounts of funding from the ITS integration program during
TEA-21. Other roles DOT has maintained include demonstrating ITS
deployment, showcasing deployment benefits, facilitating the development
of technical standards, and building technical expertise.15

To demonstrate deployment, DOT established model deployment sites to
provide real-world examples of ITS technology's potential application to
other metropolitan areas across the country. In 1996, DOT chose the
Phoenix, San Antonio, Seattle, and New York/New Jersey/Connecticut areas
to lead a new program to demonstrate the value of ITS technology in
improving transportation. This program called for public and private
sector partners to develop and integrate ITS technology to reduce travel
times, improve safety, and provide enhanced travel information to the
public. To ensure that lessons from these sites were documented and
available to be shared, DOT conducted and documented a comprehensive ITS
evaluation for the Seattle, San Antonio, and Phoenix sites. In addition, a
national evaluation was performed with a focus on synthesizing findings
across the entire program. These evaluations are available in DOT's
benefits database.

DOT established this benefits database in 1998 to showcase and expand the
understanding of ITS benefits and transmit existing knowledge of ITS
benefits to transportation professionals. The database is accessible on

15DOT also continues to play a role in ITS research, which we did not examine in
                                  this study.

                     Page 16 GAO-05-943 Highway Congestion

DOT's Web site and contains about 230 summaries of academic, government,
and other studies of ITS deployments in the United States and
internationally. The summaries in the database generally include
information such as the type of ITS deployment, the location of the ITS
deployment, and the results of the deployment. DOT also maintains a
database on ITS costs. The purpose of this cost database, which contains a
range of costs for various ITS technologies as reported from completed
projects and from the initial phases of ITS projects, is to provide cost
data to state and local transportation officials in the planning and
initial cost estimation phases of ITS projects. While benefits and cost
information are not directly linked, the two databases do use the same
classification scheme for categorizing different ITS, and by browsing the
various categories, users could obtain benefits and costs information for
similar systems.

DOT is also facilitating the development of technical standards. These
technical standards specify, in detail, how technological components will
communicate with one another. By specifying how systems and components
interconnect, the standards promote interoperability-the ability of
systems to provide services and to accept services from other systems so
that different ITS technologies can be integrated and operated together.
DOT, through cooperative agreements with six standards development
organizations (SDOs) such as the Institute of Transportation Engineers,
develops nonproprietary, industry-based, consensus ITS standards. To date,
SDOs have published 75 ITS standards, approved another 9, and have begun
processing another 6. The SDOs are developing 21 other standards and DOT
officials expect that many will be completed by the end of 2005. In
addition, to implement a requirement in TEA-21 that ITS projects conform
to national architecture and standards, DOT finalized a rule in 2001
requiring ITS projects using federal funds be part of a regional
architecture plan that establishes a process to ensure that ITS projects
conform to national standards in order that they can be integrated with
other areas. Regions and states then had until April 2005 to complete
their regional ITS architectures.

Further, to build technical expertise on ITS technologies, DOT has
provided education, training, and technical assistance for ITS
technologies through FHWA resource centers, divisions, and guides and
pamphlets. DOT also has a professional capacity building program that is
designed to provide state and local transportation officials the
curriculum needed to install ITS applications. In addition, DOT
headquarters office offers additional resources including a Peer-to-Peer
program designed to link technical experts from one local area to an
agency in a different geographic location.

DOT also used the nine components established in the Secretary's speech to
develop criteria to track progress toward the goal of having 75 of the
largest metropolitan areas outfitted with a complete intelligent
transportation infrastructure by 2005. DOT biennially surveys the areas'
transportation-related agencies and rates the areas' deployment levels
according to its criteria.16

Although progress has been made toward DOT's ITS deployment goal, DOT's
goal and measures provide a misleading picture of the status of ITS, are
not designed around local priorities, do not assess the level of
operations of deployed ITS, and do not capture information on ITS impacts
or cost effectiveness. In past work, we have found that analyses of
impacts and cost effectiveness are absent from other federal-aid highway
programs as well, in part due to the structure of the federal-aid highway
program. The four metropolitan areas we visited illustrate limitations of
DOT's goal and measures.

  Although Progress Has Occurred, DOT's ITS Goal and Measures Have Limitations
  and Fall Short of Capturing Impact on Congestion

    Some Progress Has Been Made Toward Achieving DOT's Deployment Goal, but
    DOT's Measures and Rating System Overstate the Status of ITS Deployment

DOT's reporting on progress toward its deployment goal shows that many of
the 75 metropolitan areas targeted in the goal have increased their level
of ITS deployment since 1997, when DOT began tracking this progress, but
DOT's ratings overstate the actual status of ITS in these metropolitan
areas. According to DOT, 62 of the 75 metropolitan areas had met DOT's
goal of deploying integrated ITS infrastructure in 2004, up from 36
metropolitan areas meeting the goal in 1997. While 13 of the 75
metropolitan areas still were rated as falling short of the goal in 2004,
the increase in the number of metropolitan areas counted toward meeting
the goal since 1997 suggests that a significant increase in the level of
ITS has occurred in many of the 75 metropolitan areas.

Although many metropolitan areas have made progress in deploying ITS, the
measures and rating system that DOT uses to report progress toward

16In 1994, DOT established the ITS Joint Program Office (JPO) to
coordinate the ITS program among the modal administrations. The JPO staff
perform many of the tasks mentioned here, such as tracking ITS deployment.

Page 18 GAO-05-943 Highway Congestion

the ITS deployment goal, particularly when compared to the language of the
Secretary's goal-for a "complete" intelligent transportation
infrastructure-provides an overstated sense of success regarding the
actual status of ITS in these metropolitan areas. Specifically, DOT
defined the Secretary's goal of complete intelligent infrastructure to
include two measurable elements-deployment, meaning the extent that
certain technologies have been installed over certain areas, such as
freeways; and integration, meaning the extent of coordination between
different agencies that deploy ITS technologies. DOT used the 9 components
established in the Secretary's speech to develop criteria to measure ITS
deployment,17 and also developed criteria to measure integration between
three entities in each metropolitan area-state governments, local
governments, and public transit authorities. (For more information on
DOT's rating system, see app. 2.) DOT also developed criteria to combine
metropolitan areas' measures for deployment and integration to come up
with an overall rating of high, medium, or low.

DOT considers its goal met when all 75 metropolitan areas are rated high
or medium. However, it established fairly low thresholds for rating an
area as high or medium because it did not have a way to determine the
extent of ITS that should be deployed in each area based, for example, on
local traffic conditions or priorities. For example, an area can be rated
medium-and thus meet the goal-if its level of deployment includes 20
percent of its freeway miles under electronic surveillance and 33 percent
of its signalized intersections under computerized control-even if it has
no ITS applications related to transit management, traveler information,
or emergency management services.18 In addition, the area rated as medium
would have to demonstrate its level of integration by including some
coordination between state government, local government, and the transit
authority. According to DOT, it set these thresholds at relatively low
levels because few metropolitan areas have local ITS goals establishing
the level of ITS deployment they deem appropriate. Without such local
goals, DOT

17DOT closely followed the nine components established by the Secretary in
developing its criteria, but grouped them into five areas, including
freeway management/incident management; transit management/electronic fare
payment; arterial management; regional multimodal traveler information;
and emergency management services. According to DOT officials, DOT did not
consider tollway miles in its assessment, since tollway miles are such a
small part of the expressway network.

18An area is rated medium if it exceeds the threshold value for freeway
management/incident management or transit management/electronic fare
payment and at least one other component.

decided to measure (1) the extent of ITS deployment in locations where ITS
could be deployed and (2) current integration compared to extensive
integration between three government entities-but to use low thresholds
for considering a metropolitan area to have met the goal.

DOT itself states that the metropolitan areas it rates as meeting the goal
do not have a complete ITS infrastructure. For example, in its 2004 report
on progress toward the goal, DOT states that even metropolitan areas that
are deployment leaders may still have "miles to go" before deploying a
complete ITS infrastructure-a level of deployment beyond DOT's rating of
high deployment, which DOT does not define. DOT officials told us that
complete deployment is a very long-term endeavor that may never be reached
and that it was important to get the "seeds" of deployment planted. DOT
officials stated that according to its criteria, metropolitan areas that
received high ratings had officials who demonstrated an understanding of
ITS and were making improvements in deployment and integration to an
already existing ITS infrastructure. However, those metropolitan areas may
not have deployed or integrated ITS technologies to their fullest
potential and may be experiencing significant challenges to more fully
deploying and integrating these technologies.

In spite of these issues, DOT's criteria and the deployment information it
collects have been useful in measuring the 75 metropolitan areas' progress
in increasing deployment and integration since 1996 and DOT intends to
continue to track deployment even though it does not plan to update the
deployment goal once it expires at the end of 2005. For example, the
Tucson metropolitan area was rated low in 1997 but was rated as high in
2004, suggesting that it has made substantial progress in deploying and
integrating ITS. Similarly, DOT officials said their tracking methods
provide a basic means of comparing the extent of ITS in one metropolitan
area versus another. For example, in Chicago, which is rated high, 55
percent of the area's freeway miles are covered by electronic
surveillance, and several ITS deployments controlled by the state are
linked to deployments controlled by local transportation or law
enforcement agencies. On the other hand, in Las Vegas, which is rated low,
none of the area's freeway miles are covered by electronic surveillance,
and the state DOT is just beginning to link its deployments with those of
the local transportation and law enforcement agencies. DOT officials
indicated that they intend to continue to track deployment after the 2005
deadline expires. Figure 3 shows the number of the 75 metropolitan areas
ranked high, medium, and low from 1997 to 2004.

DOT's ITS Goal and Measures Fail to Capture Important Dimensions of
Evaluating ITS Status, Including, Similar to Other Highway Programs,
Evaluating Outcomes

DOT's ITS Goal and Measures Do Not Take into Account the Level of ITS
Needed to Accomplish Local Goals

Figure 3: ITS Deployment Ratings for 75 Metropolitan Areas, 1997 to 2004

Number of metropolitan areas 40 39

34

30

30

                                       28

28

27

27

26

25

24

23

22

20

18

11

10

0

1997 1999 2000 2002 2004

Year

High Medium Low Source: GAO analysis of DOT deployment data.

DOT's ITS goal and measures fail to capture a number of important
dimensions of evaluating ITS status that were alluded to in the
Secretary's 1996 vision for ITS: they do not take into account the level
of ITS needed to accomplish local goals and priorities; they do not
capture the extent to which deployed ITS technologies are being
effectively operated; and they do not evaluate the impact or
cost-effectiveness of ITS. The lack of evaluation of outcomes such as
impact or cost effectiveness has also been identified as a limitation in
other highway programs and is partly due to the structure of the
federal-aid highway program.

In establishing DOT's vision for ITS deployment, the Secretary emphasized
the need for strategic investment; however, DOT's ITS goal and measures do
not incorporate any evaluations of local ITS needs that could help ensure
that ITS was used as a component of a balanced strategy to address local
transportation conditions. Without an idea of what a metropolitan

DOT's ITS Goal and Measures Do Not Capture the Extent of ITS Operations

area's integrated transportation system, including ITS, should consist of,
it is difficult to determine what the right percentage of deployment of
different technologies would be. In the absence of such information, DOT
created a goal and thresholds for the measures that assumed that all 75
metropolitan areas should exceed specified levels of ITS rather than
reflecting local priorities established through local ITS strategies and
goal setting.

DOT officials acknowledge that the goal focuses on measuring what a
metropolitan area could deploy rather than what a metropolitan area should
deploy and that deployment goals should be specific to a metropolitan area
and its specific transportation needs. According to a DOT official, a goal
focused on what metropolitan areas should deploy would be ideal but would
be difficult to establish because it would require establishing the
transportation needs of each metropolitan area. According to a 2003 DOT
ITS deployment report, this could be done, for example, through locally
defined deployment goals that could then provide the basis for
establishing a national goal. According to DOT, while this approach would
be more meaningful, few metropolitan areas have completed ITS needs
assessments or set deployment goals.

Another dimension of evaluating ITS status not captured in DOT's goal and
measures is the extent to which deployed ITS technologies are operated and
maintained effectively. Among other things, the 1996 DOT Secretary's
speech envisioned that ITS would increase the capacity of existing
infrastructure, an outcome likely to depend on ITS technologies being
operated effectively as well as deployed and integrated. However, although
DOT tracks progress toward the goal by measuring deployment and
integration, it does not track the operational level of ITS technologies
in the 75 metropolitan areas.19 This is a concern since there are
indications that some metropolitan areas have not been fully operating
systems that are deployed and integrated. For example, the National
Transportation Operations Coalition recently gave a collective grade of D
minus for the operations of about 83,000 of the 260,000 traffic signals
across the U.S.20

19Although DOT does obtain some information on the operations of
transportation management centers, it is not used to measure progress
toward the deployment goal.

20The National Transportation Operations Coalition (NTOC) is an alliance
of national associations, practitioners and private sector groups to
represent the collective interests of stakeholders at state, local and
regional levels, who have a wide range of experience in operations,
planning and public safety.

Page 22 GAO-05-943 Highway Congestion

DOT's ITS Goal and Measures Do Not Capture Evaluation of Outcomes, Similar
to Other Highway Programs

According to the study, a contributing factor to this low grade was that
officials operating traffic signals are updating the signal timing plans
so infrequently that they are not responding to current traffic
conditions.

Another limitation of DOT's goal and measures in evaluating the status of
ITS is that they do not include outcome-oriented measures such as the
impact or cost-effectiveness of ITS. Although the Secretary's 1996 speech
envisioned that ITS would lead to positive impacts on congestion and even
included an outcome measure of reducing travel time of Americans by at
least 15 percent, DOT's goal and measures focus on outputs such as a
metropolitan area's deployment of certain types of ITS on certain types of
roads. However, DOT's rating system does not consider the impact of such
deployment on outcomes such as travel time or road capacity.

In its 2004 Performance Plan, DOT identified ITS deployment as a strategy
to help it meet the outcome-oriented goal of limiting annual growth of
urban area travel time under congested conditions to 0.2 percent below the
otherwise expected increases in congestion. However, it did not establish
a method to measure whether ITS deployment was helping to meet this
outcome. DOT's 2004 Performance Plan also incorporates its ITS deployment
goal as a performance measure for the strategic goal of mobility. However,
the strategies and initiatives for achieving this performance measure also
emphasize deployment and integration rather than impact. For example,
DOT's strategies include continued deployment of ITS applications, systems
operations and training, and ITS standards setting.

Moreover, in his 1996 speech, the Secretary emphasized the cost
effectiveness of ITS investments in comparison to investments in
increasing highway capacity through construction. However, no element of
the cost-effectiveness of deployed ITS technologies is included in DOT's
measures. In addition, while DOT collects and summarizes benefits
established by ITS studies in its ITS benefits database, and summarizes
cost estimates in its cost database, it has not highlighted benefit-cost
information on ITS technologies and has not incorporated such information
into its goal or measures. Furthermore, although DOT's cost database may
help state and local transportation officials budget for ITS technologies
they wish to deploy, such cost information is not directly linked to
benefit information. Without this linkage, the cost information is of
limited use in helping state and local transportation officials evaluate
the value of ITS investments as a tool to reduce congestion in comparison
to other alternatives.

DOT's lack of measures for the impact or cost-effectiveness of ITS
deployment makes it difficult to evaluate the overall effectiveness of ITS
and the federal investment in ITS as a strategy to reduce congestion.
However, this lack of evaluation also exists for many other federal-aid
highway programs. According to a DOT official, it is critical to compare
the benefits of ITS with the costs of implementation, and the ITS program
should allocate resources to improving benefit-cost analyses. However, it
would be difficult for DOT to obtain the information needed to evaluate
the cost effectiveness of ITS deployment, as in many cases this
information is not collected.

As we have previously reported, in general there is no requirement for
state and local governments to set goals for highway projects, nor to use
specific analytical methods such as benefit-cost analysis to choose
projects. Moreover, the federal-aid highway program does not have the
mechanisms to link funding levels with the accomplishment of specific
performance-related goals and outcomes.21 In addition, we have found in
previous work that such requirements would require legislative change
because the federal agencies cannot require benefit-cost analysis as a
condition of receiving highway funds.22

In addition, while TEA-21 requires recipients of congressionally
designated ITS integration funds to report cost data annually and complete
self-evaluations, it does not require formal benefit-cost analyses.23 In
general, we found that evaluations of outcomes of completed highway
projects are typically not conducted and, as a result, officials only have
limited or anecdotal evidence of whether projects produced the intended
results. Thus, transportation agencies miss opportunities to learn from
successes and shortcomings of past projects or to evaluate how well
investment strategies are meeting goals or priorities.24

21GAO-04-802. 22GAO-05-172.

23DOT has made available a software program known as the ITS Deployment
Analysis System (IDAS) for state and local planners to estimate the
benefits and costs of ITS investments.

24GAO-05-172.

    Four Case Studies Illustrate Limitations of DOT's Goal and Measures

The status of ITS in the four metropolitan areas we visited-two that were
rated high by DOT and were therefore counted toward meeting the ITS
deployment goal and two that were rated low by DOT and therefore were not
counted toward meeting the goal-illustrate the shortfalls of DOT's ITS
deployment goal and measures. While the two metropolitan areas we visited
that were counted toward meeting the goal have both made considerable
investments in ITS technologies, both have limitations in terms of the
level of operations of deployed ITS technologies, which may reduce their
potential impact on congestion. Officials from the two metropolitan areas
we visited that were considered not to have met the goal indicated that
they had appropriate levels of ITS given their local conditions and needs.
(See app. 3 for additional information on activities each metropolitan
area has taken to support ITS deployment.) Specifically, we found:

     o The San Francisco Bay Area, which was ranked by the Texas
       Transportation Institute as the fifth most congested area in 2003,25
       was rated high by DOT in part because of its level of ITS
       deployment-4,700 traffic sensing detectors on its over 2,800 freeway
       miles. As a result, 29 percent of the freeways featured sensing
       devices spaced every 1 mile or less, and 40 percent of the freeways
       featured sensing devices spaced every 2 miles or less in order to
       provide local transportation agencies information on traffic data such
       as speed and volume. However, about 45 percent of these devices are
       out of service, reducing the ability of staff to collect traffic
       data.26 According to DOT Resource Center's Operations Technical
       Service Leader, while having about half of the traffic detectors out
       of service happens in other areas, it is not typical.
     o Chicago, which the Texas Transportation Institute ranked as the fourth
       most congested area in 2003, was also rated high by DOT, partly
       because area transportation agencies have the potential to monitor 55
       percent of the area's freeway miles. A combination of traffic sensors
       and management centers provide the area the ability to quickly spot
       traffic problems and take appropriate action such as providing the
       traveling

25The ranking is based on the congestion measure-percent of daily travel
under congested conditions.

26According to transportation officials we met with, if an agency has a
working detection of traffic sensing within a mile, then it can develop a
good estimation of travel time and congestion.

Page 25 GAO-05-943 Highway Congestion

public information on traffic conditions, alternative transportation
routes or options during special events affecting traffic to avoid traffic
delays, and dispatching appropriate officials to clear incidents quickly
to decrease delays. We found, however, that six of the ten traffic
management centers do not have any staff dedicated to monitoring traffic
conditions and that an additional center has only one part-time staffer.
Periodically, staff will go to the centers to change message signs to
alert travelers to likely congestion due to a planned event such as a
construction project or sports game. However, without staff dedicated to
monitoring traffic conditions on a regular basis, the centers can not be
used to respond to unplanned or non-recurring incidents such as traffic
accidents, which limit congestion mitigation benefits.

     o Indianapolis, which the Texas Transportation Institute ranked as the
       25th most congested city in the nation in 2003, was rated low by DOT
       because of a lack of investment in ITS technologies, and therefore was
       not counted toward meeting the goal. However, Indianapolis officials
       stated that the current level of ITS deployment and integration meets
       the area's needs, as they do not consider the area very congested, and
       they do not see the need for many ITS technologies.
     o Las Vegas, which the Texas Transportation Institute ranked as the
       ninth most congested city in the nation in 2003, was also rated low by
       DOT, partly because in order for a metropolitan area to be rated
       medium, it must meet the threshold of having either at least 20
       percent of its freeways covered by ITS technologies or at least 33
       percent of its transit covered by ITS technologies (to be rated high
       it would have to meet these thresholds plus additional thresholds).
       However, Las Vegas transportation officials told us that the
       metropolitan area has experienced high levels of congestion on the
       arterial roadways and relatively low levels of congestion on freeways.
       Therefore, rather than focusing on freeways or transit, transportation
       agencies in the Las Vegas metropolitan area have made considerable
       investments in deploying and integrating ITS technologies on their
       arterial roadways and only recently have begun investing in ITS
       technologies for freeways. Las Vegas transportation officials said
       that this strategy made the most sense for their specific local
       conditions.

  Studies Have Found Positive Impacts of ITS Deployment Depend on Effective
  Operations, but Few Have Included Cost-Effectiveness Analyses

Studies evaluating ITS deployment have found improvements in congestion,
throughput of traffic (number of vehicles accommodated on highways),
safety, environmental quality, and traveler behavior.27 Studies also have
found that the existence and level of most benefits depends on operating
the ITS technology effectively given local conditions. Few of the studies
analyzed the benefits of ITS investments in terms of the costs,
information that could help state and local governments make sound
investment decisions.

    Studies Indicate ITS Deployment Can Provide Benefits

A number of studies show that ITS applications have provided some benefits
either nationally or locally, including improvements in congestion,
throughput of traffic, safety, environmental quality, or traveler
behavior. Although congestion levels are high, ITS technologies are
estimated to limit the increase in congestion. For example, the Texas
Transportation Institute, a leading transportation research institution,
estimated that in 2003, congestion caused 3.7 billion hours of travel
delay in 85 urban areas.28 However, the study also estimated that ramp
metering, incident management, traffic signal coordination, and arterial
access management combined reduced delay in 2003 in the same urban areas
by 9 percent-336 million hours, leading to a $5.6 billion reduction in
annual costs due to reduced fuel consumption and hours of delay. The study
also estimates that if ITS or similar operational treatments were deployed
on all major freeways and streets in the 85 urban areas, it would reduce
the delay by 15 percent. Thus, although delay due to congestion is
increasing, this increase is limited by ITS deployment.

Many of the studies in DOT's database focus on examining the impacts of
particular ITS technologies deployed in particular locations. For example,
one study measured the impacts of a regional system in the
Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky metropolitan areas that uses traffic
monitoring

27Although DOT identified ITS deployment as a strategy to achieve the 2004
target to limit annual growth of urban area travel time under congested
conditions to 0.2 percent, the ITS benefits database does not provide
information relating to progress toward this goal. Rather, the information
in the database focuses on individual ITS deployments and local
improvements.

28Schrank and Lomax.

Page 27 GAO-05-943 Highway Congestion

technologies to detect incidents and provide traveler information. The
study, which measured the impacts of the system on several factors such as
traveler behavior, safety, and environmental quality, found that of 375
survey respondents in the area, 56 percent changed their morning routes
based upon the availability of traffic information provided by the system.
In addition, modeling efforts estimated that the system had contributed to
a

uction in fatalities by responding to incidents earlier,
       and a
es                                             
Congestion            o  Deployment of E-Z Pass, an electronic tolling     
                         system, on the New Jersey Turnpike reduced delay for 
                         all vehicles at toll plazas by 85 percent.           
                         o  Adaptive traffic signal control reduced travel    
                         times at several intersections in Tucson, Ariz. by   
                         7.9 percent and delay by 17.9 percent. a             
Throughput            o  A study in Minneapolis-St. Paul found that during 
                         peak traffic conditions, freeway throughput          
                         decreased by an average of 14 percent during the     
                         period that they turned off the ramp meters.         
Safety                o  Evaluations of the Maryland based freeway and     
                         incident management program, known as CHART, showed  
                         a potential reduction in secondary incidents by      
                         1,267 based on reported incidents.                   
                         o  An integrated freeway and incident management     
                         system in San Antonio reduced the average annual     
                         secondary crash risk for all travelers by 2.8        
                         percent.a                                            
Environmental quality o  Computerized operations of 40 traffic signals in  
                         the Tysons Corner area of Virginia decreased the     
                         total annual emissions for carbon monoxide, nitrogen 
                         oxides, and volatile oxygen compounds by 134,611     
                         kilograms. In addition, annual fuel consumption      
                         improved by 9 percent, thus an estimated savings of  
                         about $1.48 million.                                 
                         o  Traffic signal coordination among two             
                         jurisdictions in Phoenix, Ariz. indicated benefits   
                         of a 1.6 percent reduction in fuel consumption.      

                               Traveler behavior

     o Over 600 users in the Seattle area ranked the state-sponsored traveler
       information Web site as their most useful source of traffic
       information. In addition, most of the respondents (88 to 94.8 percent)
       reported they used the Web site to decide among alternative routes,
       when to start a trip, and had reliable indications of how long a trip
       would take.
     o In the DC metro area, a simulation model estimated that commuters who
       used traveler information arrive on time and within 15 minutes of the
       target arrival time 79 percent of the time. Those not using the
       traveler information arrive on time and within 15 minutes of the
       target 42 percent of the time.a

Source: GAO analysis of studies gathered by DOT.

Notes: Examples in this table are not necessarily representative of what
would happen with a similar deployment in another location.

Page 28 GAO-05-943 Highway Congestion

    Studies Suggest That ITS Benefits Depend on Effectively Operating ITS
    Technologies to Meet Local Conditions

aThese examples report on potential improvements using estimated data,
rather than actual improvements using empirical data.

Anecdotally, several state and local officials we spoke with agreed that
ITS applications have improved congestion in their areas. For example, Las
Vegas officials stated the FAST program, an integrated traffic management
system that adapts traffic signal plans to real-time conditions, had
definitely improved traffic congestion on the Las Vegas arterials. One
official stated that without the FAST system, the city of Las Vegas would
be "shut down," especially during events such as New Year's Eve, NASCAR
weekends, and major boxing events.

The studies in DOT's benefits database also suggest that the existence and
level of benefits from ITS deployment depend on adapting the deployment to
local conditions and monitoring the effect in order to make operating
adjustments. For example, as discussed earlier, the National
Transportation Operations Coalition recently found that across the country
traffic signals are not operating as efficiently as they could be,
resulting in unnecessary delay to travelers. A benefit database study of
traffic signal timing in North Seattle found that a single signal-timing
plan could not satisfy all traffic conditions. The study suggested that
more benefits could be expected if signal systems were implemented so that
they would respond to traffic levels based on demand and weather
conditions. For example, agencies could develop longer timing plans when
demand is heavy and shorter cycle lengths for light demand conditions. One
researcher we talked to also emphasized that to effectively deploy traffic
signal control systems, signal timing plans should be regularly adjusted
to respond to changes in traffic patterns surrounding the intersection.29

Similarly, a study on deploying ramp meters on Detroit area freeways found
that effectively operating the meters to maximize benefits meant using the
meters only during specific traffic conditions. The study concluded that
using ramp meters helped reduce congestion during major events or traffic
incidents when traffic demand or congestion was high. During average
conditions, however, the study found that the benefits of ramp metering in
terms of moderating the flow of traffic on the freeway would not outweigh

29In 1994, we reported that the potential benefits of properly designed,
operated and maintained traffic control signal systems were not being
realized. GAO, Transportation Infrastructure: Benefits of Traffic Control
Signal Systems Are Not Being Fully Realized, GAO/RCED-94-105 (Washington,
D.C.: Mar. 30, 1994).

Page 29 GAO-05-943 Highway Congestion

    Few ITS Studies Include Analysis of ITS Projects' Cost Effectiveness

the delays on the entrance ramps and arterials leading to the freeway. The
study found that by turning off metered ramps in the absence of major
events or incidents, corridorwide delay would improve.

Most of the ITS studies we reviewed did not include information on the
cost effectiveness of ITS deployment, such as benefit-cost analyses.
Analysis of benefits in relation to costs is essential to helping local
decision makers determine whether and when ITS is a good investment. As we
have shown in previous work, careful decisions need to be made to ensure
that transportation investments maximize the benefits of each public
dollar invested. Moreover, according to a recent study, compared to other
highway projects, such as highway construction projects, many ITS
applications have distinct cost structures and life cycles-for example,
relatively low initial deployment costs but ongoing operational costs that
do not apply to many construction projects-that need to be explicitly
described and evaluated in order to determine the benefits and costs of
ITS technologies compared to other alternatives.30

Thirty-three of the 38 studies we reviewed (87 percent) did not measure
benefits in relation to total dollars invested. The five studies that did
include an evaluation of benefits reported that the benefits of the ITS
deployment examined were greater than the costs.

  Several Barriers Limit the Widespread Deployment of ITS

Transportation officials in the four metropolitan areas we visited
identified four barriers that our previous work and DOT officials
acknowledge limit the deployment and integration of ITS in metropolitan
areas. These barriers include the limited appeal of ITS as an option for
congestion mitigation, the difficulty of obtaining funding for
implementing and operating ITS technologies along with confusion about the
fact that ITS operational costs are eligible for federal funding, a lack
of technical training in deploying and operating ITS technologies, and a
lack of technical standards to help ensure that ITS technologies will be
able to be integrated with other ITS systems within and across
metropolitan and rural areas. These barriers have limited the amount of
ITS deployed and therefore have likely limited the impact of ITS on
mitigating congestion on our nation's roads.

30E. Bekiaris and Y J Nakanishi, Economic Impacts of Intelligent
Transportation Systems, 8 (Elsevier, 2004).

Page 30 GAO-05-943 Highway Congestion

    ITS Projects Are Sometimes Seen as a Less Appealing Investment Option for
    Mitigating Congestion

According to transportation officials we spoke with, one barrier to ITS
deployment is that in light of a high number of potential projects
competing for limited transportation funds, system enhancements such as
ITS are sometimes less appealing than transportation investment options
that improve the physical condition of the roads.31 Demand for
transportation funding usually exceeds the supply of these funds. For
example, in the San Francisco Bay area, the MPO estimates that it needs an
additional $419 million above its available funding to fully deploy the
area's regional operations programs-including ITS applications.
Furthermore, state and local governments face difficult decisions
regarding the allocation of their highway and transit funds, especially
when federal and state budget deficits exist. Within these funding
constraints, transportation officials must prioritize and make trade-offs
between projects that add new or preserve infrastructure and those that
enhance the existing infrastructure, such as ITS. Thus, ITS must compete
with other highway investments that add new infrastructure or preserve
existing roads.32 In previous work, we found that state and regional
transportation decision makers are increasingly giving priority to highway
investments that preserve the existing infrastructure.33

In addition, ITS applications sometimes have limited public and political
appeal. We have reported in prior work that public input and political
considerations shape transportation investment decisions. However, unlike
capital improvements that build or expand new roads and those that
preserve existing roads, the benefits of traffic operations improvements
such as ITS are not always visible to the public. According to DOT
officials, deteriorating roadways, like those with potholes and other
physical problems, affect the public's ability to drive on the road.
Conversely, many ITS applications that are not operating well or need
maintenance, like nonworking message signs or delayed traffic signals, do
not necessarily affect the public's ability to drive on the road in an
obvious way. As a result, drivers may not realize that a failing ITS
application could be contributing to congestion. One state responded to
this public perception issue by

31System enhancements consist of traffic operations improvements and
environmental enhancements.

32System preservation projects would include capital improvements on
existing roads and bridges intended to sustain the existing
infrastructure, but not include routine maintenance activities.

33GAO-04-744.

Page 31 GAO-05-943 Highway Congestion

ordering a shut down study so that levels of congestion with and without
ITS could be compared. In 2000, the Minnesota legislature passed a bill to
study the effectiveness of ramp meters due to public questioning of the
effectiveness of ramp meters on freeways. The state undertook a study that
demonstrated the effectiveness of the ramp meters and increased public
support for the ramp meters.34 The state DOT conducted two, 5-week
studies-one with the ramp meters in operation, the other without-and
estimated that ramp meters annually saved 25,121 hours in travel time,
2,583,620 hours of unexpected delay, and 5.5 million gallons of fuel.
Consequently, commuter support for ramp meters significantly increased.35
However, in the absence of such studies, the public may not realize the
potential benefits of ITS deployment and therefore may not support them as
much as the more visually obvious benefits of such things as improved road
surface conditions.

Moreover, several officials in the metropolitan areas we visited agreed
that investments in system "enhancements," such as ITS, are not as
politically appealing as expanding roadways. Specifically, Chicago and San
Francisco transportation officials stated that since ITS applications do
not usually offer groundbreaking ceremonies, which offer positive media
attention, politicians are generally not motivated to support ITS
projects.

In its role of encouraging interest in ITS, DOT has taken steps to counter
this lack of appeal for ITS technologies, such as establishing the
benefits database we previously described. In addition, according to DOT
officials, DOT division staff advertise the benefits of ITS or suggest it
as a way to mitigate congestion to state and local transportation
officials. Furthermore, DOT officials are planning to develop lessons
learned information from studies of ITS technologies to share with states
and localities on how to implement effective ITS applications. This is
important information to begin disseminating as we found that DOT's
benefits database did not consistently provide information on lessons
learned for maximizing the benefits of ITS, even when that information was
included as part of a study

34Cambridge Systematics, Inc., "Twin Cities Ramp Meter Evaluation"
(prepared for Minnesota Department of Transportation pursuant to laws
2000, ch. 479, HF2891, Feb. 1, 2001).

35Over 250 respondents rated ramp meters on a scale from zero to 10, with
a rating of 1 meaning that respondents strongly disagreed with a statement
and a rating of 10 suggesting that they strongly agreed. The respondents
rated their overall satisfaction with ramp meters at 4.99, on average, in
2000. After the shutdown study was completed, the average rating increased
to 6.13 in 2001.

    Lack of Operational Funding and Misunderstanding of Federal Funding Policy
    Are Barriers to Deployment

summarized in the database. For example, a study of the impacts of call
boxes in Georgia provided lessons-learned information on reducing
maintenance costs to improve the cost-effectiveness of the deployment, but
the summary in the ITS benefit database did not include this information.
DOT officials acknowledge that lessons learned information is needed to
provide practitioners with helpful advice on how to cost effectively
deploy ITS. Consequently, DOT plans to unveil a new database in September
2005 that will provide lessons learned information from the ITS studies
and other sources.

Although DOT has undertaken these efforts to make ITS more appealing,
DOT's ability to affect state and local decisions to deploy ITS has been
limited by its inability to use funding incentives to encourage ITS. As we
previously noted, although TEA-21's ITS integration program included
funding to help state and local governments integrate ITS technologies,
Congress has fully designated this funding. Moreover, the extent to which
DOT's benefits database is helping to counter the limited public appeal of
ITS deployment is unclear. In 2004, we found that although useful, impact
analysis such as benefit-cost information does not play a decisive role in
many investment decisions.36

Another barrier to deploying and operating ITS technologies, according to
metropolitan transportation officials, is that once an ITS application has
been deployed, state and local transportation agencies do not always fund
operations on an ongoing basis, in light of other priorities for
transportation investments. As previously mentioned, state and local
governments face difficult decisions regarding the allocation of their
highway and transit funds, especially when state and local governments
face budget deficits. At times, funding for ongoing operations is not
fully available. In the San Francisco Bay area, for example, the MPO
estimates that it needs an additional $419 million above its available
funding to fully deploy the area's regional operations programs--including
ITS applications. Similarly, although the Chicago area funded the
establishment of 10 transportation management centers, they have operators
in 3 of the centers and a part-time operator in a fourth center due to a
lack of operational funding. Finally, Indianapolis transportation
officials said that operations were one of the first areas cut during
budget crunches.

36GAO-04-744.

In addition to limited funds in state and local operation budgets, several
state and local officials were not aware that they could use federal
transportation funds, such as Surface Transportation Program funds, to
operate and maintain ITS technologies. Operating costs for traffic
monitoring, management, and control systems such as integrated traffic
control systems, incident management programs, and traffic control centers
are eligible for federal reimbursement from National Highway System and
Surface Transportation Program funding.37 In addition, for projects
located in air quality nonattainment and maintenance areas, Congestion
Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program funds may be used for
operating costs for a 3-year period-as long as the funded systems
measurably demonstrate reductions in traffic delays. The lack of
understanding about the availability of federal funding for operations has
at times led to poor financial decision making. In San Francisco, for
example, FHWA officials told us that the state and local officials' lack
of knowledge that federal funds could be used to operate and manage ITS
technologies had led some agencies to use federal funds to replace their
technology systems at much higher costs than would be needed to operate
and maintain their existing technologies.

DOT officials are aware of this lack of understanding and have taken steps
to inform state transportation agencies about the eligibility of ITS
operational expenses for federal funding. DOT provides guidance on its Web
site indicating that federal-aid policies allow federal assistance to be
used for virtually any operational costs. DOT has issued policy manuals to
its division offices to pass along to state officials that explain federal
funds can be used for operational expenses. However, the misconception
that federal funds can be used only for ITS capital expenses still exists
in some locations. DOT officials believe they are making progress in
educating transportation officials about funding for operating costs and
believe that understanding will grow as transportation departments place
more emphasis on operating roadways.

37Operating costs include labor costs, administrative costs, costs of
utilities and rent, and other costs including system maintenance costs,
associated with the continuous operation of the system. Routine
maintenance items that are not critical to the successful operation of the
system, such as the painting of traffic signal controller cabinets, would
normally fall outside of eligible operating costs.

Page 34 GAO-05-943 Highway Congestion

    ITS Deployment Is Hampered by a Lack of Technical Expertise

According to metropolitan transportation officials and as we previously
reported in a 1997 report, another barrier state and local transportation
agencies face when selecting and implementing ITS is a lack of appropriate
skills and knowledge needed for selecting and operating ITS
technologies.38 This lack of skills exists both in transportation agencies
and, according to transportation officials in one metropolitan area, in
consultants that agencies hired to help them purchase and deploy ITS
technologies. According to DOT officials, it is often hard to find people
who are knowledgeable in both of two fields that are important for fully
understanding ITS applications-traffic systems and electrical engineering.
Consequently, some transportation agencies hire contractors to perform
some of the technology functions associated with ITS. In Las Vegas,
however, transportation officials told us that consultants lacked needed
skills as well. As a result, localities may face difficulties selecting
and procuring appropriate systems for their areas. For example, according
to an FHWA official, a lack of business knowledge led a San Francisco Bay
Area agency to lease rather than purchase telecommunications lines needed
for transmitting data from roadway sensors-a decision that ended up
costing the agency money in the long run.

According to DOT officials, DOT has taken numerous actions to address the
lack of technical expertise; however, external factors have limited DOT's
ability to resolve this issue. DOT provides technical assistance through
FHWA. FHWA divisions in each state work with state and local
transportation agencies to provide needed technical assistance. FHWA's
resource center offices are staffed with technical experts in various
fields including operations and ITS and thus provide state and local
officials across the country with more specific technical expertise and
support when needed.39 In addition, FHWA headquarters office offers a
number of additional resources such as training programs, guidance
documents, technical assistance, and a Peer-to-Peer program that
facilitate the exchange of technical expertise across different locations.
Finally, DOT also has a professional capacity-building program that is
designed to help state and local transportation officials gain the
expertise necessary to install ITS applications. In addition to DOT
training, several universities

38GAO, Urban Transportation: Challenges to Widespread Deployment of
Intelligent Transportation Systems, GAO/RCED-97-74 (Washington, D.C.: Feb.
27, 1997).

39FHWA Resource Center offices are located in Baltimore, Chicago (Olympia
Fields), Atlanta, and San Francisco.

Page 35 GAO-05-943 Highway Congestion

    ITS System Integration Is Limited by Delayed Technical Standards

have developed programs to provide intelligent transportation education to
develop the skills needed in the ITS industry. Both the University of
Michigan and the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University have
developed programs, as has the Consortium for Intelligent Transportation
Education housed at the University of Maryland. DOT officials believe,
however, that the lack of technical expertise will remain until an
institutional change in transportation agencies occurs--a change that
increases emphasis on operations.

Another barrier that has limited the deployment and integration of ITS is
that state and local decision makers do not have enough of the technical
standards needed to select ITS equipment that can integrate with other
systems.40 Having technical standards is important because purchasers who
adhere to the standards can avoid being locked into proprietary systems
that cannot integrate with those of other manufacturers and for which
replacement equipment or service may not be available if the vendor goes
out of business. According to transportation officials we spoke with, in
some cases, the lack of standards may have discouraged state and local
decision makers to invest in ITS technologies; in other cases, the lack of
ITS standards may have led to the deployment of ITS technologies that
could not easily be integrated with other technologies within or across
metropolitan or rural areas.

In each of the metropolitan areas we visited, state and local
transportation officials stated that DOT has facilitated the issuance of
standards slowly and that this has limited the confidence officials have
in the technology they select. For example, an official in Chicago told us
that the lack of standards has resulted in the agency not knowing if it is
purchasing quality ITS applications. In another example, a San Francisco
official stated that the slow completion of the standards development
process at the national level caused transportation officials to pick a
standard in the draft stage that they hope will have the ability to
connect with future ITS deployment in the area.

According to DOT, although it has worked to facilitate the issuance of
technical standards, technology has been developing faster than the SDOs

40Standards promote interoperability-the ability of systems to provide
services and to accept services from other systems and to use the services
so exchanged to enable them to be operated effectively together.

Page 36 GAO-05-943 Highway Congestion

that DOT works with can handle. Furthermore, the issuance of standards by
SDOs is done voluntarily, and there is no private-sector market
influencing speedy issuance-the SDOs do not have a profit incentive in
issuing standards. DOT has accelerated development of over 100 standards
and identified 17 standards critical to ensure ITS operability across the
country. However, according to DOT officials, standard setting is a
difficult, consensus driven, and time-consuming process.

Generally, the promise of ITS for managing congestion has fallen short.

  Conclusions

Although DOT established a vision to build an intelligent transportation
infrastructure across the United States to save time and lives and improve
the quality of life for Americans, DOT's deployment goal ends in 2005.
Studies show that when implemented properly, ITS technologies can reduce
congestion, as well as lead to other benefits such as improved safety and
reduced emissions harmful to the environment. However, transportation
agencies have been slow to adopt and deploy ITS technologies, facing many
barriers along the way. Funding for ITS deployments, particularly for
ongoing operations and maintenance costs, is critical to ensuring that ITS
deployments are used effectively. However, such funding continues to be a
problem for state and local governments. In addition, state and local
transportation agencies do not always consider ITS when developing their
transportation plans. Moreover, DOT does not have clear information on the
extent to which areas have deployed ITS to meet their particular needs,
nor does it have clear information on the operating status of ITS where it
has been deployed. Limitations of DOT's efforts in measuring the
deployment of ITS technologies, among other things, have reduced its
ability to help state and local governments invest strategically in ITS.

Successful ITS deployment depends on selecting the appropriate level and
types of ITS for the area, effectively integrating these technologies, and
committing the necessary resources to operate and maintain them. We
recognize that DOT has not been able to influence deployment through
funding, and state and local governments are free to choose the extent to
which they direct other federal highway funds to ITS. However, DOT has
opportunities to assist metropolitan areas in developing appropriate,
efficient, and cost effective transportation systems which include ITS.
Although analyses of a project's cost effectiveness often do not drive
transportation investment decisions-many factors, political as well as
other, influence project selections-such analyses should be part of the
decision making process. And impact analysis for all highway projects,
including ITS projects, would help decision makers view all tools together
and make well-reasoned decisions about investment of their limited funds
to develop the best possible transportation system. In addition, as the
Secretary of Transportation indicated in 1996, providing national guidance
is important to ensure ITS deployment. Nationally tracking measures for
ITS deployment and operations would continue to support awareness of
progress toward improved mobility and help states and local areas
considering ITS determine how they could deploy and operate ITS
technologies to help mitigate congestion and realize other benefits.

We recommend that the Secretary of Transportation take the following

  Recommendations for Executive Action three actions:

     o revise measures for ITS deployment to incorporate local needs and
       operational status for deployed ITS technologies;
     o develop new strategies to better advertise the availability of federal
       funds for operating ITS technologies; and
     o encourage cost-effectiveness analyses and their use in transportation
       planning and decision making.

In commenting on a draft of this report, officials from DOT's ITS Joint

  Agency Comments

Program Office and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for
Transportation Policy provided comments through the Office of the
Secretary's audit liaison generally concurring with the report and
agreeing to consider the recommendations. DOT officials provided technical
clarifications and information, which we incorporated in the report, as
appropriate. The officials also provided general comments about the ITS
deployment goal.

Although DOT officials did not comment on the recommendation to revise and
update the goal and measures for ITS deployment, the officials said that
they do not plan on updating the ITS deployment goal after it expires in
2005. In addition, officials noted that SAFETEA-LU repealed the ITS
integration deployment program. However, ITS Joint Program Office
officials have indicated that they intend to continue to track ITS
deployment. In the absence of an ITS integration deployment program, we
revised our recommendation so that it no longer calls for revising and
updating the goal for ITS deployment. However, we continue to recommend
that DOT improve its ITS deployment measures to obtain clear and accurate
information on ITS deployment that will support DOT's efforts to help
states and local areas select, implement, operate, and maintain ITS
technologies to address increasing congestion and other transportation
needs in their areas.

We are sending copies of this report to interested congressional
committees and to the Secretary of Transportation. We will also make
copies available to others upon request. In addition, the report will be
available at no charge on the GAO Web site at http://www.gao.gov.

If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact
me at (202) 512-2834 or [email protected]. Contact points for our Offices of
Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page
of this report. GAO staff who made major contributions to this report are
listed in appendix IV.

JayEtta Z. Hecker Director, Physical Infrastructure Issues Appendix I

Scope and Methodology

To address our first objective-to describe the federal role in ITS
deployment and the goals and measures for the federal ITS program-we
reviewed transportation legislation, DOT performance plans, and other
documents related to ITS and the federal role. We reviewed TEA-21 goals
for the ITS deployment incentives program. We also reviewed the Secretary
of Transportation's 1996 speech describing his vision for ITS deployment
and met with DOT and FHWA officials to clarify the federal role in
deploying ITS. Although ITS technologies can be used for many purposes,
including highway safety, we focused this analysis on the role of ITS for
mitigating congestion.

To address our second objective-to develop information about the progress
of ITS deployment toward DOT's deployment goal and DOT's measures-we
reviewed reports that describe DOT's deployment program and its
methodology for rating metropolitan areas. We interviewed ITS officials
who track deployment of ITS technologies in over 75 metropolitan areas. To
determine progress toward the 2005 goal, we summarized ratings from DOT's
deployment reports and deployment and integration tracking database-which
identify the number of metropolitan areas with high, medium, and low
ratings-and obtained rating information for the period of 1997 to 2004.1

To assess the reliability of the deployment and integration tracking
database, we interviewed officials from DOT's Joint Program Office who are
knowledgeable about how data are collected, analyzed, and reported, and we
collected deployment data from the state and local transportation agencies
that we visited to compare it with the data used in the database and DOT
deployment reports. In addition, in 2000, the Bureau of Transportation
Statistics (BTS) reviewed and reported on the data quality of the ITS
deployment and integration tracking database. BTS noted that the database
frequently had been monitored and improved upon. The report found some
reporting errors and made recommendations for additional improvements. DOT
implemented some of the recommendations. DOT has not conducted any
subsequent quality reviews. Based on interviews with DOT officials and
analysis of the data, we determined that the data were sufficiently
reliable for our purposes.

1In 1996, Secretary Pena established the goal that 75 of the largest
metropolitan areas would be outfitted with a complete intelligent
infrastructure by 2005. Since 1996, DOT has increased the number of
metropolitan areas for which it tracks deployment from 75 to 78. However,
to maintain reporting consistency across the 10-year goal, DOT only
reports on the original 75 metropolitan areas.

Appendix I Scope and Methodology

To discuss DOT's measures for assessing the status of ITS deployment in
metropolitan areas, we interviewed DOT officials and reviewed reports that
explain the methodology DOT uses to rate the metropolitan areas (high,
medium, and low) in terms of deployment and integration of ITS
technologies. (See app. 2.) We reviewed the Secretary's 1996 speech,
recent DOT performance plans, and GAO reports that relate to impact
analysis. We also interviewed federal, state, and local transportation
officials from our four case study locations about their experiences with
ITS and the ITS technologies deployed in each area. (For more information
about site selection and agencies we contacted, see discussion later in
this section.) We did not review the appropriateness of the rating that
DOT had assigned to the 75 metropolitan areas. However, we did compare the
overall rating that DOT assigned to the four metropolitan areas we studied
in depth with the information we gathered from our interviews with
transportation and planning officials in those areas.

To address our third objective-to identify the impacts of ITS
deployment-we reviewed 38 studies issued since 2000 from our site visits
and DOT's ITS benefits database, a repository of academic and government
papers evaluating the deployment of ITS technologies in U.S. and
international locations, including any cost effectiveness analysis
included in the studies. We asked officials at each of the four locations
if they documented the results of their ITS deployments. Las Vegas and San
Francisco had conducted evaluations of their ITS deployments while Chicago
and Indianapolis had not. Las Vegas conducted two evaluations for a
traffic-signal-timing system on two major arterial roads. San Francisco
conducted three evaluations for ramp meters deployed on two freeways in
the metropolitan area. Therefore, we collected five studies from our site
visits. We also reviewed 33 recent evaluations from the ITS benefits
database.

In order to summarize the benefits of ITS deployment on congestion, we
reviewed those studies that relate to mobility and capacity/throughput.
DOT used our criteria to develop a list of 76 studies. We further refined
our review to studies published after 2000 that involved deployments in
the U.S., ending up with 33 evaluations in total. DOT provided us with
copies of the evaluations. We did not assess the potential benefits of any
one technology, such as open road electronic tolling, on the nation's
transportation system.

In order to assess the reliability of the benefits database, we
interviewed the DOT manager responsible for the database about data
sources, data

Appendix I Scope and Methodology

entry, and quality control procedures. We assessed the database summaries
by comparing them with the complete evaluations. We found that they
generally contained accurate information regarding the location of the
deployment, the type of ITS technology, and the impacts of the ITS
deployment. We determined that the benefits database was sufficiently
reliable for our purpose of identifying evaluation reports.

We also reviewed the 38 evaluations to ensure that findings from the
studies were based on sound methodologies. A DOT contractor reviewed the
studies for methodological soundness before including them in DOT's
benefits database. We also reviewed the studies we selected from the DOT
benefit database to ensure that these studies were based on sound
methodologies and determined these studies were sufficiently reliable for
describing actual and potential impacts of ITS technologies. We created a
data collection instrument to systematically collect information from each
evaluation we selected, including information about the evaluation design,
expected and documented benefits, and inclusion of cost information. We
then compiled and analyzed the information from the data collection
instruments. We determined that the results contained in the studies were
sufficiently reliable for our purpose of describing what is known about
the impacts of ITS deployment.

To address our final objective-to identify factors that limit deployment
and use of ITS-we used a case study approach and interviewed federal,
state, and local transportation officials about barriers to deploying and
maintaining ITS technologies. We also used case study information to
illustrate limitations of DOT's deployment integration rating measurement
approach. We used level of congestion and DOT's integrated deployment
rating to select four congested metropolitan areas-two areas that DOT has
determined have deployed ITS to a great extent and two areas that DOT has
determined have deployed ITS to a lesser extent-to study in depth.2 We
selected areas with either high or low levels of integrated deployment in
order to try to capture information that could explain the different
levels of deployment in those locations. For example, we were interested
in finding out whether such areas encounter similar or different barriers
to deployment.

2There are many ways to measure the level of congestion. In this report,
we used DOT's measure of congestion-the percent of travel under congested
conditions--to identify congested metropolitan areas.

Page 42 GAO-05-943 Highway Congestion Appendix I Scope and Methodology

To identify congested metropolitan areas, we applied DOT's
integrated-deployment congestion rating to the largest 75 metropolitan
areas and sorted them according to congestion level. DOT measures
congestion as the percent of travel under congested conditions. We used
the Texas Transportation Institute 2004 Urban Mobility Report-which ranked
congestion under DOT's definition during our selection process-to identify
congested metropolitan areas. The 2004 Urban Mobility Report used 2002
travel data to rank congestion levels. We then identified a list of
congested metropolitan areas with varying levels of deployment. In our
deliberations about which high deployment area to visit, we took into
account practical considerations such as proximity of metropolitan area to
the state capital. We selected Chicago and San Francisco, which were
ranked fourth and fifth respectively in terms of congestion and which DOT
rated as high in integrated deployment and Las Vegas and Indianapolis,
which were ranked 15th and 26th respectively in terms of congestion and
rated by DOT as low in integrated deployment. We determined that Las Vegas
is the most congested location that DOT rated low, and Indianapolis is the
second most congested location rated low. After we visited these
locations, the Texas Transportation Institute issued its 2005 Urban
Mobility Report using 2003 travel data to rank congestion levels. In that
report, Chicago and San Francisco were ranked fourth and fifth
respectively in terms of congestion, and Las Vegas and Indianapolis were
ranked ninth and 25th respectively.

We developed a semistructured data collection instrument to use during
interviews with transportation and planning officials in the metropolitan
areas. The data collection instrument included questions about local
transportation challenges, ITS decision-makers, ITS deployments, barriers
and facilitators to deploying ITS, and future deployment. We obtained a
list of contacts from the FHWA division offices and identified a group of
state and local officials involved in ITS deployment in the metropolitan
area. In each metropolitan area, we interviewed officials from the FHWA
division office, the state department of transportation ITS office, state
department of transportation district engineer, metropolitan planning
organization, city department of transportation, and transit authority. (A
complete list of agencies we contacted is included at the end of this
section.) We conducted our site visits between November 2004 and March
2005. We conducted our work from October 2004 through August 2005 in
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.

                        Appendix I Scope and Methodology

  Organizations Contacted

Department of Federal Highway Administration Operations Office ITS Joint
Program Office

Transportation

                           Chicago Metropolitan Area

FHWA National Resource Center (Olympia Fields, Illinois) FHWA Illinois
Division Illinois Department of Transportation, ITS program office
Illinois Department of Transportation, District 1 Chicago Area
Metropolitan Planning Organization/Chicago Area Transportation Study
(CATS) City of Chicago Illinois State Toll Highway Authority Regional
Transportation Authority

Indianapolis Metropolitan FHWA Indiana Division Indiana Department of
Transportation, ITS program office

    Area

Indiana Department of Transportation, Greenfield District Indianapolis
Metropolitan Planning Organization Indianapolis Department of Public Works
Indianapolis Public Transportation Corporation (IndyGo)

Las Vegas Metropolitan Area FHWA Nevada Division Nevada Department of
Transportation, Operations Nevada Department of Transportation, District 1
Regional Transportation Commission/Freeway and Arterial System of
Transportation Organization (FAST) Regional Transportation Commission of
Southern Nevada

    San Francisco Metropolitan FHWA National Resource Center

Area FHWA California Division California Department of Transportation
(CALTRANS), ITS program office CALTRANS, District 4

Page 44 GAO-05-943 Highway Congestion

                        Appendix I Scope and Methodology

San Francisco Department of Traffic San Francisco Municipal Railway (MUNI)
Metropolitan Transportation Commission Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Santa
Clara Valley Transportation Authority Alameda County Congestion Management
Agency

Highway Associations American Association of State Highway and
Transportation Officials American Highway Users Alliance International
Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association Intelligent Transportation Society
of America

Other Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois University of Illinois,
Chicago, Illinois University of California, Berkeley, California Appendix
II

Summary of DOT's Deployment Tracking Methodology

In 1996, Secretary Pena established the goal that 75 of the largest
metropolitan areas would be outfitted with a complete intelligent
transportation infrastructure by 2005.1 DOT tracks the level of deployment
and integration and reports on the progress toward this goal periodically
in its deployment progress report. Metropolitan areas are rated as high,
medium, or low in terms of deployment and integration of ITS technology.
DOT considers any metropolitan area having a high or medium rating as
contributing to fulfilling the goal. At the end of 2004, DOT rated 28
areas high, 34 medium, and 13 low.

In order to track progress toward this goal, DOT set up the metropolitan
ITS deployment tracking methodology. The tracking system includes data
about nine specific ITS components, including freeway management, incident
management, arterial management, emergency management, transit management,
electronic toll collection, transit electronic fare payment, highway-rail
intersections, and regional multimodal traveler information. DOT created a
set of measurable indicators of progress toward the overall goal and
created nine data collection instruments (surveys) that correspond to the
ITS systems. DOT contracted with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to
collect the data from the entities in the 75 metropolitan areas associated
with ITS deployment. These entities included transit agencies, toll
authorities, municipal governments, and state transportation departments,
among others. ORNL sent out the first deployment and integration surveys
in 1997, which represented the baseline as of the end of fiscal year 1997.
The data were initially collected by a fax/mail survey, which later became
a Web-based survey. After 2000, ORNL surveyed all metropolitan areas on a
biennial basis and completed a telephone interview with the metropolitan
areas with a low rating in the interim years to determine whether their
rating should be increased. It completed the 2004 survey in September 2004
and published the results in July 2005. According to DOT officials, the
2005 survey was released in July 2005, and was a Web-based rather than
telephone survey. The 2005 data will be available in 2006.

From the survey questions, DOT compiles data about the level of deployment
of ITS systems and the level of integration. To measure ITS deployment,
DOT created five ITS component categories (collapsing the

1Since 1996, DOT has increased the number of metropolitan areas on which
it tracks deployment from 75 to 78. However, to maintain reporting
consistency across the 10-year goal, DOT only reports on the original 75
metropolitan areas.

Page 46 GAO-05-943 Highway Congestion

          Appendix II Summary of DOT's Deployment Tracking Methodology

nine components mentioned above into five categories) and nine component
indicators. For example, an indicator of the arterial management component
is the percent of signalized intersections under computerized control. In
order to assign a rating for deployment, DOT created threshold values for
the ITS component indicators. (See table 2.) For example, the threshold
value for the percent computerized signalized intersections is 33 percent.
DOT then assigns a rating of high, medium, and low for deployment
depending on how many thresholds the metropolitan area exceeded. An area
is rated high in component deployment if it exceeds the threshold value
for at least one of the indicators in each of the five components. An area
is rated medium if it exceeds the threshold value for freeway
management/incident management or transit management/electronic fare
payment and at least one other component. An area is rated low in
component deployment if it exceeds the threshold value for one or fewer
components.

      Table 2: DOT's Deployment Component Indicators and Threshold Values

ITS components               Component indicators          Threshold       
                                                              values          
Freeway management/incident       o  Percent freeway miles Greater than or 
management                   under electronic surveillance     equal to 20 
                                     o  Percent freeway miles         percent 
                                with freeway service patrols  
                                o  Percent freeway miles with 
                                     closed circuit TV (CCTV) 
Transit                      o  Percent buses equipped     Greater than or 
management/electronic fare   with automated vehicle            equal to 33 
payment                      location  o  Percent buses            percent 
                                equipped with electronic fare 
                                payment                       
Arterial management          o  Percent signalized         Greater than or 
                                intersections under               equal to 33 
                                computerized control                  percent 
Regional multimodal traveler o  Percent geographic         Greater than or 
information                  coverage of traveler              equal to 10 
                                information from freeway              percent 
                                electronic surveillance and   
                                freeway CCTV cameras          
Emergency management         o  Percent emergency vehicles Greater than or 
services                     operating under                   equal to 33 
                                computer-aided-dispatch (CAD)         percent 

Source: DOT.

To measure the level of integration, DOT defined a set of links involving
three major organizations that operate the infrastructure-state
governments that manage freeway management and incident management
components; local governments that manage most arterial management
components; and public transit authorities that manage the transit
management component. DOT created integration indicators about how

Appendix II Summary of DOT's Deployment Tracking Methodology

agencies connect, like sharing traffic condition information with other
agencies, and assigns a value greater than zero for any integration
indicator when a link is present. DOT then rates the metropolitan area
according to how many links are present. An area is rated high if all
three links are present; medium if any two out of three links are present;
and low if one or fewer links are present.

To measure the level of integrated deployment, DOT combines the component
classification and the integration classification into a single
classification. For example, a metropolitan area which DOT rated as high
in ITS components and high in integration, will be rated as high overall.
(See table 3.)

           Table 3: DOT's Integrated Deployment Classification Scheme

Component classification Integration               Combined classification 
                            classification            
High                     High                      High                    
High                     Medium                    Medium                  
High                     Low                       Medium                  
Medium                   High                      High                    
Medium                   Medium                    Medium                  
Medium                   Low                       Low                     
Low                      High                      Medium                  
Low                      Medium                    Medium                  
Low                      Low                       Low                     

Source: DOT.

Appendix III

                         Metropolitan Area Case Studies

We studied four metropolitan areas that were among the 75 metropolitan
areas included in DOT's deployment database to help identify barriers to
deployment and use of ITS technologies that address congestion and help
assess DOT's deployment measures.1 We visited two metropolitan areas
(Chicago, Illinois, and San Francisco, California) that DOT rated as
having a high level of integrated deployment and two areas (Las Vegas,
Nevada, and Indianapolis, Indiana) that DOT rated as having a low level of
ITS integrated deployment. The officials we interviewed and documents we
received provided detailed information on each area's transportation
challenges, the extent to which the areas were using and planned to deploy
different types of ITS technologies, and the factors that influenced ITS
deployment and use in their areas. We were also able to observe the extent
to which the two areas with more ITS deployed were operating their
existing systems. In Las Vegas and Indianapolis, however, we did not
observe much in terms of operations, likely because of the limited
deployment in those areas. (See app. 1 for details on our scope and
methodology for our case study selections.)

                               Chicago, Illinois

Level of Congestion In 2003, Chicago was the fourth most congested area in
the nation; commuters spent 42 percent of their travel time in congested
conditions. Chicago travelers that year on average spent 58 hours delayed
in traffic costing the area over $4.2 billion in lost wages and wasted
fuel-about 150 million gallons.

Transportation System The Chicago metropolitan planning area consists of
seven counties encompassing a population of about 8.1 million in 2000. The
population is expected to reach 9.8 million by 2030. Seven interstates
enter the Chicago region. In 2002, 20.5 million vehicle trips were made
daily on the area's 24,092 miles of interstates, freeways, and principal
and minor arterial roads, and an additional 1.5 million daily trips were
made on transit

1We defined congestion as the percent of travel that is under congested
conditions-DOT's measure of congestion.

Page 49 GAO-05-943 Highway Congestion

                  Appendix III Metropolitan Area Case Studies

                           Transportation Challenges

systems-Chicago has both rail and bus service. In 2003, over 165.7 million
vehicle miles were traveled on area roadways daily.

Highway congestion is a major transportation challenge for the Chicago
area. The roadway system has not grown fast enough to keep pace with the
increase in roadway demand, especially with commercial truck driving.
Currently, trucks comprise up to 40 percent of daily traffic on three of
the area's most congested freeways. Furthermore, by 2030 the number of
trucks on Chicago area highways is expected to increase by 80 percent.
Trucks use twice the average road space used by cars and will account for
more than half of the additional vehicles and two thirds of the effective
increase in traffic on the region's roads.

ITS Applications Chicago uses many ITS technologies. The Illinois
Department of Transportation (IDOT) operates 22 changeable message signs
that display real-time traffic information on Chicago's freeways. IDOT
utilizes over 2,400 loop detectors to collect such information. IDOT also
utilizes 113 ramp meters, closed circuit television cameras, and video
surveillance cameras. Drivers with cellular telephones can also call *999
to notify IDOT of incidents on arterials and freeways. IDOT also operates
three traffic management centers including the Gateway Traveler
Information System which serves as the multimodal traveler information hub
for the three-state Gary-Chicago-Milwaukee Corridor Coalition. Gateway
collects, processes, validates, fuses, and distributes real-time traffic,
travel-time, congestion, construction, incident, special event, and
transit information from and to over a dozen operating agencies in the
corridor to support more effective management and operation of the
transportation system. In addition, IDOT operates an Emergency Traffic
patrol providing over 100,000 expressway motorists with incident
assistance annually. Finally, multiple agencies have the capability to
monitor area traffic from 10 traffic management centers.

On its arterial roadways, the Chicago DOT has designed six "smart
corridors" connected by fiber optic signals. In those corridors, cameras
and remote devices are used to improve efficiency through traffic signal
preemptions or fast incident management. Some corridors, such as Lake
Shore Drive, use dynamic message signs. The Chicago DOT also has a traffic
management center with the capability of monitoring its roadways.

In addition, transit agencies such as the Chicago Transit Authority have
many ITS components on their trains and buses such as Automatic Vehicle

                  Appendix III Metropolitan Area Case Studies

    Factors Impacting ITS Deployment

Location, computer-aided dispatch and control, and real-time passenger
information signs.

The Illinois State Toll Highway Authority has also deployed ITS
applications along its 150 miles of highways in the Chicago area.
Specifically, the agency has an electronic toll collection system, a
traffic incident management system to manage operations and incidents that
is integrated with the Illinois State Police computer-aided dispatch,
about 400 closed-circuit televisions, and over 100 detectors that use
speed measurements to provide travel time estimates.

Chicago has a high level of ITS deployment due to significant federal
funding, congested conditions, and ITS advocates. Since 1991, Chicago has
received over $43 million in federal funding for deployment of ITS
applications. The Gary-Chicago-Milwaukee area was one of four locations
the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) of 1991
funded as part of the ITS priority corridor program. ISTEA authorized the
Gary-Chicago-Milwaukee area with over $18 million for ITS applications.
Being a part of the ISTEA program also helped to create the coalitions
between transportation agencies that were needed for further advancement
of ITS after the program ended. In addition, transportation officials in
Chicago stated that the level of congestion on Chicago's roadways combined
with limited ability to build additional roadways compelled them to look
into operational improvements such as ITS technologies. Finally, Chicago's
high deployment level is also the result of its having ITS advocates at
the state and local levels. IDOT has an ITS office that seeks
opportunities to deploy ITS applications and secure the necessary funding
for such applications.

While Chicago transportation agencies have achieved a high level of ITS
deployment, they have faced challenges in operating their ITS
technologies. Transportation officials stated that their agencies lack
funding for operations and were not aware that federal funds could be used
for operations. Consequently, 6 of the 10 transportation management
centers do not have operators monitoring traffic, updating message signs,
and notifying incident management officials when necessary. (See fig. 4.)

Future ITS Initiatives Chicago transportation agencies are proposing 85
ITS projects-ranging in size from small, low cost actions to
multimillion-dollar efforts-at a total cost of over $304 million. These
efforts include the following:

Page 51 GAO-05-943 Highway Congestion Appendix III Metropolitan Area Case
Studies

     o IDOT proposes to develop a statewide 511 information program, install
       an additional 350 cameras for closed circuit television at 1-mile
       intervals or less, and install additional dynamic message signs on its
       roadways.
     o The Chicago DOT proposes to design and implement a city traffic
       management center and hub with interfaces to the city's 911 center and
       IDOT Gateway Center to cover traffic management, traveler information,
       and incident management.
     o The Regional Transportation Authority is proposing to install transit
       signal prioritization, large message displays of train schedules at
       five locations, and regional traveler information kiosks in six
       locations.
     o The Illinois State Toll Highway Authority has begun a 10-year
       renovation to transfer its tollways into an "open road" system. The
       open road concept calls for cash-paying customers (those not using the
       electronic toll collection passes) to exit the mainline to pay tolls
       at new express plazas located at the sides of the roadway. Those using
       electronic passes will be able to experience end-to-end, unimpeded
       travel over the entire 274-mile toll system.

                  Appendix III Metropolitan Area Case Studies

Figure 4: A Chicago Metropolitan Area's Traffic Management Center That
Lacks Staff Dedicated to Monitoring Traffic throughout the Day

                                  Source: GAO.

  San Francisco, California

Level of Congestion In 2003, the San Francisco Bay Area was ranked the
fifth most congested area in the nation; commuters spent 41 percent of
their travel time in congested conditions. Bay Area travelers that year on
average spent 72 hours delayed in traffic, costing the area over $2.6
billion in lost wages and wasted fuel-an excess of 96 million gallons.

Page 53 GAO-05-943 Highway Congestion

                  Appendix III Metropolitan Area Case Studies

                             Transportation System

The San Francisco Bay Area consists of nine counties encompassing a
population of about 7 million in 2004. The population is expected to reach

8.8 million by 2030. In 2000, about 17 million trips were made daily on
the area's 21,218 miles of interstates, freeways, and principal and minor
arterial roads. An additional 1.4 million daily trips were made on transit
systems; San Francisco has ferry, rail, and bus service. In 2003, over
91.5 million vehicle miles were traveled on area roadways daily.

Transportation Challenges Changes in the Bay Area's demographics will have
significant transportation implications in the future. The percentage of
residents age 65 or older is expected to increase from 10 percent
currently to 25 percent in 2030. Meeting the mobility needs of the aging
population will require changes in a number of areas, from the design of
cars to increases in paratransit systems. In addition, average household
incomes in the Bay Area are expected to rise in real terms from $92,000 in
2000 to $118,000 in 2030. The level of auto ownership is likely to rise
with this income increase, as more families will be able to purchase
additional vehicles.

The Bay Area also has a political culture that has significantly impacted
transportation mobility. In the late 1950s, the city of San Francisco
passed legislation opposing new freeway construction in the city limits.
Almost all roads in the city are arterials. In addition, the Bay Area is
expected to spend less on new freeway projects than any other large urban
area in the country.

The geography of San Francisco is a challenge for transportation
solutions. The eight toll bridges in particular are consistently crowded
since they are the main entrance and exits into the metropolitan area. San
Francisco's peninsula geography makes entrance and exit via a vehicle very
challenging. Unless a commuter is driving from the north, drivers must
take a bridge to enter San Francisco.

California has also significantly decentralized transportation decision
making. In 1997, the state passed legislation allocating 75 percent of the
state's transportation funds (including federal transportation funds) to
local entities for regional improvement projects. The remaining 25 percent
is for state administered interregional improvement programs.

                                ITS Applications

                  Appendix III Metropolitan Area Case Studies

Transportation agencies in San Francisco have deployed a wide variety of
ITS technologies. The Bay Area is the largest metropolitan area in the
country to activate a 511 service. The 511 service provides Bay Area
callers and those who visit the 511 Web site with real-time traffic
information about conditions and incidents including point-to-point
driving times on routes throughout the area. The service also includes
fare, schedule and trip planning information on the area's public transit
systems; online ride-matching for ride-sharing, bicycle route information;
and updates on construction projects and special events affecting traffic.
The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (the area's MPO) partnered with
the CALTRANS (the state DOT) and other transit agencies to launch the
service in 2002. Since its inception, the 511 system has received praise
from the Intelligent Transportation Society of America and the American
Public Transportation Association.

Transportation agencies in the Bay Area also control freeway movement
through communication and roadside equipment that supports ramp control,
lane controls, and interchange controls. Agencies operating freeways, such
as CALTRANS, also have traffic management centers that monitor freeways to
report on traffic information and detect incidents. Area transportation
agencies feature 4,700 traffic sensing detectors on its 2,800 freeway
miles. As a result, 29 percent of the freeways have a sensing device
within 1 mile or less, and 40 percent of the freeways have a sensing
device within 2 miles or less. About 45 percent of these devices, however,
are out of service reducing the ability of staff to collect traffic data
such as speed and volume.2 According to a DOT official, having 45 percent
of traffic detectors out of service is on the low-end nationally and is
not typical. In addition, San Francisco area drivers can also utilize a
highway-advisory radio station that provides traffic information to
highway travelers.

The San Francisco Department of Parking and Traffic (DPT) is leading an
integrated transportation management system effort to utilize ITS
technologies to make traffic flow on arterial streets. DPT has begun an
integrated transportation management system program for eight city areas.
DPT officials stated that they have completed the initial phase of the
effort and have installed electric traffic controls and loop detectors at
35 intersections and have 15 cameras, 5 video surveillance monitors, 4
fixed

 2According to transportation officials we met with, if an agency has a working
traffic sensing detector within a mile, then it can develop a good estimation of
                          travel time and congestion.

Page 55 GAO-05-943 Highway Congestion Appendix III Metropolitan Area Case
                                    Studies

    Factors Impacting ITS Deployment

variable message signs, and a traffic management center that provides the
ability to monitor traffic.

The Bay Area Toll Authority has an electronic toll collection program for
bridge toll users. The system has three components: a transponder, which
is placed inside the vehicle; an overhead antenna, which reads the
transponder and collects the toll; and video cameras to identify toll
evaders. The Toll Authority has added at least one electronic toll
collection lane to each of the eight area bridges.

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) and six San Francisco Bay
Area transit agencies have developed a regional fare payment system. The
system enables customers to use a single card to ride Bay Area buses,
trains, light rail lines, and ferries. The nine-county Bay Area will be
the first region in the U.S. to have a single card that can be used on all
forms of public transit. In addition, the Bay Area Rapid Transit agency
has installed real-time information, such as expected arrival time of next
transit vehicle, at every rail station platform.

The San Francisco Bay Area's level of ITS deployment is high due to active
advocates, federal resources, and a cultural climate that favors managing
over expanding the roadway system. The MTC has taken a strong role in
advocating and moving ITS deployment forward. In addition, federal funding
helped in deploying ITS applications. For example, an ITS earmark helped
launch the agency's ITS initiatives. Between 2004 and 2005, Congress
earmarked over $3.7 million for ITS applications in the Bay Area. The Bay
Area also has several cultural factors that have helped to facilitate ITS
deployment. The transportation planners have maintained a decades-long
commitment to preserving and managing the roadway system over expansion.
In addition, according to MTC officials, the Bay Area has a sense of pride
toward developing technology systems since the nation's technology hub,
Silicon Valley, is in the region.

While San Francisco transportation agencies have achieved a high level of
ITS deployment, they have also faced challenges in operating their ITS
technologies. Transportation officials stated that their agencies lack
funding for operations, awareness that federal funds could be used for
operations, and technical standards. In the San Francisco Bay Area, for
example, the MTC estimates that it needs an additional $419 million above
its available funding to fully deploy the area's regional operations
programs-including ITS applications. In addition, some local officials

                  Appendix III Metropolitan Area Case Studies

were not aware that federal funds can be used to operate and manage ITS
technologies, leading some agencies to use their federal funding to
replace their technology systems at much higher costs than would be needed
to operate and maintain their existing technologies. A lack of business
knowledge also led an agency to lease rather than purchase
telecommunication lines needed for transmitting data from roadway
sensors-this decision ended up costing the agency money in the long run.
In addition, a San Francisco official stated that the slow completion of
the standards development process at the national level caused them to
pick a standard in the draft stage, hoping the technology they chose would
be able to connect with future ITS deployment in the area.

Future ITS Initiatives The MTC has taken the lead on future ITS
initiatives and plans to collaborate with local agencies to further the
deployment of the following applications:

     o On the freeways, MTC is planning to improve the traffic operations
       system and enhance its transportation management center, freeway
       service patrol, incident management, technical assistance, and real
       time travel information. (See fig. 5 for planned use of traveler
       information.)
     o On arterial roads, MTC, in cooperation with the San Francisco
       Department of Parking and Traffic, plans to implement smart parking.
       Smart parking would provide drivers with real-time information on
       available parking spots at city garages. This information may improve
       efficiency from drivers searching for available parking or double
       parking.
     o On all roadways, MTC plans to increase coverage of the 511 traveler
       information system.
     o On transit, MTC is partnering with other transit agencies to further
       the deployment of the smart card system and make it available to more
       commuters.

                  Appendix III Metropolitan Area Case Studies

 Figure 5: Artist's Depiction of Real-Time Travel Information in San Francisco

                                     2 MIN

                                     4TH ST

                                     12 MIN

                                   TOLL PLAZA

                             OAKLAND DOWNTOWN18 MIN

            Source: California Center for Innovative Transportation.

                               Las Vegas, Nevada

Level of Congestion In 2003, Las Vegas was the ninth most congested area
in the nation; commuters spent 39 percent of their travel time in
congested conditions. Las Vegas drivers that year on average spent 30
hours delayed in traffic costing the area about $380 million in lost wages
and wasted fuel-about 14 million gallons.

                             Transportation System

The Las Vegas metropolitan planning area is a collection of five
incorporated cities and unincorporated rural and urban areas, all located
in Clark County and encompassing a population of about 1.6 million in
2003. The population is expected to reach almost 2.4 million by 2025. In
2003, over 3.6 million trips were made daily on the area's 6,569 miles of
roadways. An additional approximately 124,000 daily trips were made on

Page 58 GAO-05-943 Highway Congestion

                  Appendix III Metropolitan Area Case Studies

transit systems. In 2003, over 27.4 million vehicle miles were traveled on
area roadways daily.

Las Vegas is one of the fastest growing urban areas in the nation. Gaming,
proximity to natural scenic attractions, a favorable climate, and direct
access by air and ground resulted in a population boom between 1990 and
2000. During that time, the population rose from 741,000 to about 1.38
million-an increase of 86 percent. Phoenix, by comparison, which during
the same time period was the second fastest growing area had a population
increase of 45 percent.

Transportation Challenges The Las Vegas population growth has outpaced
transportation infrastructure development. The increase in population has
placed an increased demand for transit and roadway services. Las Vegas,
however, has only two major freeways, the U.S. 95 and the I-15. Although
Clark County Public Works is planning on building a Beltway, motorists
rely primarily on arterials for mobility.

                                ITS Applications

Las Vegas transportation agencies have coordinated efforts to establish an
ITS system on the arterial roadways in the metropolitan area. The Las
Vegas MPO manages the Freeway and Arterial System of Transportation
organization (FAST)-an integrated freeway and arterial management system
designed to reduce congestion, and improve incident response time and
management. FAST is designed to both monitor and control traffic. To
monitor traffic, FAST plans to move into a new traffic management center
in the summer of 2005 to monitor all roadways. However, none of the area's
freeway miles currently are covered by electronic surveillance, and the
state DOT is just beginning to link its ITS sensory technologies with
those deployed by the local transportation and law enforcement agencies.

    Factors Impacting ITS Deployment

Some of the barriers that have impacted ITS deployment in Las Vegas
include funding inflexibilities, staffing limitations, and technological
barriers. A few transportation officials stated the federal integration
deployment program funds are specifically designated for integration and
not strictly for deployment. This requirement made it difficult for Las
Vegas to use a congressional earmark since it has already highly
integrated its limited ITS deployment. In addition, transportation
officials stated that most agencies do not have enough staff to keep up
with developing

                  Appendix III Metropolitan Area Case Studies

technologies. Finally, needed equipment is not always readily available.
Transportation officials stated that the ITS market is small, making it
difficult to find equipment that meets standards and is not expensive.

Future ITS Initiatives The FAST organization plans to deploy ramp meters,
dynamic message signs, and a 511 statewide traveler information system for
area roadways. In addition, the Las Vegas area plans to provide real-time
information on one of the two area freeways and at transit area kiosks.

                             Indianapolis, Indiana

Level of Congestion In 2003, Indianapolis was the twenty-fifth most
congested area in the nation; commuters spent 34 percent of their travel
time in congested conditions. Indianapolis drivers that year on average
spent 38 hours delayed in traffic costing the area about $362 million in
lost wages and wasted fuel-about 14 million gallons.

                             Transportation System

The Indianapolis metropolitan area includes Marion County and portions of
Hamilton, Boone, Hendricks, Johnson, and Morgan counties encompassing a
population of about 1.4 million in 2000. The population is expected to
reach about 1.7 million by 2030. The city and county are a unified,
consolidated government entity. In 2002, over 5.5 million vehicles
traveled daily on the area's 5,644 lane miles of roadway. An additional
28,000 trips were made on the transit systems. In 2003, over 30.6 million
vehicle miles were traveled on area roadways daily. The area has five
major Interstates.

                           Transportation Challenges

Indianapolis has an entrenched car culture. Drivers use the Interstates
for local trips and generally do not use public transit. Between 2002 and
2030, the Indianapolis MPO forecasts that daily vehicle trips will
increase from

5.5 million to over 6 million trips. Transportation officials stated that
the area has no natural barriers to limit sprawl. In addition, the transit
system has been underutilized because of the continuing challenges with
the number of routes, convenience, and a culture that does not support
public transit.

                  Appendix III Metropolitan Area Case Studies

                                ITS Applications

Indianapolis has isolated instances of congestion. Many large special
events attracting tourists, such as the Indianapolis 500, NASCAR, and NCAA
tournaments create heavy episodic congestion. Although the entire
metropolitan area is not considered very congested, certain locations in
the metropolitan area experience heavier congestion than others.

Indianapolis features few ITS applications. In 2004, the Indiana DOT
opened a traffic management center. The traffic management center has
incorporated cameras, sensors, and other technologies on about 25 percent
of the Interstates and is charged with posting traffic information via
changeable message signs, highway advisory radio, pagers, and real-time on
the Web to inform drivers. The state DOT also runs the Hoosier Helper
program-an emergency roadside assistance program that assists stranded
motorists, removes debris from roadways, and sends for help in emergency
situations. (See fig. 6.) On arterial roads, the Indianapolis Department
of Public Works also has a traffic control center where the agency can
control and coordinate signals and view intersections.

    Factors Impacting ITS Deployment

Some of the barriers that have impacted ITS deployment in Indianapolis
include a lack of congestion, agency coordination, ITS staff and technical
expertise. The public does not perceive congestion levels to be
significant. The public is not knowledgeable or interested in ITS
technologies and may object to ITS deployment. According to a
transportation official, the Indianapolis community may not welcome the
deployment of ITS technologies such as ramp metering, causing local
agencies to avoid implementing or upgrading ITS applications. Furthermore,
some local agencies are not willing to commit to ITS, fearing it will take
away funds from other programs. ITS deployment is not part of the locally
established planning process and, therefore, planners do not consider it
in their roadway building alternatives. In addition, transportation
agencies in Indianapolis generally do not coordinate their ITS efforts.
The state DOT traffic management system, for example, does not have a link
to the city's traffic management center operated by the Department of
Public Works; the agencies are operating independently. ITS staff is
limited and lacks technical expertise. The ITS staff located at some
agencies have increasing workload constraints that hinder the deployment
of ITS. This ITS staff also lack technical expertise-there are few
engineers that can provide the skills and knowledge needed to deploy ITS
systems.

                  Appendix III Metropolitan Area Case Studies

Future ITS Initiatives The state DOT is advancing its traffic management
system, while the Indianapolis Department of Public Works is determining
the ITS needs for arterial roadways. The state DOT is moving into advanced
phases of its advanced traffic management system and plans to install a
total of 125 cameras spaced approximately every mile and a system of
vehicle detection underneath the pavement placed every half mile on
high-volume roads and one-mile on lower volume roads to measure the
overall traffic flow. The agency plans full implementation of the system
by 2008. The Indianapolis Department of Public Works is in the process of
examining its ITS goals and the potential of ITS technologies such as a
traffic management center with real time traffic information. The
Department of Public Works also plans to centralize traffic control with
the capabilities to respond to incidents, weather, and events over the
next 5 to 10 years.

In addition, an DOT official stated that technical expertise in ITS is
growing. The state DOT is expanding its ITS and traffic management staff.
FHWA is offering additional training to the MPO staff as well.

Appendix III Metropolitan Area Case Studies

                      Figure 6: Indiana Hoosier Helper Van

Source: GAO.

Appendix IV

                     GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

JayEtta Z. Hecker, (202) 512-2834 or [email protected]

  GAO Contact

In addition to the contact named above, Cathy Colwell, Assistant Director;

  Staff

Samer Abbas; Kimberly Berry; Jay Cherlow; Jason Kelly; Gail Marnik; Sara
Ann Moessbauer; and Alwynne Wilbur made key contributions to this report.

                 (544097) Page 64 GAO-05-943 Highway Congestion

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