Development of Performance Measures for the FHWA'S Strategic Plan

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

Federal Highway Administration

[FHWA Docket No. 97-2382]

Development of Performance Measures for the FHWA'S Strategic Plan

AGENCY: Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), (DOT).

ACTION: Notice; request for comments.

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SUMMARY: In conformity with the Department of Transportation's (DOT)

agency-wide strategic planning process, the FHWA is continuing to

develop its strategic plan to guide its programs and initiatives to

meet its part of the Department's strategic goals and objectives. The

FHWA strategic plan will establish the framework, goals, and measures

of progress in meeting its goals in fiscal year (FY) 1998 through FY

2003. The FHWA has developed vision, mission, and strategic goal

statements and is now seeking input and advice from its partners and

customers on how to best measure its progress toward those goals. The

FHWA strategic plan will be finalized after the next reauthorization

bill for the FHWA's programs is enacted. The FHWA strategic planning

process will also support meeting the Department's requirements under

the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993. Comments are

requested to help guide the FHWA's development of performance

objectives and indicators to measure the progress toward meeting the

goals of the strategic plan.

DATES: Written comments must be submitted on or before July 1, 1997.

ADDRESSES: Submit written, signed comments to the docket number that

appears in the heading of this document to the Docket Clerk, U.S. DOT

Dockets, Room PL-401, 400 Seventh Street, SW., Washington, DC 20590-

0001. All comments received will be available for examination at the

above address between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m., e.t., Monday through Friday,

except Federal holidays. Those persons or organizations who desire

notification of receipt of comments must include a self-addressed,

stamped envelope or postcard.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ms. Susan B. Petty, HPP-20, Office of

Policy Development, (202)366-0690, Federal Highway Administration, 400

Seventh Street, SW., Washington, DC 20590. Office hours are from 7:45

a.m. to 4:15 p.m., e.t., Monday through Friday, except Federal

holidays.

Background

The FHWA provides national leadership, expertise, resources, and

information to ensure effective and efficient investment and management

of highway transportation systems. The agency's main goals are to

promote mobility, productivity, safety, human and natural environment,

and national security. The FHWA also promotes innovations in financing,

contracting, partnerships, and technologies to meet these goals. The

FHWA strategic planning process will set-out the long-term

programmatic, policy, and management goals of the FHWA including its

planned accomplishments and its schedule for implementation of these

goals. Further, consultation with the FHWA's customers and partners

through the strategic planning process will help to ensure that the

agency is meeting the needs and expectations of the public.

The FHWA has direct responsibility for a significant number of

highway transportation programs such as Federal lands highways,

commercial vehicle safety and enforcement, research, technology

development, national standards, and technical assistance. In addition,

it also has a significant role in influencing the strategic development

of State and local transportation systems as effective and efficient

elements of the national transportation system through programs,

policies, and funding. Because of the FHWA's stewardship role of the

national highway transportation system, its strategic goals and

performance objectives and indicators reflect initiatives that are in

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its span of influence but beyond its direct control. The FHWA strategic

planning process reflects this broad scope of influence and the

performance objectives and indicators developed through this process

will indicate the performance of the highway transportation system

nationwide. It is important to note that the performance objectives and

indicators for the FHWA are developed to measure the performance of the

entire highway transportation system nationwide. These objectives and

indicators are not intended or appropriate to apply to individual

States or jurisdictions.

The strategic plan is an integral part of the ongoing initiatives

in the FHWA to improve the quality, effectiveness and efficiency of its

programs. A strategic approach to managing its program and resources is

not new to the FHWA--the FHWA's current strategic planning process

builds on ongoing initiatives in quality, customer and partner

feedback, and program evaluation. The FHWA ``Quality Journey'' provides

the overarching principles and framework for the FHWA to create and

support continuous quality improvements throughout its activities and

strategic planning.

Outreach for FHWA Strategic Planning

As part of its overall strategic planning effort, the FHWA is

engaging its customers and partners in the development and definition

of objectives and indicators of performance. The FHWA gathered very

useful information during the extensive outreach conducted last year in

preparation for the reauthorization of the Intermodal Surface

Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA), Pub.L. 102-240, 105

Stat. 1914. This outreach included 13 regional forums and over 100

focus groups in approximately 40 States throughout the country. The

information from these meetings provided valuable input for the FHWA's

current strategic planning initiative. As the FHWA moves to the next

step to develop performance objectives and indicators for its strategic

plan, it is pursuing a number of methods to consult with its customers

and partners. These include adding information on the FHWA home page on

the Internet (http://www.fhwa.dot.gov), as well as requesting public

comments through this Federal Register notice. In addition, the FHWA

has written to more than 100 customer and partner groups to determine

the level of participation that they would like to have in this

process. While many will provide written comments, it is anticipated

that the FHWA will also hold a number of focus group meetings on the

various strategic goals. The FHWA plans to hold these focus group

meetings between late April and June of this year.

The FHWA'S Vision, Mission, and Strategic Goals

In 1996, the FHWA took the initial steps for this strategic plan

and approved its current Vision and Mission statements, Strategic Goals

and Preamble. All of these were based on the 1994 DOT strategic plan,

the reauthorization outreach process, and the previous strategic

planning efforts. The following are the first elements of the FY 1998

to FY 2003 strategic plan for the FHWA:

Preamble

As a visionary and vigilant Federal Agency committed to fair and

equitable treatment, the Federal Highway Administration will focus our

investment of human, financial, and technological resources to make

this Vision a reality and to undertake this Mission to meet the

transportation challenges of today and tomorrow.

Vision

Create the best transportation system in the world for the American

people through proactive leadership, innovation and excellence in

service.

Mission

We provide proactive leadership, expertise, resources and

information to continually improve the quality of our Nation's highway

system and its intermodal connections. We undertake this mission in

cooperation with all our partners to enhance the country's economic

vitality, quality of life and the environment.

Strategic Goals

1. Mobility: Continually improve the public's access to activities,

goods and services through preservation, improvement and expansion of

the highway transportation system and enhancement of its operations,

efficiency, and intermodal connections.

2. Productivity: Continuously improve the economic efficiency of

the Nation's transportation system to enhance America's position in the

global economy.

3. Safety: Continually decrease the number and severity of highway

accidents.

4. Human and natural environment: Protect and enhance the natural

environment and communities affected by highway transportation.

5. National security: Improve the Nation's ability to respond to

emergencies and natural disasters and enhance national defense

mobility.

Performance Objectives and Indicators

As the next step in its strategic planning process, the FHWA is

requesting input for the development of performance objectives and

indicators to measure its progress toward meeting its goals. The

strategic plan will cover the period from FY 1998 through FY 2003 and

these performance objectives and indicators will quantify the FHWA's

accomplishments toward its goals for that period. The performance

objectives and indicators in the strategic plan will focus on measuring

the results or outcomes of initiatives and programs over this 6-year

period. A ``performance objective'' is a measurable target level of

results that is proposed to be accomplished toward a strategic goal.

This could include, for example, increasing highway pavements and

bridges that are in good condition, reducing highway crashes, or

reducing the costs and time of highway freight movements. ``Performance

indicators'' are the specific data that are used to measure the

accomplishment. This could include, for example, the percentage of

National Highway System (NHS) highways that are above a benchmark for

serviceability ratings, a change in the rate of fatal accidents, or

reducing the ton-mile cost of freight transportation.

To facilitate public comments on possible objectives and indicators

to gauge progress toward the FHWA's strategic goals, the following

questions are posed. The FHWA is not seeking answers to these specific

questions, but offers them only as a starting point to assist

commenters in preparing recommendations. Commenters are encouraged to

expand on these questions in their deliberations. The basic question in

each category, ``What will change as these goals begin to be met?'',

will provide information for the FHWA's performance objectives. The

follow-up question in each category, ``How can these changes best be

measured?'', will help to develop specific, quantifiable performance

indicators.

The FHWA anticipates that most of these goals could be measured by

existing data or by combinations or indexes of existing data. However,

the FHWA understands that some new data sources, such as, customer

surveys may need to be developed. The FHWA is also requesting

recommendations from commenters on appropriate sources of data that can

be used for the performance indicators.

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Another challenge in this process is to limit the number of

measures in the agency's strategic plan to those that are the most

important indicators of results. The experience of other agencies and

organizations in setting performance objectives and indicators has

demonstrated that using too many objectives and indicators may be

confusing for program managers and partners and may diffuse the

agency's focus on its strategic goals. Therefore, the FHWA is also

requesting that commenters prioritize the performance objectives and

indicators that they propose to assist the FHWA in selecting only the

most critical indicators of performance.

An optional format is attached to this notice that may be helpful

for commenters to use to provide recommendations. This format could be

used for responses and suggestions on any of the strategic goals. The

format provides a brief outline form for commenters to offer

performance objectives and indicators, a ranking of priorities, and any

possible sources of data for the performance indicators.

The following, lists the five strategic goals and a series of

questions that may be of assistance to the commenters:

1. Mobility: Continually improve the public's access to activities,

goods and services through preservation, improvement and expansion of

the highway transportation system and enhancement of its operations,

efficiency, and intermodal connections.

a. How does highway mobility benefit or affect individuals and

community quality of life? How could this be quantified and measured?

Should measures include commuting times, personal travel costs, public

perception, or increased access to home, work, rural areas, and

recreation?

b. What are the expectations of the general public for ease of

access and mobility? How can these expectations be measured? Are

highways and other transportation facilities expanded or built where

and when they are needed? Are alternatives to highway transportation

and intermodal facilities effectively developed to provide more

transportation services to the public? Do national surveys provide a

good indication of progress in this area?

c. It has been suggested that increasing the percentage of vehicle

miles traveled on NHS highways that operate at ``full performance''

would increase mobility. How should full performance be measured,

(i.e., traveling at a posted or design speed, good pavement conditions,

reduced congestion, or others)? Should measures of full performance be

linked to the public's exposure to adverse highway conditions such as

vehicle miles traveled or the number of vehicles using highways and

bridges that are below some benchmark?

d. Highway construction should result in highways that last longer,

ride better, and cost less over the life of the highway. What specific

measures would best capture these results?

e. How does the current condition of the highways impact mobility?

Do factors, such as, measures of pavement and bridge conditions,

construction delays, or lanes not in service relate to these impacts?

f. How will the application of new technologies affect highway

mobility? How should the impacts or results of deploying new

technologies be measured?

g. How does the operation of the highways affect mobility? Would

measures of reducing delays from accidents and construction delays be

an appropriate measure? How should the impacts on mobility of improved

highway safety or directional signs and signals be measured?

h. What will be the impacts on mobility of deploying advanced

technologies from Intelligent Transportation Systems, such as traveler

information systems, incident management, and electronic toll

collection? How can these results be measured?

2. Productivity: Continuously improve the economic efficiency of

the Nation's transportation system to enhance America's position in the

global economy.

a. What economic data and indicators would be directly affected by

improvements in highway transportation?

b. Most products are moved on the highway at some point in the

production process between gathering the raw materials and the final

distribution to the consumer. What measurable factors would show

improvements in this freight movement? Would an appropriate measure of

improved highway freight movements include some measurement of cost

such as reducing transportation costs?

c. How can technologies, such as, mapping, tracking, computerized

signal control, and other Intelligent Transportation Systems improve

productivity? How can the results of these improvements be measured?

d. What transportation factors are considered by the public,

business community, freight movers, intermodal facility operators in

making economic decisions? Would these factors be appropriate measures

for this goal?

e. What factors indicate the efficiency of passenger and freight

transportation across international highway borders? What are the best

measures of how efficiently these crossings are operating?

f. How will the application of new technologies affect

productivity? How should the impacts of new technologies be measured?

3. Safety: Continually decrease the number and severity of highway

accidents.

a. Is the public satisfied with the level of safety on the

highways? How does the public assess highway safety (e.g., crashes,

deaths, personal perceptions, etc.)?

b. What are the best measures of improvements in safety? Should

safety be measured by the number or rate of highway fatalities? How

should crash severity be measured? Should it include all highway

accidents, injury-only accidents, or solely the number of fatalities?

c. Would a comparison of fatal accidents to all accidents (or to

injury-only accidents) indicate a change in the severity of accidents?

d. Highway safety issues of particular responsibility or concern

for the FHWA include truck and bus safety, preventing run-off-the-road

crashes, creating clear zones or forgiving highways, safety at railroad

grade crossings, or construction work zones, as well as safety on

certain high priority roadways, such as the National Highway System.

How should improvements in these areas be measured? What would be

appropriate measures to track progress in these safety areas?

e. How can the application of new technologies enhance highway

safety? How should this be measured?

4. Human and natural environment: Protect and enhance the natural

environment and communities affected by highway transportation.

a. What highway and transportation elements improve the community?

What is the role of transportation in supporting welfare-to-work

initiatives? Would decreases in commuting time or improving on-time

travel or access to services be appropriate and measurable? How can the

impacts and benefits to communities of highway transportation be

measured?

b. How does highway access to National parks and Federal lands

impact the human and natural environment? How can these benefits and

impacts be measured? Would increased access to pedestrian facilities

and bikeways or the number of miles of landscaped highways or the

number of beautification programs be significant factors?

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c. What are the changes in the environment when highways enhance

the natural environment? How can these changes be measured? Would

increasing the number or percentage of highway projects that

accommodate or enhance environmental concerns be an adequate measure?

Would decreasing the number or percentage of Americans living in air

quality, non-attainment areas be an adequate measure? Should the number

of acres of wetlands or the number of historic sites restored or

avoided be a measure?

d. Do national and localized surveys of environmental partners and

the general public on satisfaction with highways' impact on the

environment provide useful information to measure accomplishments?

5. National security: Improve the Nation's ability to respond to

emergencies and enhance national defense.

a. Following a natural disaster, quickly restoring the

transportation system to minimal service, and then full service, is a

key factor in rebuilding a community. Would appropriate measures of

this goal be: (1) How long it takes to provide access to disaster areas

for emergency relief?; (2) How long does it take to provide emergency

funding following a disaster?; and (3) How long does it take to

complete repairs of highways and bridges and restore full service

following a disaster?

b. The FHWA provides direct service to the Department of Defense

(DOD) to ensure highway access for national defense. In addition to

working directly with DOD to establish its needs and measures, the FHWA

would like comments from other partners and customers on this issue.

For example, would increasing the percentage of highways designated for

defense purposes that meet the requirements of DOD be an adequate

measure? Would the number of highway movements by DOD that are on-time

or the percentage of miles traveled by DOD that are on-time be good

measures?

The following optional format is provided for commenters:

The FHWA'S Strategic Planning Process: Optional Format for Comments on

Performance Objectives and Indicators

This is an optional form offered to facilitate comments. Commenters

are invited to provide recommendations on one or all of the five

strategic goals (mobility, productivity, safety, human and natural

environment, and national security). For each strategic goal on which

comments are provided, please recommend performance objectives and

performance indicators for that strategic goal. In addition, please

prioritize the factors that are proposed and include any data sources

that would be most appropriate.

Name:------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:------------------------------------------------------------------

Organization: (optional)-----------------------------------------------

Address:---------------------------------------------------------------

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Strategic Goal:--------------------------------------------------------

(Mobility, Productivity, Safety, Human and Natural Resources, or

National Security)

Performance Objectives:

Priority

(What should be accomplished to reach this goal?)

(1=highest/3=lowest)______

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PERFORMANCE INDICATOR:

(How can these changes best be measured?)

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Possible source of data:

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Additional performance objectives and indicators for each strategic

goal may be presented in the same format.

Authority: 23 U.S.C. 315; 49 U.S.C. 322; 49 CFR 1.48.

Issued on: April 25, 1997.

Jane Garvey,

Acting Federal Highway Administrator.

[FR Doc. 97-11452 Filed 5-1-97; 8:45 am]

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