2008 Transportation Planning Excellence Awards

Note: The nomination period ended February 29, 2008.

Award Categories

The 2008 awards will focus on twelve major areas:

Transportation Asset Management

• Tracks system condition, needs, and performance;
• Clearly identifies costs for maintaining and preserving existing assets;
• Clearly identifies public expectations and desires;
• Directly compares needs to available funding, including operating and maintenance costs;
• Defines asset conditions so that decisions can be made on how best to manage and maintain assets; or
• Determines when to undertake action on an asset such as preservation, rehabilitation, reconstruction, capacity enhancement, or replacement.

Education and Training

• Increases the quality and effectiveness of transportation planning;
• Improves the capacity of the existing or future transportation planning workforce;
• Improves quality of transportation planning education curriculums; or
• Includes academic programs, training programs and courses.

Freight Planning

• Ensures efficient, seamless, and secure freight flow within and across U.S. borders;
• Effectively considers rail, commercial motor vehicle, waterway, and aviation facilities elements and connections throughout the transportation planning process;
• Incorporates freight analysis (e.g. size/weight dynamics), inter-modal coordination, technology into transportation planning; or
• Provides ongoing coordination with public and private freight companies throughout transportation planning.

Homeland and Personal Security

• Integrates security into the metropolitan and statewide transportation planning processes, transportation plans and programs through coordination, such as with law enforcement agencies, emergency management agencies, etc.
• Identifies critical transportation elements for emergency response;
• Develops activities, programs, and systems prior to a disaster or emergency, which are used to support and enhance prevention, response and recovery;
• Identifies and tests through modeling and exercises alternate route plans for evacuation or emergency situations;
• Establishes mass transit preparedness and mass transit system evacuations programs; or
• Coordinates across jurisdictions, modes, emergency response providers, and State/local planning agencies; and involves outreach and systems analysis of emergency response.
• Demonstrated leadership and resilience in responding to a federally declared emergency, or encouraged hope and resilience in the wake of a disaster

Linking Planningand Operations

• Manages traffic demand by providing travelers with information and travel choices;
• Develops regional frameworks for the integrated deployment of intelligent transportation systems;
• Identifies effective strategies to reduce delay caused by work zones and traffic incidents;
• Achieves successful deployment of the 511 traveler information;
• Coordinates regional operations for the safe and efficient movement of public and freight; or
• Uses operational performance measurement to determine public perception of improvements of system operation and reduced congestion.
• Uses, or contributes to, a Congestion management Process (CMP) effectively as the basis for monitoring and forecasting multimodal system performance and setting priorities for including projects and strategies in the plan and TIP .

Modeling and Technology Applications

• Strengthens transportation planning with modeling and technology (e.g., travel demand forecasting, geographic information systems, global positioning systems, incident management systems, visualization tools); and
• Assesses current and potential problems, develops alternative solutions; and/or evaluates alternatives through scenario planning;
• Uses visualization techniques to strengthen public participation in the planning process and specifically to aid the public in understanding proposed plans; or
• Portrays the complex character of proposed transportation plans, policies and programs at appropriate scales through visual imagery.

Planning Leadership

• Agency or organization demonstrates leadership not only through innovative transportation planning initiatives, and shares information about techniques by participating on national teams, conferences and training and providing valuable information to others; or
• Agency or organization not only raises the standards in transportation planning but is an exemplar for others.

Participation and Consultation

• Promotes understanding and properly addressing the unique needs of different socioeconomic groups;
• Avoids, minimizes, or mitigates disproportionately high and adverse effects, and/or ensures the full and fair participation by all potentially affected communities for an effective transportation decision-making process;
• Broadens participation in the transportation planning process, by reaching out to community members who previously have not been engaged in the planning process;
• Innovates by using public involvement methods such as electronic voting, visual preference surveys, public design forums, charrettes, handbooks, and other novel techniques; or
• Demonstrates how collaboration with the public and community outreach has successfully enhanced decision-making, the transportation planning process, and project development.
• Promotes intergovernmental and stakeholder consultation with State and local agencies responsible for land use management, natural resources, environmental protection, conservation, and historic preservation.

Safety Planning

• Develops and exemplary Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSP) that involves a comprehensive, data driven approach to highway safety;
• Comprehensive, system-wide, multimodal, proactive process integrates safety into surface transportation decision-making;
• Considers all aspects of transportation safety - engineering, education, enforcement, and emergency medical response;
• Includes transit, bicycle, and pedestrian safety improvements in the transportation planning process; or
• Addresses current safety problems and prevents future hazards and problem behaviors.

Transportation and Land Use Integration

• Promotes the coordination of transportation with land use and economic development;
• Incorporates several different land-use tools such as ordinances, codes, or policy guidelines;
• Shows coordinated planning across multiple jurisdictions;
• Protects and enhances the environment, promotes energy conservation, improves quality of life, and promotes consistency between transportation improvements and State and local planned growth and economic development patterns;
• Promotes sustainability through the provision of safe, effective, and efficient access and mobility into the future while considering economic, social and environmental goals; or
• Connects transportation infrastructure decisions with land use and development decisions.

Transportation Planningand Environment

• Exhibits effective linkage and integration between the transportation planning process and the natural and human environment alon g the continuum of systems planning through project development;
• Acknowledges innovative efforts to protect the human environment;
• Exemplary efforts regarding Title VI and Environmental Justice;
• Protects or improves natural environment, air quality, habitats, etc.;
• Includes effective transportation and environmental linkages;
• Results in improved air quality; or
• Incorporates Context Sensitive Solutions.

Tribal Transportation Planning

• Innovative and excellent Tribal Transportation Planning through exemplary transportation plans;
• Incorporates Tribal government’s planning considerations throughout the planning process; or
• Shows coordinated tribal planning across multiple jurisdictions, States/local planning agencies.

Award Criteria

A panel of qualified and experienced judges from across the transportation profession will review each 2008 Transportation Planning Excellence Awards Nomination. *Each nomination is evaluated against the criteria below. In addition to satisfying these criteria, successful nominations must be superior within the specific category in which they are nominated. Consideration will be given to community or agency size and attributes. Project summaries should address all the applicable criteria.

• Innovation: What innovative approaches have been used? What makes these efforts unique? What has occurred that demonstrated that these innovative efforts are effective and efficient? What types of successes have occurred as a result of this innovative process?

• Community and Public Involvement: How has this project successfully engaged the community in the planning process? What was innovative about community and public involvement? What were the benefits of the public inputs? How has the community and public involvement process for this project made a lasting positive difference in the community?

• Partnerships and Collaboration: What partnerships have been formed to facilitate the development and implementation of this project? How have these partnerships made a difference? What institutional mechanisms are in place to foster the continuation of these partnerships? Was this program created as a collaborative effort? Are public and private partners still at the table? Are non-traditional groups represented as well, such as those outside the transportation arena (e.g., EMS, freight shippers, etc.)?

• Multimodalism: To what extent do these efforts efficiently address multimodal transportation options, including bicycle, pedestrian, transit, freight and automobile? How does this nomination promote seamless transition between modes?

• Equity: What initiatives have been undertaken to ensure that these efforts are implemented in an equitable manner? What measures have been undertaken to minimize the impacts on any one community? What efforts have been made to involve all members of the community?

• Sustainability: What provisions have been used to ensure the long-term viability of this effort?

• Demonstrated Results/Effectiveness/Replication/Transferability: What has been the result of these efforts? What has been implemented? How are results being measured? Has this program enhanced the transportation system for all users? Can a distinct value to the community be identified? To what extent can these efforts be transferred to other organizations around the country?

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