The Peer Review Program began in April 2003 with the objective of providing:
TMIP works collaboratively with the transportation modeling community to improve information sharing and support good available tools, data, and methods. The purpose of the Peer Review Program is to facilitate a process whereby leading practitioners in the fields of transportation, land-use, and air quality planning and modeling can provide guidance to ensure agencies are developing technical tools, procedures, and processes that meet an agency's needs while also satisfying Federal, state, and local planning requirements. TMIP's Peer Review Program provides an agency with the opportunity to elicit recommendations for addressing its current modeling challenges and those expected to arise due to growth and/or transportation policy changes.
TMIP supports peer reviews by assisting agencies in subject-specific panel assembly, logistics, and funding; documentation of the peer review meetings; and preparation of a final report that summarizes the review for the host agency. Web-conference technology is now also used in some cases to convene part of the peer review as a virtual pre-meeting in addition to the day(s)-long meetings held in person at the host agency. Peer reviews are customized to meet the specific needs of the host agency, but reviews often consist of:
During the performance period, two peer reviews were convened. Table 3 provides the details on dates and locations.
The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) Express Toll Lane Modeling Blue Ribbon Panel Workshop was held on May 22-23, 2013, at the Florida Turnpike Enterprise headquarters in Orlando, Florida. This review focused on providing advice and recommended technical guidance for a new managed-lane model design, and specifications for a consistent modeling practice for express lane implementation resulting from an increased emphasis on managed lanes as a required alternative for analysis in major capacity improvement studies on existing limited-access highways in the State of Florida. The Systems Planning Office has recently started a program for developing a planning-level managed lane modeling application for the Florida Standard Urban Transportation Model Structure[2] (FSUTMS). Therefore, FDOT convened the Blue Ribbon Panel Workshop in order to:
The panel spent the morning session of Day One of the workshop listening to presentations by FDOT planning staff, national experts, and other invited speakers, which culminated in a set of specific questions from FDOT and its planning partners. The second half of Day One of the workshop was spent discussing those questions in two breakout sessions (the Planning Session and the Operations Session) and asking the panel members to provide recommendations. The results of these discussions, in the form of comments and observations from the panel, were used as feedback to steer future toll model development.
The Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans) is responsible for transportation systems planning, development, and monitoring throughout the State of Vermont. Vermont contains 14 counties and has a population of over 626,000, according to the US Census. The Chittenden County Regional Planning Council (CCRPC) is the only Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) in the state. VTrans' statewide travel demand model is a critical tool for travel estimation and forecasting statewide and in its non-MPO regions. The statewide model estimates travel demand and link flow throughout the state and across its borders using Vermont's generalized spatial demographics and employment. The model estimates daily passenger-vehicle flow between 866 internal and 70 external traffic analysis zones (TAZs) for four trip types. Commercial truck traffic is estimated directly from traffic counts as a fifth trip type. The model employs a traditional four-step process.
The University of Vermont Transportation Research Center (TRC), under contract with the Division of Policy, Planning, and Intermodal Development at VTrans, has hosted, improved, and applied the statewide model since 2008. The TRC recently completed the Model update to its current 2009-2010 base year, and VTrans is now considering a host of potential improvements. Given the lack of any previous peer review and the advancements made in the travel modeling field in the last 10 years, TRC and VTrans felt the TMIP peer review process would be useful to identify model enhancements to suit their agency's needs and make good use of the funds available for improving the model to accommodate future planning requests (e.g., energy efficiency evaluations or air quality assessments).
The host agencies and dates of the peer review meetings convened during the reporting period are listed in Table 3.
Table 3: Peer Review Meetings by Agency
| Host Agency | Acronym | Virtual Meetings | In-Person Meeting |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vermont Agency of Transportation | VTrans | 6/5/13, 6/19/13, 7/10/13, 7/31/13 | N/A |
| Florida Department of Transportation | FDOT | N/A | 5/22/13, 5/23/13 |
The complete reports for each of the two Peer Review Panels conducted during the reporting period are available on the TMIP website, and can be accessed via:
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/planning/tmip/resources/peer_review_program/
The Peer Review Program has been successful in creating a reputable venue for agencies to receive customized assistance in the development of their planning tools and tool applications. Panel members have proven effectual in helping agencies to identify issues and provide feasible solutions, resulting in targeted and specific short- and long-term recommendations to guide major model improvement efforts. Additionally, the Peer Review Program not only delivers needed technical advice to the host agencies but also provides TMIP with an opportunity to gauge the varying needs of state, regional, or local agencies.
"Gathering a large group of experts to ask for their opinions was a difficult task, but the TMIP Peer Review Program sponsorship of some of the Blue Ribbon Panel Members for our workshop was instrumental in the workshop's successful outcome. The Peer Review Program also provided a facilitator who took notes, and summarized and prepared the final report. We truly appreciate TMIP's assistance."
Vladimir Majano - Florida Department of Transportation
Documentation of the peer review meetings, discussions, recommendations, implementation strategies, and post-review evaluations is not only useful to the host agency, but it also serves as a valuable resource to agencies with similar models, methodologies, or transportation concerns. By making these materials available, TMIP provides another resource to state, regional, and local agencies regarding travel model improvement and enhancement. These agency-based reports are particularly valuable as they present actual modeling scenarios in a familiar context for MPOs, state departments, and similar agencies. Furthermore, the TMIP Peer Review Program plays an important role in promoting good practice in transportation planning analysis, modeling, and simulation.
Vladimir Majano from FDOT noted why he found TMIP Peer Review Program a valuable resource in his email feedback from October 17, 2013.
