Transportation Planning Excellence Awards
About the Awards
The Transportation Planning Excellence Awards (TPEA) Program recognizes outstanding initiatives across the country to develop, plan, and implement innovative transportation planning practices. The biennial awards program is sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and Federal Transit Administration (FTA).
The program is part of the FHWA Transportation Planning Capacity Building (TPCB) Program, which is designed to help decisionmakers, transportation officials, and staff resolve the increasingly complex issues they face when addressing transportation needs in their communities. This comprehensive program for training, technical assistance, and support targets State, local, regional, and Tribal governments, transit operators, and community leaders.
State, MPO, and transit operators that have used Federal FHWA/FTA funding to develop a plan, project, or planning process that demonstrates excellence in planning are encouraged to apply. We appreciate your efforts to encourage your State, MPOs, or transit operators to submit nominations for one or more of the categories below.
Submit a nomination
Nominations will be accepted from December 11 2018 through April 5 2019.
2019 Transportation Planning Excellence Awards Categories
Accelerating Planning and Project Delivery
- How does the project accelerate project delivery through notable practices in Planning and Environment Linkages (PEL) by identifying issues early in the planning process to better inform the NEPA process?
- Does the project improve the public's understanding of the transportation decision-making process and the interaction between transportation and the human/natural environments?
- Does the project promote involvement of interested state, MPO, local, Tribal, transit, and/or Federal agencies as well as the public in the transportation process?
- How does the project demonstrate commitment to improving multimodal networks and connectivity between, or among, transportation options?
- How does the project fosters partnerships for investing in multimodal infrastructure and stimulating economic growth and productivity?
Performance-Based Planning and Programming
- How does the project showcase planning agreements that are cooperatively developed and promote sharing information related to transportation performance data, the selection of performance targets, progress towards achieving performance targets, and the reporting of performance outcomes?
- Does the project demonstrate innovative techniques and processes for communicating performance targets and performance management to the public?
- Does the project demonstrate notable practices for evaluating asset management through system performance reports in long-range transportation plans?
- Does the project integrate other performance-based plans and processes (such as the Strategic Highway Safety Plan, State Freight Plan, and others) and partners with multiple agencies to provide input into the statewide and metropolitan transportation planning processes?
Modeling and Technology Applications
- How does the project tackle challenges in the transportation industry such as capacity constraints, data collection, etc.?
- Does the project incorporate current or new technologies and provides connections for underserved communities, including rural areas, to job centers through affordable and reliable transportation options?
- How does the project display new ways to collect, integrate, and analyze travel data (including personal vehicle, shared mobility, transit, etc.) to improve transparency, encourage collaboration, and optimize system performance?
- How does the project incorporate the collection of bicycle, pedestrian, and other emerging shared active transportation mode traffic data into the statewide and metropolitan transportation planning processes?
Innovative, Safe, and Efficient Movement of Goods
- Does the project incorporate current and new technologies that improve freight delivery methods such as last-mile connections and off-peak deliveries while increasing freight travel time reliability?
- Does the project promote innovative strategies that increase the efficient movement of freight by reducing bottlenecks and congestion?
- How does the project demonstrate the use of multiple freight transportation modes and intermodal shipping when appropriate?
Public Involvement and Outreach
- Does the project utilize state-of-the-art resources and strategies in public engagement that go beyond traditional strategies and techniques to inform the planning process?
- How does the project facilitate innovative outreach strategies to collect input from people who are not able to attend traditional public meetings?
