Going Beyond Performance Targets in MAP-21 for Local Agencies

Since 1984, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), the San Francisco Bay Area regional planning organization (MPO), has continued to develop and enhance its pavement management system (PMS) software - StreetSaver. StreetSaver was chosen by the League of California Cities and the California State Association of Counties to power the California local streets and roads statewide needs assessment. In the MTC region, the software is used to assist all 109 local jurisdictions allocate resources, predict the future condition of their pavements, and demonstrate the effects of different funding scenarios. More recently, MTC's efforts to encourage pavement preservation strategies have also paid dividends and jurisdictions have shifted away from "worst first" strategies. The performance based, outcome-driven approach that incentivizes preventive maintenance was well documented, and has been modeled by other MPOs to meet the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21). Not surprisingly, setting the MAP-21 performance targets for pavement condition in the MTC region is straight forward. However, relating regional targets to the local environment is a different story. In order to see the fuller picture, MTC has worked with local agencies to interpret the targets and developing key performance indicators (KPI) that will help them to gauge their performance at the local level. The KPIs were developed to inform local decision making and pavement maintenance strategy decisions to support their local investment policy. Specifically, the information provided will assist local agencies in answering: What is the existing condition of the road network? What amount of funding is currently invested in pavement preservation What amount of funding is needed to achieve the state of good repair? How effective is the pavement preservation effort? The intent of the KPIs is to improve agency's overall performance and promote increased transparency and accountability for their pavement management programs, beyond the basic performance measures set in MAP-21.