Regional Performance Measures and Targets: DRAFT

The Hampton Roads Transportation Planning Organization (HRTPO), the metropolitan planning organization (MPO) for the Hampton Roads Metropolitan Planning Area, has released a draft list of regional performance measures and targets.

Federal legislation requires that MPOs prepare and use a set of federally-established performance measures and set targets.  These measures and targets are required in the following areas:

•     Safety

•     Transit Asset Management and Safety

•     Pavement Condition

•     Bridge Condition

•     Roadway Performance

•     Freight

Annual targets (2023) are required in the areas of safety, transit asset management, and transit safety, while four-year targets (2025) are required in the other four areas.

A working group comprised of staff from localities, transit agencies, VDOT, and subject-matter experts was created to recommend regional performance targets.  Based on the advice of HRTPO staff and this working group, the draft regional targets set by the HRTPO in each of the areas are as follows:

Roadway Safety

There are five safety measures that MPOs are required to annually establish targets and monitor progress for:

•     Fatalities

•     Fatality Rate

•     Serious Injuries

•     Serious Injury Rate

•     Bike/Pedestrian Fatalities & Serious Injuries (combined)

The Regional Performance Measures Task Force came to a consensus that HRTPO should continue to adopt Vision Zero targets for each of these measures, where the number of fatalities, serious injuries, and bike/pedestrian fatalities & serious injuries are reduced by a set amount each year to reach a goal of zero by 2050, the horizon of the upcoming regional Long-Range Transportation Plan.

Using the Vision Zero concept, the draft 2023 HRTPO regional safety performance targets are as follows:

Transit Asset Management

Federal legislation requires transit performance measures in the area of state of good repair, also referred to as transit asset management (TAM).  There are four TAM asset categories that MPOs are required to annually establish targets and monitor progress for:

•   Rolling Stock - Buses, ferry boats, light rail vehicles, and trolley buses

•   Equipment/Service Vehicles - Non-revenue automobiles, trucks, and other vehicles

•   Infrastructure – Light rail

•   Facilities – Passenger, parking, maintenance, and administrative facilities

Hampton Roads Transit (HRT), as a Tier I transit agency, must develop and carry out their own TAM plans.  As Tier II transit agencies, the Williamsburg Area Transit Authority (WATA) and Suffolk Transit are eligible to participate in group TAM plans.  WATA and Suffolk Transit are using the statewide targets that were established by the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation.

HRTPO staff prepared a recommended list of regional transit asset management targets, based on a weighted average of HRT, WATA, and Suffolk Transit Fiscal Year 2023 targets.  These targets are:

Transit Safety

There are four transit safety categories that MPOs are required to annually establish targets and monitor progress for:

• Fatalities
• Injuries
• Safety Events
• System Reliability

Similar to transit asset management, Tier I transit agencies such as HRT must develop and carry out their own Public Transportation Agency Safety Plans (PTASPs), and Tier II transit agencies such as WATA and Suffolk Transit are eligible to participate in the statewide PTASP.

HRTPO staff prepared a recommended list of regional transit safety targets, based on a weighted average of HRT, WATA, and Suffolk Transit targets.  These draft 2023 targets are:

Pavement Condition, Bridge Condition, Roadway Performance, Freight

Targets in the areas of pavement condition, bridge condition, roadway performance, and freight must be established for a four-year period (2025).  Most of these proposed targets are based on the statewide targets approved by the Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB) or VDOT projections that would assist with meeting the statewide targets.  However, one of the recommended HRTPO regional targets differs from the approved statewide targets.  The draft HRTPO target for Non-Interstate National Highway System (NHS) pavement in good condition was determined based on maintaining the current level due to significant differences between statewide and regional percentages.

These draft 2025 targets in each of these areas are:

More information on each of these performance measures and how these targets were determined can be obtained at the following link:

https://www.hrtpo.org/uploads/docs/RPM Task Force - January 2023.pdf

All interested parties are encouraged to review the regional performance targets and send comments to Mr. Keith Nichols at knichols@hrtpo.org or by mail to 723 Woodlake Drive, Chesapeake, Virginia 23320. The deadline for comments is January 20, 2023.