Future of HCM A brief presentation of the task force findings and recommendations. June 2016

Task Force Initiated by Lily Elefteriadou, June 2014. Members Results Charge: How we can ensure HCM will remain relevant for practitioners as well as researchers, and how we can clarify our niche vs. simulation. Members Roger Roess, Bastian Schroeder, Jessie Jones, Tyrone Scorsone , Richard Cunard Results Triennial Plan (July 2014) Vision for HCM (January 2015)

The Trends The HCM is not easy to use. The HCM is not easy to produce There are more users of HCM based software than readers of the HCM. The HCM is not easy to produce 1,400 pages, only 30 committee members $4.5 million to research, $1.0 million to produce Research funding is (likely) being cut (in half?). TRB is selling fewer HCM’s with each new edition. (2010 was about half of 2000) Also: AASHTO is finding that electronic versions of its HSM are not selling well. TRB funding for HCQS activities likely to be cut to match reduced revenue stream.

The Vision (as of 2015) Remember, HCM is not only way for us to get the word out Blogs, Newsletters, Syntheses, webinars…. HCM must reside in the Cloud To facilitate updates and dissemination Conduct annual survey of FHWA and State DOT user needs. Publish newsletter synthesizing latest capacity research Boost training/dissemination efforts (TRB webinars). Look into commercial software partnerships.

Thoughts since 2015

Roger Roess The HCM is big, the methods are complex. The HCM methods have become black boxes that few people on the committee (or the world for that matter) really understand. The HCM should be broken in two: Volume 1: Points and Segments; Volume 2: Facilities and Systems. Kill Level of Service. Stick to numerical service measures. The Committee should be leading rather than reacting. The committee should develop a thoughtful research plan and follow it. Production of the HCM should be separated from research. The subcommittee structure, organization, membership, and operations need to be revisited.

Tyrone Scorsone Our most accurate measure of success may not be number of HCM’s sold, but rather number of commercial software packages incorporating HCM methods. The Committee should continue its role as “The Authority” on highway capacity analysis. We need to rebrand LOS. The industry needs assistance though in interpreting the performance numbers. The Committee can and should give that assistance. The January 2016 subcommittee meetings did not allow for a lot of interactive discussion and decision making. Subcommitee members need to feel their participation is valued. We should do a better job identifying where the HCM fits within an agency’s planning, design, and operations process, and demonstrate why the HCM approach is efficient and effective at delivering useful results.

Jessie Jones Do Not Kill LOS -  we need a simple way of showing if our facilities are operating at an acceptable level.  General public can understand A-F, but not 2,250 vph in terms of good or bad.  In addition, getting rid of LOS means the AASHTO Green Book would need to be revised to replace LOS with some other definition. The HCM should be the authority on mobility performance measures.  But it can’t be the authority for everything.  We simply do not have the resources and the highest level of expertise in every subject matter.  The most important thing that we need to do is to better coordinate with the committees that deal with non mobility measures (e.g. livability, sustainability). 

Rich Cunard

Bastian Schroeder

Lily Elefteriadou

Rick Dowling As Roger and Tyrone say, The Committee needs to decide for itself what is the purpose, and the focus of the HCM, and what is and is not an HCM method as our technology and analytical tool capabilities evolve. I personally see the HCM as a “cost efficient investment (planning) and design decision support tool Methods that are not cost-efficient or do not support investment and design decisions should be excluded (or moved to some other manual). I believe the committee needs to expand its focus to the estimation of all mobility performance measures (beyond simply LOS). The HCM should provide mobility inputs for sustainability, livability, and environmental analyses.

Rick Dowling 2 I agree with Roger and Tyrone that subcommittees are taking on a more critical role for the committee and their operations must be better formalized. To facilitate maintenance of the HCM and to improve dissemination, The HCM absolutely must go 100% cloud based. It is for TRB to figure out how to do that.

Rick Dowling 3 National Research funding is likely to get tighter. The committee needs to do a better job taking advantage of state funded research and doing some spade work to make sure we are addressing the priorities of the membership of SCOR. We need to do a better job informing the states what we are doing for them. Commercial software vendors are an under utilized resource for the committee. As you are well aware it is a tough nut to crack, but we should to keep working on ways to get more value there. I think there will come a time when the Committee will want to seriously consider a name change for itself and its principle products to better highlight the new directions it is going.

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