NASTO and the I-95 Corridor Coalition Conduct Hurricane Sandy After Action Review

On October 29, 2013, Hurricane Sandy moved ashore near Atlantic City, New Jersey. The storm caused substantial devastation across a 17-state region, with over 100 storm-related deaths, power loss to over eight million people, and estimates of property damage in the tens of billions of dollars. One of the functional areas of impact of Hurricane Sandy was the need to transport oversize and overweight vehicles through the affected region. Transport was needed to secure equipment and job sites in the path of Sandy, to bring relief equipment and supplies to damaged areas, and to clear damage and debris from affected areas.

The primary responsibility for the review and issuance of permits rested with the states that are both members of the Northeast Association of State Transportation Officials (NASTO) and the I-95 Corridor Coalition. Members of the permit issuance offices in the NASTO states were in close contact with each other and with appropriate Federal officials throughout the approach, landfall, and aftermath of Sandy. As with most major emergency response events, some activities went extremely well and others appeared to have room for substantial improvement.

As a result of these experiences, the NASTO Subcommittee on Highway Transport (SCOHT) wished to conduct an “After Action Review” (AAR) to explore how member agencies and associated Federal stakeholders prepared for Sandy and executed activities both during landfall and afterwards. The I-95 Corridor Coalition (Coalition) agreed to sponsor the process and provide funding and Coalition staff and consultant support for research, facilitation, and documentation.

The report below is the summary of the findings of the After Action Review process. The process involved preparatory planning sessions with SCOHT and Coalition staff, invitations to a facilitated webcast for statewide permitting officials and relevant USDOT and association staff, and execution of a pre-session participant survey. The AAR session was held by teleconference on December 13, 2012, lasting two and a half hours, hosted by the Coalition and facilitated by staff from Cambridge Systematics.

- Download/View AAR Report.

Notes: Section 2 of this report presents a summary of findings from the process, including both the survey and the facilitated webcast. Section 3 presents recommendations for ongoing activities which SCOHT and the Coalition may wish to consider taking in preparation for future emergency events. 

See articles related to Hurricane Sandy:
- Hurricane Sandy By the Numbers: A Superstorm’s Statistics, One Month Later - Time Magazine
- Hurricane Sandy: Monster Storm Just In Time for Halloween - IHS Global Insight US Economists Gregory Daco and Nigel Gault’s analysis and commentary on the Preliminary Evaluation of the Economic Impact of Hurricane Sandy

The Future of Coordinated Incident Management in the I-95 Corridor

With 16 states and the District of Columbia along the I-95 Corridor, there are a significant number of policies, responders, and programs in place at the local, regional, and state level. When an incident occurs affecting multiple jurisdictions, coordinated multidisciplinary response training and information sharing play a vital role in the safe and efficient incident scene handling. The I-95 Corridor Coalition has and will always work with agencies and responders to communicate and train best practices for coordinated incident management. Current and former leaders of the I-95 Corridor Coalition's Coordinated Incident Management-Safety Committee Highway Operations Group (HOGs) met on April 17 to discuss strategies and activities for the Coalition to undertake as the HOGs continue their work and position for the future. A summary of that meeting can be found here.

The I-95 Corridor Coalition addresses electronic tolling activities from a multi-state approach to assist agencies in coordinating efforts with neighboring jurisdictions. Following are three example of the Coalition's electronic tolling activities:

I-95 Tolling Summary

 The I-95 Corridor Coalition has surveyed the states from Maine to Florida to determine tolled facilities, tolling plans, and studies underway. The survey results provide states with a valuable resource in evaluating tolling options.

View the I-95 Tolling Summary Report

Toll Enforcement Across State Lines

The enforcement of unpaid tolls across state lines has been a long-debated topic within the toll industry. In 2010, over 20 states formed a committee through the Alliance for Toll Interoperability (ATI) to focus on researching states' ability to enact legislation to allow for state-to-state reciprocity agreements to pursue toll violations by another state, similar to motor vehicle agreements that uphold traffic violations, i.e. you enforce my tolls on your citizens, I'll enforce your tolls on mine.

Authorities in Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire have been working together, releasing a Memorandum of Understanding in early 2010 to move forward with drafting and signing violation enforcement agreements. Essential legislation was adopted early in 2011 in Maine, allowing the three states to move forward with establishing the reciprocity agreements, documents that outline the specific requirements of out-of-state violation enforcement.

In late 2010, the I-95 Corridor Coalition joined forces with ATI, providing support for the initiative which allowed ATI to hire a legislative drafting attorney, Willoughby (Tim) Sheane, Jr. ATI has since produced draft legislation that was approved by the committee. The legislation provided through Maine encompasses the overall goals of ATI's proposed language. As ATI, in conjunction with the I-95 Corridor Coalition, continues to move this necessary initiative forward, continued cooperation and discussions with Massachusetts, Maine and New Hampshire will be essential to ensure general conformity in legislation and state-to-state agreements adopted by other states within the US.

Following are resource materials related to enforcement reciprocity and to the agreements between Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire: UPDATED!

I-95CC Enforcement Reciprocity Webcast Presentations - December 2012

Maine Legislative Language

MA-NH Reciprocity Agreement

ME-NH Reciprocity Agreement

NC Violation Enforcement Language

New England States Legislation and Agreements

Violation Enforcement Language Final Draft - August 2011

Electronic Tolling: Benefits, Challenges, and What's Needed

Drivers on the nation’s tolled roads, tunnels and bridges expect non-stop, reliable, safe and convenient travel. Toll operators are striving to deliver these benefits to toll-paying customers. This brochure, developed collaboratively by public agencies and related associations, provides a brief overview of electronic tolling and introduces “what’s needed” to meet ever-increasing customer demands.

A number of organizations were involved in developing this brochure, including the Alliance for Toll Interoperability (ATI); American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA); Council of State Governments’ Eastern Regional Conference (CSG-ERC); E-ZPass Group; Florida’s Turnpike Enterprise (operators of SunPass); International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association (IBTTA); and the I-95 Corridor Coalition. The states comprising the I-95 Corridor Coalition rely more heavily on tolls to fund their transportation needs than counterparts in other areas of the country. Each year, the Coalition states’ toll-supported roads, bridges, and tunnels process over 4 billion transactions, representing over $8 billion in toll revenue. These facilities provide vital support for the region’s $4.7 trillion economy.

View the Electronic Tolling Brochure
Click here for more information on Electronic Tolling

Congratulations October 2012 Operations Academy Graduates!

Twelve (12) Coalition members graduated from the October 2012 Operations Academy Senior Management Program. A total of 28 participants representing 25 different agencies from all over the United States attended this two-week, total immersion transportation management and operations program. Designed to cultivate and enhance the practical knowledge of transportation operations managers – both current and future -- the program provides a unique mix of pre-study, classroom instruction, speakers, workshops, and analysis of existing systems to offer a hands-on experience essential to reinforcing and internalizing the concepts being presented. The completion of this program represents a significant accomplishment for each participant. It is an honor to even have been chosen for the program, since participants were selected from a long list of applicants.

“I greatly enjoyed the Operations Academy experience and came out of this program learning more than I could have anticipated and with a renewed energy for TSM&O! While you all definitely kept us busy with all of the sessions, field studies, and workshops, every moment was worth it. Even though I felt I knew a lot about the Operations world coming in to the program, my eyes were opened up even wider. I also enjoyed getting to know the group and meeting people from all over the United States who have a similar interest in TSM&O. The conversations and sharing of information was priceless!“
           - Candice Sutton, Traffic Operations/ITS Specialist, Virginia DOT

Click here to view the list of graduates of the October 2012 program.

Graduates of the Operations Academy earn 10 University of Maryland-issued CEUs. The development of the Operations Academy™ was funded by the I-95 Corridor Coalition and produced by the Center for Advanced Transportation Technology at the University of Maryland. Almost all participants received a scholarship provided by Federal Highway Administration Office of Operations or the I-95 Corridor Coalition.

Read more about the Operations Academy at http://www.operationsacademy.org

2012 Freight Academy

Thirty freight professionals from public sector agencies throughout the Coalition region and around the country spent an intense and exciting week in April learning first hand about the latest trends and issues in the supply chain. Upon completion of their capstone projects, they will join the classes of 2008 and 2010 as graduates of the I-95 Corridor Coalition Freight Academy.

Go to the Freight Academy website

Developing a Corridor-wide, Web-based Monitoring System to Assist in Performance Measurements

State and local transportation agencies are rapidly adopting performance measurements as a core business practice to help keep the public informed about the benefits of transportation investments as well as better identify areas where improvements need to be made. The introduction of new, higher quality, wide-area, third-party travel time data provides great potential for supporting enhanced performance measurement activities that were previously unobtainable due to the high cost of detection.

The I-95 Coalition is developing a corridor-wide, web-based visual analytics monitoring system for identifying major bottlenecks, reporting on travel time reliability, and displaying other congestion measures using private sector vehicle probe data fused with agency incident/event data where available. This system demonstrates how states can create a congestion monitoring program using a variety of data sources, with an emphasis on vehicle probe data.

The Coalition is leveraging statewide Inrix probe data (click here to read more about the Coalition’s Vehicle Probe Project) and North Carolina Department of Transportation event data to develop a Wide-area Mobility Measures Visualization and Reporting System. The web-based visual analytics software will be capable of displaying performance measures at the statewide, corridor, and segment levels, and will allow users to view both real-time performance and historical performance at various zoom levels. Statewide congestion measures will be displayed first, and then users will be able to “zoom” into the state to view specific corridors or even specific segments. The website will be highly interactive. Easy to comprehend graphics will depict whether performance is better or worse than historical conditions and by how much. A separate section of the site will display “top-10” lists of best and worst performing roads in any given jurisdiction. Measures available will include Travel Time Index, Travel Time reliability, Hours of Congestion per Mile, Buffer Index, Analysis of Peak Periods, Facility Ranking, and Trend Analysis.

As part of the project, the Coalition also builds on its previous work which identified delay patterns at major bottlenecks. The acquisition of Inrix vehicle probe data now makes it possible to measure performance directly at such congestion points as freeway-to-freeway interchanges and toll facilities. Having established baseline congestion, an ongoing congestion monitoring program based on annual changes in performance at the bottleneck locations can be instituted. Also, the addition of data on congestion influences (day-to-day volumes, incidents, weather, and work zones) can be layered onto the base to understand the reasons why congestion grows or shrinks.

View Bottleneck Performance in the I-95 Corridor (Final Report). 
View Performance Meausres project 

A 2040 Vision for the I-95 Coalition Region: Supporting Economic Growth in a Carbon-Constrained Environment

The I-95 Corridor Coalition's Long Range Strategic Vision project (view) formulated and analyzed a transportation vision for the entire region – one which accommodates key values and issues related to a global economy, climate change, energy, and quality of life, while re-examining the traditional modal mix and service options available for passenger and freight movement in the corridor.

The Vision report shows the implications of continuing with "Business as Usual" and, alternatively, the impact of bold strategies for accommodating mobility and economic development, with an emphasis on reducing energy usage and the carbon footprint. With the implementation of the bold strategies outlined in the report, economic growth will be supported by improved system performance. Major highway and rail bottlenecks will be removed, and delay on urban Interstates will be reduced by 46 percent. The region will also be on path to achieve GHG emissions reductions of 60 to 80 percent by 2050 (as compared to 2005 levels).

The I-95 Coalition 2040 Vision was developed based on long-term trends and, even with the recent short-term fluctuations in the economy, the Vision's projections are still valid assumptions for the longer term 2040 vision period.  The Vision study assumed that the region's long term growth would rebound following the current severe economic downturn, albeit at a lower rate of growth than previously forecast.  Importantly, the region's more modest economic and travel growth assumptions were developed in the context of significantly reduced fossil fuel use and dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

2040 Vision for I-95 Region Executive Summary: View
2040 Vision for I-95 Region Full Report: View

U.S. Transportation Secretary LaHood Announces Designation of “M-95” – the Marine Highway Corridor Serving the Landside I-95 Corridor

M-95 Designation, Projects and Initiatives to Benefit I-95 Corridor Coalition States

The I-95 Corridor Coalition’s waterside system was selected as a Marine Highway Corridor under the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (USDOT’s) America’s Marine Highway Program, a new initiative to move more cargo on the water rather than on crowded highways. As the sponsor of the M-95 Marine Highway Corridor, the I-95 Corridor Coalition will be assisted by the USDOT Maritime Administration in developing transportation services and with identifying potential freight and passenger markets.

In addition to the M-95 Marine Highway Corridor designation, several projects and initiatives in the I-95 Corridor were selected to be eligible for federal assistance under the Program. “These projects will help make better use of America’s Marine Highway by reducing gridlock, improving the environment, and putting skilled mariners and shipbuilders to work,” said David Matsuda, Maritime Administrator.

Projects and Initiatives selected in the I-95 Corridor include:

• Cross Sound Enhancements Project (Connecticut DOT)
• New England Marine Highway Expansion Project (Maine DOT)
• Cross Gulf Container Expansion Project (Ports of Manatee, FL, and Brownsville, TX)
• Gulf Atlantic Marine Highway Project (South Carolina State Ports Authority and Port of Galveston, TX)
• Trans-Hudson Rail Service Project (Port Authority of New York & New Jersey)
• James River Container Expansion Project (Virginia Port Authority)
• Hudson River Food Corridor Initiative (New York City Soil & Water Conservation District) 
• New Jersey Marine Highway Initiative (New Jersey DOT)
• East Coast Marine Highway Initiative (Ports of New Bedford, MA, Baltimore, MD, and Canaveral, FL)

M-95 Marine Highway Corridor Attributes:

The 1,925 mile-long I-95 Corridor is the major North-South landside freight corridor on the East Coast. The USDOT identified more than a dozen major freight truck bottlenecks along this route, along with significant critical rail congestion along the upper portions. Projections of future freight volumes indicate increasing freight congestion challenges, with limited opportunity to increase landside capacity.

The Corridor is home to 15 of the largest 50 marine ports in the United States (as ranked by total throughput). These ports handle approximately 582 million short tons of cargo, or 26 percent of the national total. Much of this freight begins or ends its journeys with an I-95 transit. Fortunately, the East coast also possesses a host of waterways, bays, rivers, and the Atlantic coast itself. The Corridor is also lined with less congested, smaller niche ports that could play a vital part in the developing marine highway service network. While several Marine Highway operations already serve this corridor, there is significant opportunity for expansion to help address growing congestion, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, conserve energy, and lower landside infrastructure maintenance costs.

View additional information on America’s Marine Highway Program (USDOT Maritime Administration)

VA Megaproject eNews

Megaprojects eNews periodically summarizes the latest highlights on the 495 Express lanes, Dulles Metrorail, the I-95 widening project and other major.

View the latest Virginia Megaproject Newsletter

Florida DOT Developing Freight Mobility and Trade Plan

Florida DOT's Office of Freight, Logistics and Passenger Operations has been actively working to develop Florida's Freight Mobility and Trade Plan. After six Regional Listening Sessions and a Freight Leadership Forum, Florida DOT has successfully completed the first phase of the Plan and gathered valuable information from Florida's public and private stakeholders. Additional information can be found here:

FDOT's Freight Leadership Forum Summary: White Papers Distributed During FDOT's Freight Leadership Forum (webpage)

Building a Transportation Workforce
FDOT Freight Project Delivery
Finance Mechanisms for Infrastructure
Infrastructure Enhancements and Innovation
Multimodal Freight Transportation Regulations

I-95 Maryland - Travel Plaza Redevelopment

Maryland Transportation Authority has announced plans to redevelop two aging travel plazas along I-95 in Northeast Maryland. The timeline for the travel plaza redevelopment is:

• Sept 2012 until 2013: The Maryland House Travel Plaza is closed for reconstruction; the Chesapeake House remains open. (see a rendering of the new Maryland House travel plaza. Courtesy Maryland Transportation Authority.)
• Fall/Winter 2013/2014: The Maryland House Travel Plaza reopens for service; Chesapeake House closes for reconstruction.
• Summer/Fall 2014: The Chesapeake House reopens for service.

For more information, click here.

I-95 New York Construction

Alexander Hamilton Bridge (I-95 over Harlem River) will have lane closures on the east-bound lower level;alternate routes should be considered. For more information, click here and for real-time traffic information, call 511.

Pennsylvania's 511 Website Logs 2 Million Visits

Pennsylvania’s 511PA system, which provides free travel information including construction alerts and real-time traffic cameras, reached a milestone in June of 2 million total website visits. The 511PA telephone system has received more than 1 million calls and more than 15,000 people have signed up for personalized text or email alerts. The 511PA system is accessible 24-hours-per-day, seven days a week at www.511PA.com or by calling 5-1-1. PennDOT asks motorists to not call 511PA while driving. Motorists should safely pull off the road before calling, or do so before leaving home.