Maintain stakeholder buy-in and engage the community throughout the design process to ensure your Travel Management and Coordination Center is successful.

The suggestions, derived from San Luis Obispo County's own experiences creating and implementing their TMCC, provide useful detail to agencies looking to implement a TMCC in their own area.

Date Posted
03/26/2019
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Identifier
2019-L00873

Road to Coordination: Lessons Learned while Developing the San Luis Obispo County Travel Management and Coordination Center (TMCC)

Summary Information

A Transportation Management Coordination Center (TMCC) is an integrated structure of various technologies related to Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) that coordinates transportation management across various programs, providers, modes, and geographic areas. The concept was developed in conjunction with the Federal Transit Administration's Mobility Services for All Americans (MSAA) initiative, as a way of providing a simplified point of access for both users and providers of various transportation services.

San Luis Obispo (SLO) County recently designed its own regional TMCC, and summarized its findings and process in a report to document how it addressed various institutional issues that emerged during the process. The report summarizes lessons learned from their direct experience in designing their TMCC, and provides a list of steps for other municipalities that are considering a TMCC themselves.

Lessons Learned

The report goes into significant detail regarding the process that SLO County used to create their final TMCC. Some key best practices and lessons learned are detailed below, organized by the stage of development to which they apply.

  • Preparing the TMCC Introduction: The introduction should provide an overview of the community's resources, the reasons for implementing a TMCC, and the project's process. Topics to consider for inclusion include community demographics, the goals and objectives as developed with stakeholders, the project leader, participating stakeholders, and a review of planned contents.
  • List Community's TMCC Needs and Constraints: This section provides an opportunity to discuss the community's TMCC-related needs and constraints to consider. The list should be pared-down to remove duplicate entries, and can be referred to throughout the entire TMCC planning process.
  • Prepare Community's Transportation Assessment: Using information obtained from earlier in the design process, prepare a baseline assessment of the community's transportation providers and resources. Topics to consider for inclusion include providers located in the area, community transportation information and referral services such as 511 or 211, the types of transportation coordination occurring in the community, and how such services are funded.
  • Create the TMCC: The TMCC's intended services and requirements comprise the "what" of the system. Stakeholders should be in agreement before the next steps in this process are taken. Topics to consider include reviewing stakeholder needs, creating a TMCC vision, and filling in the details of the TMCC's requirements.
  • TMCC Design: The way that the TMCC will operate is best determined through market research to understand options, alternatives, confirming that the design will meet the identified needs, and reaching stakeholder consensus.
  • Implement the TMCC: At this step, it is important to consider key questions such as identifying the tasks and funding necessary to implement the TMCC, the agencies and staff that will be responsible for its implementation, the transportation providers that will participate in it, and the success factors that should be considered for evaluation.
  • Create Community Buy-In: After completing the TMCC's design, it is important to revisit the organizations that were contacted in the initial steps to discuss implementation. The message should be customized to each stakeholder's information needs.