The USA’s National Operations Center of Excellence (NOCoE) is launching the first annual Transportation Systems Management and Operations (TSMO) Awards to celebrate transportation management and operations that save lives, time and money.
The NOCoE is a Washington DC-based non-profit organization that exists to support practitioners operating the USA’s transportation management systems, by connecting them with best-practices and experts to save lives, time and money. The organization was created through a partnership between the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE), and the Intelligent Transportation Society of America (ITS America), with support from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). The NOCoE aims to support state departments of transportation (DOT), regional planning organizations (RPO), municipalities, and local agencies, as well as private sector organizations.
The NOCoE TSMO Awards are open to city, county, MPO (RPO, COG), state DOT and private sector organizations, and aim to highlight the creativity and commitment of industry practitioners that have maximized roadways for efficiency and safety through management and operational ingenuity. Entries should showcase successful TSMO projects undertaken in the last five years that have provided a clear benefit to the traveling public. Judges will select a winner in each of four categories:
Major incident or special event planning and response – Recognizing an agency or organization’s response to a specific incident or special event using TSMO; Improving your agency’s TSMO capabilities – Recognizing an agency or organization that has successfully integrated CMM/CMF into its structure and the TSMO benefit that came from it; Best TSMO project (creative solution) – Recognizing a successful ‘on the ground’ project that demonstrates the solution(s) of improved system management and operations compared with traditional capacity-based approaches; Public communications – Recognizing an agency for successfully increasing public or specific audience awareness of TSMO solutions and benefits.
Each category winner will receive round-trip travel along with a guest to attend the 2019 Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting. All winners will be invited to present their projects to attendees and participate in a TSMO panel. Winners will also be honored during an after-hour awards reception where an Overall Winner will be selected from among the four category winners and presented with the NOCoE TSMO Award Trophy. In addition, one individual will be honored with the annual TSMO Champion Award, who will be selected by the judges for advancing TSMO and changing the way people and organizations think about transportation.
“Historically in America, the solution to congestion was to add a lane or build a new road, but those options are expensive and frankly, we’re out of room. Now, we’re advocating for smarter and more effective management and operations strategies to increase capacity of existing streets, saving money and saving lives. That’s worthy of celebration,” said Patrick Son, NOCoE’s managing director. “We are launching these awards at a critical time in transportation. There is incredible work being done in every state, and with an increasingly mobile population, smart management and operations strategies will be the cornerstone of a truly smart transportation system for the future.”
