Application of Wider Economic Benefits Tools on VA-164

Western Freeway

Brittany HungateUniversity of Virginia

Background• Excel-based SHRP2 C11 tools

were created to measure Wider Economic Benefits (WEB) of transportation projects

• The SHRP2 C11 project developed three tools: reliability, intermodal connectivity, and accessibility

• Previous applications of the C11 tools solely used construction projects for analysis

SHRP 2 C11 Reliability & Connectivity Tools

● Reliability● Provides quick & simple assessment of the impact of

transportation projects on travel time and travel time reliability● The tool incorporates the beneficial effects in the incident

management strategies inputs

● Intermodal Connectivity● Estimates the benefits of transportation projects on the degree and value

of connectivity of the facility where the projects are implemented● Only applicable when a highway facility is linked to a terminal that provides

access to at least one other mode of transportation (air, rail, or marine)

A Virginia Case Study● Intelligent transportation systems (ITS) provides the technologies,

tools, and applications to improve the capacity, reliability, and safety of surface transportation systems.

● Estimates the wider economic benefits of ITS deployments through two case study examples from VA: I-77 Fancy Gap ATSMS and VA-164 Western Freeway

● Focuses on benefits of two types of technologies: Dynamic Messages Signs (DMSs) and CCTV cameras.

● Considers whether these ITS projects have an impact beyond road users

VA-164/Western Freeway ITS Deployment

• VA-164 is a non-interstate, controlled access, 7 mile long freeway in Hampton Roads area• Connector between I-664 and the Norfolk Harbor Marine Terminal

• ITS Deployment, completed in December 2012, installed 6 CCTV cameras and 5 DMSs

Methodology• The reliability and connectivity tools were applied to the

VA-164/Western Freeway Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) instrumentation project

• Both tools were run 10 times with time horizons between 1 and 10 years to estimate the benefits over a longer period.

Connectivity Results

Reliability Results

Recommendations

● The C11 tools are easy to run after the extents of the projects and the tools inputs are collected● Most of the time was spent understanding the tool inputs and gathering

data to calculate these inputs● Running the tools takes very little time and requires very few computing

resources

● The tools would be useful in comparing multiple projects.