Corridor Management Plan Demonstration

Overview

Corridor management planning improves mobility by incorporating detailed multi-modal performance measurement and operational analysis into traditional transportation planning processes for congested urban corridors. 

This project demonstrates new methods of evaluating different investment strategies using PeMS, dynamic traffic network modeling, and new traffic simulation techniques.  A successful Corridor Management Plan can be an important part of developing comprehensive transportation system management strategies for an entire region.

The Corridor Management Plan Demonstration (CMPD) project stems from Caltrans recognizing the importance of promoting systematic management strategies that optimize the current California freeway corridor system.  Corridor System Management Plans are now a requirement in California following the passage of the Proposition 1B Highway Safety, Traffic Reduction, Air Quality, and Port Security Bond Act in the November 2006 election.

How will the CMPD project help California's transportation system?

The CMPD project will help Caltrans develop Corridor Management Plans that integrate long-range transportation planning activities with operational analysis.  CMPD focuses on performance-based decision making, which is important given that performance data is the basis of system management.

What is CCIT's role in the project?

Important elements of any Corridor Management Plan include stakeholder participation, recognition of major corridor elements (freeways, major arterials, transit, inter-modal facilities, land use, major generators/attractors, and environmental issues), multi-modal performance assessment, and expected future performance under multiple improvement scenarios. 

CCIT will develop a template based on the experiences of this demonstration for Caltrans to use as a guide when developing future Corridor Management Plans.
The CMPD project studied the following three corridors:  I-880 (Fremont – Oakland, California - East Bay Area), SR-41 (Fresno, California – Central Valley), and I-5 (Orange County, Southern California).  Comprehensive performance assessments were conducted using the Freeway Performance Measurement System (PeMS), an advanced, online, freeway-data-archive and analysis tool.  Micro-simulation models were developed with the Paramics software tool to evaluate improvement scenarios.

Our Partners

The project team partners include the University of California, University of Minnesota, System Metrics Group, Cambridge Systematics, and Braidwood Associates, as well as Caltrans and other local planning agencies within the study corridors.