TOOL 20
Implement TSMO Strategies for “Win-Win” Approaches

Long Description.

Theme: Design and Project Procedures; Role: Planners, Engineers, Elected Officials, External; Complexity: Level 2; Scale: Local, Regional, State.

Overview

This tool presents transportation systems management and operations (TSMO) strategies to optimize the transportation system for multiple objectives, prioritizing safety while seeking to limit tradeoffs from other community goals. Strategies include using technology and quick-build or flexible design to get more out of the system without physically expanding it. An example includes evacuation planning done in an upstream, collaborative approach.

Why Is This Important?

This tool is important for institutionalizing the Safe System Approach (SSA) in planning and programming because it uses a TSMO lens of system efficiency and optimization to get more benefit out of the system than that achieved through a singular goal of peak-hour-focused vehicle speed or delay reduction. By shifting toward system optimization for all users, TSMO becomes a powerful tool for achieving win-win outcomes: reducing severe crash risk, improving travel reliability, and making more effective use of existing infrastructure. Strategies like dynamic signal timing, real-time traveler information, quick-build curbside design, and coordinated and flexible evacuation planning can help agencies improve safety, multimodal access, and person mobility without costly system expansions.

Description

TSMO strategies can offer practical, scalable tools to improve safety, efficiency, and access without defaulting to infrastructure expansion. When rooted in SSA principles, TSMO strategies can help shift the focus from vehicle mobility alone to optimizing the transportation network for the needs of all users. A critical starting point for this application is to clarify the system goals aligned with community priorities and then establish performance monitoring aligned with these goals. These may include reducing kinetic energy risk, enhancing multimodal accessibility, and maintaining or enhancing system reliability and person capacity.

TSMO can support SSA institutionalization by:

• Prioritizing safety and multimodal access.
• Using data and technology to proactively manage transportation demand and reduce injury risk.

• Supporting quick-build implementation, allowing agencies to test and refine low-cost safety and operations improvements.
• Coordinating across jurisdictions and modes to address complex needs, such as evacuation planning or integrated corridor management.
• Enhancing resilience to natural disasters, especially in communities where traditional expansion is not viable or desirable.
• Seeking flexible design solutions that have multi-benefit potential.

Examples of TSMO strategies that align with SSA include:

• Adaptive signal timing that reduces conflicts at intersections and slows speed, while enhancing travel time reliability.
• Right-of-way reallocation to provide transit-only lanes and flexible evacuation lanes.
• Right-of-way reallocation to provide left-turn pockets and bicycle facilities.
• Real-time traveler information that helps people make travel choices and encourages mode shift.
• Dynamic curbside management to prioritize transit, enhance efficiency and predictability for deliveries and pick up/drop off, and route freight outside pedestrian spaces and reduce heavy vehicle conflicts.
• Upstream, cross-agency evacuation coordination that improves emergency response time and evacuation time while also focusing on the prevention of all safety concerns.

When implemented with a multi-benefit set of objectives, TSMO strategies become more than an operations tool; the TSMO lens becomes a way to institutionalize proactive, people-centered system management.

Using TSMO to Balance Evacuation and Everyday Safety Needs

In regions facing natural hazards like wildfires, hurricanes, or floods, agencies often confront tensions between emergency evacuation needs and everyday safety goals for managing kinetic energy exposure, speed, and conflict risk. TSMO offers a framework for resolving these tradeoffs.

For example, agencies are increasingly using dynamic lane management, temporary signal retiming, and contraflow operations to enhance evacuation capacity only when needed, rather than building permanent high-speed infrastructure that may increase everyday crash risk while serving as “place holder” capacity for an emergency (Figure 20-1). These tools help transportation

Source: Fehr & Peers (2024).

Long Description.

The image shows a road with two lanes in each direction, plus a turning lane in the center. There are bike lanes. The two lanes on the right side are closed off and all traffic is traveling in the same direction in the left two lanes and the turning lane. A tent is set up in the right two lanes with a temporary sign on a trailer positioned in front of it, which reads first aid station. On the sidewalk next to the tent are two ambulances. Pedestrians are walking on the sidewalk on the left side, and the bike lane on the left side has a person riding a scooter and a person riding a bike.

agencies maintain a Safe System year-round, while still being ready to scale and adapt operations during emergencies.

TSMO strategies can bridge the gap between long-term safety objectives and short-term operational demands, enabling planning for both everyday use and critical response scenarios without compromising either.

Recommended in Combination with Other Tools

2. Align Emergency Services Goals

23. Right-Size Infrastructure with Demand Forecast Adjustments

25. Promote Multimodal Network Design and Application

Case Study

San Francisco Transit-Only Lanes

San Francisco has strategically implemented transit-only lanes as part of its broader efforts to improve multimodal efficiency and safety. While these lanes are primarily designed to prioritize transit reliability and encourage mode shift, they also serve a dual function, doubling as emergency response corridors for fire trucks and ambulances. This TSMO strategy to get more from the existing system demonstrates a win-win approach: improving travel times for buses, reducing conflicts between modes, and supporting faster emergency response without expanding the roadway footprint.

The Van Ness Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project illustrates the SSA alignment of transit-priority infrastructure in San Francisco (Figure 20-2): safety enhancements from speed management (associated with lane reductions) and conflict management (associated with left turn prohibitions). With the mode shift benefit of kinetic energy risk exposure reduction as well, the BRT project offers population-scale kinetic energy risk reduction that also benefits from the unique and politically expedient support of emergency response stakeholders. More information is available on the San Francisco City governmentʼs website.

Source: Pi.1415926535 via Wikimedia CC 4.0.

Long Description.

The photo shows a busy road through a city. The center two lanes are painted red and labeled MUNI GGT ONLY. It also has sidewalks and crosswalks on both sides of the street. A bus stop is positioned to the left of the painted lanes in the foreground, separated from adjacent traffic lanes to its left by a railing.

Additional Resources

• Utah DOT (UDOT)—Automated Traffic Signal Performance Measures: The Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) uses its Automated Traffic Signal Performance Measures (ATSPM) system to monitor and improve signalized intersection performance across the state. This system collects high-resolution, real-time data from signal controllers, enabling engineers to evaluate key metrics such as approach delay, arrivals on red, and split failures. The ATSPM dashboard provides visual and statistical tools that help diagnose operational inefficiencies, verify signal timing improvements, and ensure consistent performance over time. By identifying issues like inconsistent progression or unserved vehicle demand, UDOT is able to make data-driven adjustments that enhance both mobility and reliability for road users. The platform also supports transparency and collaboration, as performance data are publicly accessible for hundreds of intersections throughout Utah. While ATSPM does not trigger independent countermeasures like new warning signs or geometric changes, it serves as a proactive diagnostic tool that enables timely, safety-relevant signal interventions at scale.
• Denverʼs Department of Transportation and Infrastructure (DOTI): DOTI is developing a TSMO Plan grounded in Safe System principles, with a dedicated focus on speed management as a central performance objective, as outlined in their 2022 Vision Zero Action Plan. The plan calls for the formation of a citywide speed management team, citywide speed limit evaluations, and the implementation of context-sensitive speed strategies, including slow zones. Complementing this, the Transportation Demand Management (TDM) Strategic Plan developed by the Denver Regional Council of Governments emphasizes the importance of integrating person-throughput performance metrics into signal and corridor evaluations to support safer, more efficient multimodal travel, particularly for pedestrians and cyclists.

References

City and County of Denver Department of Transportation and Infrastructure. Refocusing Vision Zero: 2022 Vision Zero Action Plan. 2022. https://denvergov.org/files/assets/public/v/5/vision-zero/documents/denver-vision-zero-action-plan.pdf

Denver Regional Council of Governments. Transportation Demand Management Strategic Plan. December 2023. https://drcog.org/sites/default/files/acc/TPO-GF-TDMSTRATEGY-EN-ACC-24-05-16-V1.pdf

Fehr & Peers. Safer Roads, Smoother Evacuations. 2024. https://www.fehrandpeers.com/blog/safer-roads-smoother-evacuations/

San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. San Franciscoʼs First Bus Rapid Transit Project Receives Internationally Recognized Designation. September 3, 2024. https://www.sf.gov/news—san-franciscos-first-bus-rapid-transit-project-receives-internationally-recognized-designation

Utah Department of Transportation. Automated Traffic Signal Performance Measures. Accessed July 5, 2025. https://udottraffic.utah.gov/atspm/

Van Ness BRT viewed from Market Street. April 2022. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=116590246