Minutes of the
Oahu Metropolitan Planning Organization

TECHNICAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Tuesday, February 18, 2003, 9:30 a.m.
Department of Transportation Fifth Floor Conference Room
869 Punchbowl Street, Honolulu, Hawaii

Members Not Present: Gareth Sakakida, HTA (ex officio)

Staff Present: Gordon Lum, Shevaun Low, Lori Arakaki, Laureen Brennan, Michelle Kurisu, and Pamela Toyooka.

The meeting was called to order at 9:34 a.m. by Chair Glenn Yasui. A quorum was present. Chair Yasui recognized OMPO Policy Committee member Senator Gordon Trimble.

I.    MINUTES OF THE DECEMBER 11, 2002 MEETING

Glenn Ifuku moved and Robert Miyasaki seconded that the minutes of the December 11, 2002 meeting be approved as circulated. The minutes were unanimously approved.

Chair Yasui announced that the agenda would be taken out of order. Item III (Amendment to the FY 2003 Overall Work Program (OWP)) would be discussed next. There were no objections.

II.    AMENDMENT TO THE FY 2003 OWP

Gordon Lum, OMPO Executive Director, said that the Policy Committee will be asked to amend the FY 2003 OWP to include a work element that will develop a concept of operations for a regional traffic management center (TMC) to be staffed by City and State transportation management and emergency response agencies. Components of the Regional TMC could include traffic operations, incident management, mass transit dispatch, traveler information, information service provider, and emergency response.

Additionally, the concept of operations would address the operational issues of a Regional TMC – including, but not limited to, staffing, education, training, information and control sharing, and the decision-making hierarchy. It also assists in more clearly defining the system configuration and information content, user interface, and other system parameters for the system designer and developer.

The work element calls for a $130,000 consultant contract – of which 80% would be paid from Federal funds. Department of Transportation (DOT) would provide the local 20% match. OMPO would be responsible for procuring the contract; and DOT would be responsible for managing the contract.

Mr. Lum also reviewed some of the pros and cons of the regional TMC. Some of the pros mentioned included: (a) centralized system between the City and the State; (b) collaborative operations; (c) maximization of resources which could support 24-hour-a-day, 7-days-a-week (24/7) operations; and (d) sharing of expertise between the City and the State. Cons included: (a) major city support is lacking; (b) not technically required; (c) cost of the center; and (d) some needs may be unknown.

Dick Poirier arrived at 9:40 a.m.

Keoki Miyamoto, Department of Transportation Services (DTS) Deputy Director, said that, while DTS was not opposed to the regional TMC in principle, it had some concerns about this amendment. Specifically, DTS has already hired a consultant to develop a concept of operations for the City Traffic Control Center (TCC) and felt that this might duplicate that work. DTS is also concerned because the work element appears to have been written without the input of the city agencies that would be involved.

Chair Yasui provided clarification that the current City contract is for the City’s existing TCC, a separate entity from the proposed regional TMC. The concept of operations being developed for the TCC is necessary to meet the Federal requirements in order for the City to receive Federal funds for future ITS projects. Richelle Suzuki, Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Senior Transportation Engineer, agreed, and said that the proposed work element would fund a study to look at the way a City/State traffic management system would operate. Chair Yasui added that a regional TMC would consolidate functions and realize cost savings from the economies of scale.

Mr. Miyamoto responded that the City is looking at 24/7 operations. He reiterated that the City is in the process of hiring a consultant and questioned whether the effort being proposed in concert with the City’s effort is redundant. He expressed his concern that both efforts appear to be moving toward the same goal, with a similar process; and spending money for the work as proposed in the work element would be duplicative. He stated that the City is not represented in the work element.

Mr. Lum noted that, on the last page of the work element, DTS and other City emergency response agencies are listed. As such, the City is represented in the work element.

Chair Yasui added that the current administration is looking to consolidate efficiencies for better government. If traffic management can be consolidated, economies of scale can be realized. He thought that the administration may look favorably on this work effort. Chair Yasui stated that, personally, he does not care if the regional TMC is run by the City or the State, as long as it operates well.

Dr. C.S. Papacostas said that, from a technical point of view, a regional TMC was not necessary. A distributed system could be just as effective. He asked if staff from the existing City TCC and the State H-3 tunnel management center would be moved to a regional TMC. He asked if transit staff would move as well. He noted that certain functions within the existing distributed system do not need to reside in a central location and would feel more comfortable to allow for these types of functions to remain distributed.

Chair Yasui provided a recap of the discussion to this point, noting the following:

•    A distributed system is in place.

•    The evaluation of a centralized system is desired by some Policy Committee members.

•    Evaluation of the regional TMC components that are appropriate for Honolulu is necessary. At a minimum, traffic management should be co-located.

Mr. Lum added that he will provide the following information to the Policy Committee at their upcoming meeting:

•    DTS has major concerns about the work element.

•    The public has expressed concerns with the cost of the work element.

•    Dr. Papacostas has said that the regional TMC proposed in the work element is not technically required.

Various amendments to the OWP work element were discussed

Dick Poirier moved and Glenn Ifuku seconded that TAC amend the draft OWP work element with the following changes (underlined text indicates changes proposed in motion):

1. Task 1 be rewritten to read: “City and State staff to assist OMPO in developing consultant scope of work to avoid duplication of efforts with the City’s current activities”;
   
2. Task 3 be rewritten to read: “DOT to manage consultant contract with active collaboration with DTS”;
   
3. Task 5 be rewritten to read: “City and State staff to assist consultant and participate in the review of work products”;
   
4. A new task (8) be included: “Consultant to make presentations to various entities, including, but not limited to, the Technical Advisory Committee”; and
   
5. $10,000 will be added to the work element budget to cover an additional 2.5 person-months of DTS staff time.

The motion to amend the draft OWP work element passed unanimously.

Mr. Poirier moved and Mr. Ifuku seconded that TAC recommend that the Policy Committee approve the proposed amendment to the FY 2003 Overall Work Program as amended by the TAC. The motion passed unanimously.

III.    ITS REGIONAL ARCHITECTURE BRIEFING
Handout(s): PowerPoint presentation slides

Mr. Lum introduced OMPO’s Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) consultant, Glenn Fromm, from Parsons Brinckerhoff. Mr. Fromm briefed the TAC on the ITS Regional Architecture. He described the work that had been done, what the ITS architecture would provide, examples of some of the policies and initiatives the plan proposed, and the next steps. He said that TAC was being asked to recommend that the Policy Committee endorse the Regional ITS Architecture.

Mr. Lum said that Federal regulations require that a regional architecture be in place by April 2005. He noted that the Oahu architecture will be completed before the deadline.

Chair Yasui asked if the City’s concept of operations will be completed by April 2004. Mr. Fromm was unaware of the City’s schedule to date.

Mr. Poirier moved and Denis Fukumoto seconded that the TAC recommend that the Policy Committee approve the Regional ITS Architecture. The motion passed unanimously.

IV.    TAZ MODIFICATIONS
Handouts:
    Map of Oahu TAZs
    List of TAZs to be Redefined to Match Census Block Boundary
    List of Multiple TAZs Spanned by Single Block

Mr. Lum said that the traffic analysis zone (TAZ) boundaries used in the OMPO travel demand forecasting model must be revised because: 1) census blocks were changed for the Year 2000 census; and 2) major roadways were built in Ewa after the model network was developed. He introduced Steve Young of the Department of Planning and Permitting to provide the details.

Mr. Young said that, since the 1990 census, the number of TAZs had increased to 762. At the same time, a number of census blocks had been redefined by the census enumerators. The U.S. Census Bureau will be releasing Census Transportation Planning Package (CTPP) data for the journey-to-work data in the summer. This data will be released by TAZ and used for OMPO’s Title VI and Environmental Justice monitoring, the ORTP, the model land use file, and other planning functions. In order for this data to be meaningful, the TAZs should conform to the census blocks as much as possible. There are two types of problems.

The first occurs because some census blocks span more than one TAZ. This means that when we receive CTTP data, the census block data will be assigned to one of the TAZs and will result in some TAZs not having information. At that time, we will have to do some additional work to get secondary data.

The second type of problem occurs when the TAZs need to be redefined to match the census block boundaries. This may cause the centroid and centroid connector of the TAZ to be moved, and would require some review to determine where it should be and how it would impact the model.

Mr. Lum asked for assistance from agency staff in reviewing the current TAZ boundaries and 2000 census blocks, and recommending any changes in centroid locations. Chair Yasui, Mr. Miyasaki and Mr. Fukumoto indicated that their staff would be available to participate in this effort.

V.    OTHER BUSINESS

Transportation Enhancement Program
Michelle Kurisu gave a status report on OMPO’s Transportation Enhancement Program. DOT submitted a list of eligible Oahu Transportation Enhancement proposals in January 2003. Agency, Citizen Advisory Committee, and Policy Committee representatives had been appointed to an evaluation panel that will meet on February 20, 2003 to assist the Policy Committee in prioritizing the proposals. Once the Evaluation Panel develops a prioritized list of the proposals, the list will be sent to the Policy Committee for approval. Once approved, the list will be sent to DOT; who will then prepare a Statewide list of prioritized projects to guide State and county budgets in programming Federal funds.

ORTP Update
Mr. Lum said that the ORTP update will include an $850,000 consultant contract, of which 80% will be paid with Federal funds. Because of the timing of the budget cycles, it is necessary to have the State and City matches included in this year’s budgets. If the work on the update does not begin by October 2004, there is a good chance that the ORTP update will not be completed by April 2006. FHWA has informed OMPO that if the ORTP is not approved on time, sanctions will be imposed again. Prior sanctions affected OMPO’s ability to develop and modify the Transportation Improvement Program.

The meeting was adjourned at 11:20 a.m.