NORFOLK — Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) Chief Deputy Commissioner Greg Whirley presented the Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB) with the agency’s comprehensive Business Plan for Fiscal Year 2007 at the CTB meeting today.

Business planning within VDOT has already been paying dividends, Whirley told the CTB.

• The Dashboard, VDOT’s online performance management system, has imbedded the on-time, on-budget culture in VDOT, resulting in significant improvement of program delivery and keeping mega projects such as the I-95 Woodrow Wilson Bridge and Northern Virginia’s Springfield Interchange on track.
  
  
• VDOT has completed major projects such as Route 17 in Chesapeake, Route 199 in Williamsburg, and Pinners Point in Portsmouth, as well as hundreds of smaller projects, on time and on budget, reflecting an unwavering focus on deliverables.
  
  
• VDOT has consolidated its maintenance and traffic engineering functions into a new focus on systems operations, significantly altering the way VDOT uses technology to address congestion and improve safety.
  
  
• VDOT has already outsourced more than 77 percent of interstate maintenance expenditures and has plans to outsource the rest by 2009.

The business plan outlines how VDOT will continue to reform its operations. Highlights of the plan include:

Outsourcing and Privatization

• Increasing Virginia’s nationally recognized use of public-private partnership projects
  
  
• Cooperating with the private sector to employ economic solutions to congestion management, such as the use of high-occupancy toll lanes and variable pricing based upon levels of congestion
  
  
• Continuing to selectively outsource additional VDOT functions to the private sector, including all interstate maintenance activities

Working Closely with Localities and Improving Transportation and Land-Use Integration

• Partnering with local governments to more effectively integrate land-use and transportation planning. This will involve designing rules and procedures for reviewing local comprehensive plans and land-development proposals.
  
  
• Continuing to shift the urban construction responsibilities to cities as has been done with Hampton, Richmond, Virginia Beach, Charlottesville, Harrisonburg and Bridgewater
  
  
• Working with the other agencies of the transportation secretariat, local governments and metropolitan planning organizations to develop and implement quantifiable and achievable goals. The goals will focus on congestion reduction, safety, transit and HOV usage, job/housing rations, job and housing access to transit and pedestrian facilities, air quality and/or per-capita vehicle miles traveled.

Internal Administrative Reforms

• Reducing administrative and overhead costs to help funnel more funds into VDOT’s core business functions. One major aspect of this will be a review of VDOT’s area headquarters and maintenance facilities for possible consolidation.
  
  
• Continuing to reduce staffing, building upon efficiencies that have resulted in a decrease of VDOT workforce from 10,300 to just over 9,000 in the past five years. However, VDOT will ensure that staffing levels are sufficient to enable VDOT to respond effectively to emergencies and natural disasters.
  
  
• Increasing the agency’s use of small, woman- and minority-owned businesses

Financial Management

• Continuing strong financial management practices—including the elimination of $867 million in construction deficits and obtaining and obligating all available federal funds
  
  
• Keeping focus on the delivery of on-time and on-budget construction and maintenance projects to improve on this year’s scores of 84 percent of construction projects delivered on time and 86 percent on budget, and 79 percent of maintenance projects delivered on time and 88 percent on budget
  
  
• Creating an asset management system to track the conditions of pavements, bridges, tunnels, signs, drainage structures and other facilities in order to direct resources to where they are most needed. This saves time and money.

Systems Operations and Technology

• Adopting systems operations as a core function to focus on quick-response incident management and to use technology to reduce congestion, improve safety and enhance mobility without having to build additional highway mileage.


• In July, VDOT reorganized its operations function into five regions based upon travel corridors. Regional operations centers will collect real-time traffic information using technology such as traffic cameras and sensors and convey it to the public using variable message signs, 511 Virginia, highway advisory radio and partnerships with private-sector traffic information services.
  
  
• Regional offices will also work to enhance and integrate traffic signal systems to improve traffic flow.

“This business plan will require discipline and focus,” said Whirley. “VDOT’s dedicated workforce will continue to implement this important plan to improve the efficiency and delivery of transportation services.”


To view the VDOT business plan presentation given to the CTB, www.ctb.virginia.gov/meetings.asp and click on “Meetings and Agendas”. The business plan, and other presentations given to the CTB today, will be posted on the CTB Web site when the meeting concludes today.


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Page last modified: April 19, 2007