What is Transportation Systems Management and Operations?

The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) defines Transportation Systems Management and Operations (TSM&O) as follows:

A set of strategies to anticipate and manage traffic congestion, and minimize the other unpredictable causes of service disruption and delay, thereby maintaining roadway capacity while improving reliability and safety.

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) further elaborates by including a set of associated strategies.

Transportation systems management and operations (TSMO) encompasses a broad set of strategies that aim to optimize the safe, efficient, and reliable use of existing and planned transportation infrastructure for all modes. TSMO is undertaken from a systems perspective, which means that related TSMO strategies are coordinated with each other and across multiple jurisdictions, agencies, and modes. TSMO includes both efforts to operate the multimodal transportation system and activities to manage travel demand. The following are examples of TSMO strategies:

• Traffic incident management.
• Traffic signal coordination.
• Transit signal priority.
• Freight management.
• Work zone management.
• Special event management.
• Road weather management.
• Congestion pricing.
• Managed lanes.
• Ridesharing programs.
• Parking management.

However, where TSMO separates itself from traditional terminology including Systems Operations and Management (SO&M), Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), Congestion Management Systems and Reliability Management is the application of the Capability Maturity Model (CMM).