Congestion Management Process

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The Congestion Management Process (CMP) monitors the transportation network to determine the locations and sources of congestion in the Boston MPO area, and identifies and implements strategies that alleviate congestion. The Boston Region MPO´s CMP monitors the performance of the following types of transportation facilities in the MPO area:

Freeway and arterial roadways
Intersections
Transit
Park-and-ride lots
High-occupancy-vehicle (HOV) lanes, and
Bicycle and pedestrian facilities

About the CMP

CMP monitoring leads to recommendations for studies to be programmed in the Unified Planning Work Program (UPWP) and for improvements to be implemented through the Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) and Long-Range Transportation Plan (LRTP). Federal legislation requires that, in metropolitan areas that do not meet the national ambient air quality standards, capacity-increasing projects for single-occupant vehicles be part of an approved CMP.

In 2012, the MPO established a congestion management committee to ensure that the appropriate congestion mitigation strategies are evaluated and promoted for funding in the UPWP, TIP, and LRTP.

2019 Express-Highway and Arterial Roadway Performance Dashboards

The Express-Highway Performance Dashboard and the Arterial Performance Dashboard graphically display peak-period congestion for expressways in the Boston Region MPO area in 2019. The performance measures in the dashboards represent three factors related to congestion: duration, intensity, and travel time reliability. Each dashboard consists of regional overview maps, route-specific data, and downloadable accessible tables. The data used in both dashboards was collected in 2019 by INRIX and processed by CTPS staff.

Express Highways Arterial Roadways

2017–18 Inventory of Park-and-Ride Lots at MBTA Facilities

The Boston Region MPO surveys MBTA stations for automobile parking, bicycle parking, and station amenities. At the conclusion of the latest data collection effort, MPO staff created a visual park-and-ride dashboard that shows the parking lot locations, parking capacity, and parking utilization for the 2017-18 park-and-ride inventory. In addition to parking information, data are displayed for accessible parking, bicycle parking, and other station amenities.

Additionally, detailed memoranda that summarize the findings from the 2017–18 vehicle parking and bicycle parking inventories are available in the links below. This includes a comparison of the 2017–18 inventory with the previous inventories (2013–14, 2009–10, and 2006), and appendices that show the number of vehicle and bicycle parking spaces and amenities for each station.

Park-and-Ride dashboard

2017–18 Park-and-Ride Memorandum (PDF) 2017–18 Park-and-Ride Memorandum (HTML)

2017–18 Bicycle Parking Memorandum (PDF) 2017–18 Bicycle Parking Memorandum (HTML)

Intersection Improvement Program

The intersection improvement program—which recommended low-cost operational improvements at signalized intersections in the Boston Region MPO area—was funded by the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement (CMAQ) program. This program received direct funding to retime traffic signals, and to make recommendations for other potential improvements, but not to implement the recommended improvements. Thus, municipalities could choose to effect these suggestions at their discretion, but needed to absorb the implementation costs themselves. A summary of the pilot program, which was completed by Howard Stein Hudson, can be viewed at the link below. Mini-reports for any of the evaluated intersections are available upon request by contacting Sarah Philbrick at sphilbrick@ctps.org.

Intersection Improvement Program Summary (PDF) Intersection Improvement Program Summary (HTML)