The Canadian way

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Delcan has developed an ITS project evaluation methodology for Transport Canada. Victor Bruzon explains how it will assist in selecting and managing programmes.

ITS projects offer a cost-effective solution for many transportation problems. Individual projects are often not evaluated and such evaluations can be restricted by limited data, the ability of ITS to affect only a portion of the transport network, and by evaluation methodologies that were developed with more traditional transport investments in mind.

Evaluations that have been done often show a strong, positive rate of return. The evaluation methodology developed by 285 Delcan Corporation for 599 Transport Canada provides a framework to ensure consistency and validity of results across regions and across types of ITS investments and will help Canadian local and provincial agencies select and manage ITS programmes. In addition, the framework can help select projects that will improve the efficiency, safety and sustainability of the Canadian transportation system. This framework builds on existing work in Canada, the US and Europe.

Measure the benefits

Transport Canada's funding programme for ITS projects - Strategic Highway Infrastructure Program (SHIP) - began in March 2000 and was recently concluded. Over 100 ITS projects were funded under various arrangements representing a total investment of over $50 million. As considerations are made for renewed funding, there is an increasing need to measure the benefits derived from these projects and their success in meeting stated objectives. The methodology developed will serve as an ITS evaluation framework for past and future Canadian ITS projects.

The methodology is based on four evaluation steps: evaluation planning; data collection; data analysis; and recommendations and reporting. The report prepared for Transport Canada includes details of each step, including a discussion of the challenges that are typically encountered.

Two projects financed by Transport Canada under the SHIP programme have been selected to serve as sample cases and test the proposed evaluation framework. One of those examples, an ITS project in the Commercial Vehicle Operations (CVO) area in the Province of New Brunswick, Canada, (featured opposite) illustrates the cost/benefit results. The evaluation methodology framework report shows how the four evaluation steps were followed and contains a discussion of results, limitations and assumptions of the analysis.

Next steps

The evaluation framework recommends the following next steps: using the framework to complete more evaluations; collecting feedback regarding the evaluation framework and how it performs in practice; summarising the results from the evaluations to help provide access to others; integrating the Canadian evaluation material into one of the existing databases in the UK or the US; generating a 'lessons learned' report to provide guidance regarding which projects perform well and to identify implications for future programmes; and mandating that individual evaluations and the 'lessons learned' report both address the synergistic impacts of interactions among groups of ITS investments and between ITS and the underlying transportation infrastructure.

The report entitled 'Development of a Project Evaluation Methodology Framework for Transport Canada' was prepared by Dr Richard Mudge, Vice President, and Victor H. Bruzon, Vice President, Delcan Corporation.
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