El Paso I-10 Integrated Corridor Management

Project Rationale/Background

Integrated corridor management (ICM) combines freeway, arterial, transit, and parking management systems into a single transportation management system. In 2015, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) provided funding for 13 highly congested urban areas across 10 states to develop an ICM Concept of Operations (ConOps). Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) researchers helped the El Paso Metropolitan Planning Organization (EPMPO) successfully compete for one of these grants. ICM enables departments of transportation (DOTs) and operating agencies to better manage their facilities by providing travelers with more and enhanced traffic information, in real time, so they can easily shift their trip departure times, routes, and/or modes when traffic conditions warrant.

Project Execution

EPMPO is partnering with the City of El Paso, Texas Department of Transportation, Sun Metro and other regional stakeholders to develop the IH-10 ICM ConOps and strategies on a 16-mile section of the I-10 corridor. TTI and The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) are responsible for producing a project management plan (PMP), system engineering management plan (SEMP) and a ConOps, which describes the “who, what, when, where, why, and how” of an ICM system and lays the foundation for subsequent institutional, operational, and technical planning, development, and implementation decisions.

Project Findings/Results

Following the development of the PMP, the SEMP and a literature review, the team produced technical memoranda that presented the following, which were also used in creating the ConOps:

• ICM Boundaries.
• Operational Conditions.
• ITS Inventory.
• Operational Scenarios.

After developing a list of proposed near-term improvements, as well as challenges and needs, the team developed the IH-10 ICM ConOps. Remaining tasks include modeling two operational strategies to measure the potential benefits of ICM and developing the implementation plan.

Project Benefits

One of the key benefits of the El Paso ICM is that it will add value to the city’s current incident management plan (IMP), which currently operates in a semi-integrated, semi-coordinated fashion. The ICM will significantly enhance the coordination and communication between agencies during an incident through a decision-support system and will add a transit component. Motorists and shippers can use real-time information to avoid congestion and more easily find alternate routes or transportation modes, such as transit or rail. ICM tools will also provide operational agencies with up-to-the-second data to enable them to make better decisions about congestion and incident management. A unique benefit of the El Paso ICM will be the inclusion of the nearby international crossings. The plan is to monitor the crossings and have an ICM strategy that addresses full closure of one crossing.

Project Significance

This project will move El Paso one step closer to joining those cities that have successfully deployed ICM and make the city one of the first ICM sites with corridor connections to an international crossing.