Public Involvement Performance Measurement Tool

The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) wants to ensure that all interested parties have an opportunity to participate fully in the transportation decision-making process and that public input is carefully considered. Although public involvement is now an integral part of project development, few efforts have been undertaken to evaluate the effectiveness of FDOT public involvement activities. What efforts have been undertaken tend to focus on outputs (e.g. number of participants at meetings), rather than outcomes (e.g. articipant satisfaction with the process). In an effort to improve public involvement performance measurement, FDOT contracted with the Center for Urban Transportation Research (CUTR) at the University of South Florida to develop performance measures and tools to gauge the effectiveness of FDOT public involvement activities. This paper describes the process undertaken in the development of the Public Involvement Performance Measurement Data Collection and Analysis Tool (PIPM Tool) a software tool to enable FDOT project managers and senior management to document, track, and evaluate the agency’s public involvement efforts. The tool is a graphic user interface built on a Microsoft Access database. The paper will be of value to transportation professionals looking to develop a public involvement performance measurement system of their own or any transportation agency currently engaged in public involvement performance measurement that is looking to improve upon their current measurement structure.