Federal guidelines require Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) State Departments of Transportation (DOTs) and transit service providers to develop and implement a performance-based transportation planning and programming approach that evaluates the effectiveness of transportation funding investments in maintaining and improving the operability of the overall transportation system. Performance based planning is a data-driven evaluation method used by transportation decision makers to determine the effectiveness of existing transportation investments and inform decisions on future investments in order to meet several federally required transportation performance targets set for multiple performance measure areas. The transportation performance measure areas that are required to be evaluated include: safety, pavement conditions, bridge conditions, travel time reliability, freight reliability, transit assets, and transit safety.
The safety performance measure is the only one that performance targets are required to be re-evaluated and updated annually per federal guidance. Under the safety performance area, MPOs and State DOTs are required to establish performance targets for five (5)safety performance measure areas based on a five-year rolling average of analyzed crash data. The five (5) safety performance measure areas targets are set for include: total fatalities, fatality rate, total serious injuries, serious injury rate, and total non-motorized fatalities and serious injuries. MPO’s, per federal guidance, have the option to set their own safety performance targets or support targets set by their respective state DOT. On February 12th, 2025, the Jackson MPO voted to support the updated safety targets set by the Mississippi Department of Transportation (MDOT).
For more information about safety targets or the implementation of performance measures visit the MPO’s website, www.cmpdd.org/performance/.
