Background
The Federal Transit Administration’s (FTA) Transit Asset Management (TAM) Final Rule took effect
on October 1, 2016. The new rule applies to all transit providers that are recipients or subrecipients of
federal financial assistance under 49 U.S.C. Chapter 53 that own, operate, or manage transit capital
assets used in the provision of public transportation. The TAM Final Rule aims to establish a formal
system to support agencies’ operation and management of transportation assets in a state of good
repair. The new rule requires:


Within three months after the effective date (January 1, 2017), a provider must set
performance targets for the following fiscal year for each asset class included in its TAM plan;
A provider’s initial TAM plan must be completed no later than two years after the effective date
(October 1, 2018).
These TAM Plans must be aimed at improving the condition of transit vehicles, equipment, and
facilities. As a basis for developing TAM Plans, the FTA requires that all transit agencies set annual
TAM performance targets.
Initial performance targets are required to be set by January 1, 2017. For group plan participants,
Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) is responsible for setting one or more unified
performance targets for each asset class reflected in the group TAM plan. All 5311 and 5310
subrecipients in Ohio are considered “Tier II” agencies. FTA regulations specify that Tier II agencies
will participate in a “group” TAM Plan, and develop a single set of unified TAM performance targets
to be shared by the group agencies. Federal Rule also requires that these performance targets be
coordinated with the Accountable Executives of each Tier II agency and Metropolitan Planning
Organizations (MPOs) to the extent practicable prior to submission to the National Transit Database
(NTD). This document provides an initial assessment of the performance baseline across Ohio’s Tier
II agencies and basis for preliminary discussion of appropriate target setting across the group plan
participants.
Initial Performance Targets
REVENUE VEHICLES
Asset Class
(NTD)
Asset Class
(ODOT)
Automobile
Automobile (AO)
Bus
Heavy Duty Bus (B30HD, B35-HD, B40-HD,
B45-HD, B60-HD);
Medium Duty Bus
(B30-MD, B35-MD);
Light Duty Bus (B30LD)
LTL/LTN, LTV, LTVFS, LTV-HC, LTV-N,
LTV-S
Sport Utility Vehicle
(SV)
Accessible Vans (AV);
(BSV); Converted Vans
(CV); Modified Mini
Van (MMV); (MV-1);
Mini Vans (SMV)
Cutaway Bus
Sport Utility
Vehicle
Van
BASELINE
% Past Useful
Life*
30.43%
Initial Target
21.05%
21%
1.48%
2%
56.25%
56%
9.60%
10%
BASELINE
% Past Useful
Life*
N/A
N/A
Initial Target
BASELINE
% Below “3” on
TERM Scale*
0.00%
Initial Target
N/A
N/A
22.22%
22%
37.50%
38%
30%
EQUIPMENT (NON-REVENUE VEHICLES)
Asset Class
(NTD)
Asset Class
(ODOT)
Trucks
Other Rubber Tire
Vehicles (Service)
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
FACILITIES
Asset Class
(NTD)
Asset Class
(ODOT)
Passenger Facilities
N/A
Passenger Parking
N/A
Facilities
Maintenance
N/A
Facilities
Administrative
N/A
Facility
* Preliminary estimates based on asset age
0%
Challenges
While performance targets should be evaluated against a baseline of current performance, this requires that all
Tier II agencies have complete, accurate, and standardized data to calculate current performance of the group.
The need for additional quality control of data, new processes to be developed to gather missing information
(e.g., facility condition), combined with the time constraints during the holiday season have posed challenges
in gathering the missing data and conducting the associated performance assessment to then coordinate with
each of the 200+ Tier II agencies and MPOs before January 1, 2017.
While other challenges exist with calculating baseline performance (methodology, local policies that may be
revisited, etc.), the challenge of incomplete data (above) automatically diminishes the value of any baseline
calculations that follow.
Another challenge is the nature of these targets as a planning tool. These targets, by definition, should be
achieved over the next 12 months as a result of implementing a TAM Plan. However, none of the Tier II
agencies in Ohio will have a TAM Plan until next winter at the earliest, at which point it will be time to set the
next round of annual performance targets.
Given the nature of the challenges described above, Ohio is not yet ready to set meaningful group targets
without complete, quality data by the January 1, 2017 federal target-setting deadline. Therefore, the initial
targets proposed do not set any performance improvement for the first year to enable time to fill data gaps and
set a performance baseline which the targets will be measured against. At this point, the performance baseline
and future targets will be revisited and coordinated with the respective Accountable Executives and MPOs prior
to reporting to NTD.
Interim Approach to Fill Incomplete Data
One of the challenges noted above is missing condition information for facilities to determine what percent of
facilities fall under the minimum TERM condition score of 3. As a proxy for physical condition information of
facilities, year in-service dates were utilized to determine an age-based condition rating and assessed against an
industry standard useful life benchmark of 50 years. For each ten years of age, one point of the TERM scale was
reduced. The condition translation used for the proxy assessment is as follows:
Age Range (Years)
0-10
11-20
21-30
31-40
41+
TERM Score Equivalent (Proxy)
5
4
3
2
1
Proposed Performance Next Steps

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




Validate assumptions, particularly those used for the preliminary facility performance baseline, and
update accordingly
Validate inventory and condition information with Tier II agencies
Fill in data gaps
Update performance baseline
Identify and confirm Accountable Executives
Share updated performance assessment with Tier II agencies and coordinate group targets
Report to NTD