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7. Procurement

This stage of the ICMS process is not explicitly shown in the "V" diagram (Figure 1-2). Rather, it is a cross-cutting activity encompassing much of the left-side of the "V," particularly overlapping the design stages. Whereas the design activities define how the ICMS will be built from a technical perspective, the Procurement Stage focuses on how the ICMS will be built from an institutional and procedural perspective. This is a critical issue. As noted in NCHRP 3-77: "Guide to Contracting ITS" (Reference 13), "the procurement of goods and services to support ITS deployments represents a major obstacle for transportation agencies responsible for deploying ITS. This obstacle can be attributed to the challenges associated with the procurement of goods and services to support the deployment of complex information technology (IT) systems." Key activities during the Procurement Stage are briefly discussed below.

Project Definition, Sequencing and Funding

"Projects" are individual, well-defined actions and activities that will make up a substantial portion of an ICM program along with policies, procedures, and related coordination. The development and implementation of these projects are how an ICMS is realized and subsequently updated and expanded. In all likelihood, the initial development and deployment of an ICMS will entail multiple projects, with each project requiring a specific form of stand-alone procurement documents incorporating a sub-set of the system design. Potential projects in this regard might include:

Of course, many of these potential individual projects may be combined into one or several projects. Regardless, it is important that the ICMS projects be included in the traditional planning documents like the Transportation Improvement Program (TIP), Statewide Transportation Improvements Program (STIP), and other regional plans.

The Regional ITS Architecture Guidance Document (Reference 8) includes a step entitled "Define Project Sequencing" which is directly applicable to an ICMS. The following activities are summarized as follows:

As with any crosscutting program, funding for ICM projects and the continuing operations and maintenance of the system will likely come from a wide variety of sources, including Federal-aid, State and individual agency budgets. Due to the multi-agency nature of many of the ICMS projects, the funding for such projects will also be multi-agency in nature. Moreover, other resources, such as equipment and personnel, may also be shared across jurisdictional boundaries. Additional information on funding opportunities for ICMS, including the pooling of agency funds, is provided in Technical Memorandum 3.5.

Procurement Mechanism

Several mechanisms exist for procuring ICMS services and deploying the associated projects, each with a variety of selection options. Each necessitates a different level of direct participation and technical expertise by the acquiring agency. The type of contract selected will also dictate the form of the procurement specifications and the management structure needed to oversee the process.

The goal in choosing a procurement option is to give the corridor stakeholders and system owners the greatest flexibility and to manage project risk appropriately. The choice depends on the type and nature of work being done, with some projects and activities lending themselves better to one type of procurement mechanism over another. As noted in NCHRP 3-77 (Reference 13), "the use of inappropriate procurement methods may result in project cost-overruns, final designs that do not satisfy functional requirements, and long-term maintenance failures. An appropriate method of procuring ITS (including ICMS) must be flexible enough to accommodate the uncertainties of complex system acquisitions, while at the same time rigid enough to ensure that the responsibilities of the participants are fully defined and their interests protected. In order to overcome the challenge of procuring ITS, transportation agencies must institutionalize innovative procurement methods."

This NCHRP reference includes a process to identify an appropriate procurement approach for a specified ITS project. This decision model includes the following activities and considerations:

It is also critical that, regardless of the number of projects and their respective procurement approaches, a single entity be identified as having the ultimate responsibility and accountability for delivering a fully functional ICMS. Moreover, concomitant with this assignment of responsibility and accountability must be the necessary authority and flexibility to control and manage the associated risks.

ICMS Procurement Documents

The procurement documents for each ICMS project will incorporate the detailed designs and plans developed during the design stage along with the necessary terms and conditions. These procurement documents should include specifications and plans addressing other important elements of the ICMS implementation, including:

With respect to the latter, Reference 14 describes this "problem" as follows: "Debate over the ownership and use of intellectual property developed jointly by the public and private sectors has caused delays in ITS deployment projects. While a fundamental business incentive of the private sector for investing in research and development is to use the results of research for profit, a primary incentive of the public sector is to protect the way in which public funds are spent." Two types of licensing agreements need to be addressed in the procurement documents:

In this way, interested private sector companies seeking to participate and provide services for the ICMS are aware of the intellectual property rights, policies, and standards for the corridor stakeholders and agencies. These companies can then incorporate their understanding of them into their technical and cost proposals.

Overall Program Plan

The ICMS Program Plan (which was initially developed at the beginning of the process in terms of the Systems Engineering Management Plan) should be expanded to describe the entire set of tasks that each ICMS project requires as the program moves into the Implementation and Deployment Stages. Specific activities to be addressed include the following:

Some ICMS projects and programs may warrant preparation of separate plans for specific tasks and supporting activities. Many of the activities addressed in the next section on the Implementation and deployment stage have technical planning documents associated with them (e.g., verification and validation plan, component and integration test plans, system acceptance test plan).

Another important plan is the operations and maintenance plan. This plan defines how the ICMS will be operated and maintained on a daily basis, including the responsibilities of each corridor stakeholder or agency and their respective staffing and budget needs. These needs are defined based on the following:

The operations and maintenance plan concentrates on additional needs on agency staff and resources as a result of the elements to be deployed as part of the ICMS projects. In general, it is expected that agencies will continue to perform their current transportation management and maintenance functions as before.

Institutional Issues

Achieving institutional integration is an on-going process of coordination and collaboration between corridor stakeholders. Moreover, it starts at the very beginning of the ICMS and systems engineering processes (e.g., Concept Exploration: Establish Corridor Stakeholder Group). Several of the associated institutional issues (e.g., system procurement and implementation approaches and individual agency responsibilities, funding, operations and maintenance functions and responsibilities) have already been noted in this discussion of the procurement stage. By the time this procurement stage is completed, all the remaining institutional issues, including the identification and distribution of all responsibilities between the corridor stakeholders and the organizational and administrative framework to support ICMS operations and stakeholder coordination, should be resolved.

Agreements among the different stakeholder agencies and organizations will typically be required to document the resolution of these institutional issues, as well as the various operational issues (e.g., responses and scenario plans, policies for route or modal shifts to optimize spare capacity) and technical issues (e.g., standards), and to explain the associated details. These cooperative ICM agreements may take the form of resolutions, memorandums of understanding (MOUs), intergovernmental agreements, or some combination of these methods. The number of agreements and the level of formality and structure of each agreement will be determined by the stakeholders and agencies involved. In general, as ICM becomes more complex (e.g., proactive approaches and strategies and/or more formal organizational approaches and institutional frameworks), the need for interagency agreements also becomes greater. Regardless of the structure, most of the agreements contain the similar key elements as shown in Table 7-1.

Table 7-1. Key Elements for ICM Agreements
  • Participants and Operational Coverage
  • Purpose, Need, and Authority
  • Roles and Responsibilities
  • Adoption, Duration, Amendment, and Termination
  • Funding and Financial Arrangements
  • Appendices (e.g., management plans or other technical supporting documents).
Source: NCHRP Synthesis 337: "Cooperative Agreements for Corridor Management." Additional information is provided in Technical Memorandum 3.4.


Reference 12 summarizes several characteristics of effective agreements (listed below), which also pertain to the broader challenge of achieving institutional integration:

With respect to the last bullet, a White Paper from the 4th Integrated Traffic Management System (ITMS) Conference7 on Maintenance and Operations states: "the development of agreements should be started well in advance of when the agreements are needed. An important strategy used for meetings where agreements are discussed is to consider all agencies to be equal and not have one of them be in charge of the meeting (i.e., meetings are arranged, facilitated, and documented by non-agency resources.) This strategy reduced the risk of any agency forcing their agenda on the other agencies just because that agency was responsible for the meeting."



7 July 2001, Newark New Jersey, Sponsored by the TRB Committees on Freeway Operations and Traffic Signal Systems.

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