Chapter 5, Part 1, ACCS Strategic Plan

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Operations Plan

Introduction

This chapter outlines the operations plan for Arlington County's Commuter Services program. As part of the operations plan, ACCS will continue to provide most of its existing services while leveraging opportunities to enhance or modify services based on the analyses conducted in previous chapters, as well as add new services. The operations plan and associated financial plan is built on the premise that ACCS will conduct its work within its existing budget; any additional work that is recommended will be offset by reductions in other areas.

OPERATIONS PLAN INPUTS

This operations plan is based on a series of inputs, including the County's demographics, travel patterns, and existing transportation services and facilities; stakeholder input as described in the Stakeholder Engagement Process section; a review of the performance and impacts of existing services; the program's goals and objectives as described in Chapter 3 Strategic Vision, Mission, Goals, and Objectives and the target markets and customers as described in Chapter 4: Target Markets and Customers; and current program performance.

Demographics and Travel Patterns

The operations of ACCS are based on existing county demographics, as detailed in Chapter 2. For example, these demographics indicate that it was important to serve the needs of many sizes of employers, while being cognizant of the greater impact of working with the relatively few large employers in the county; to address the needs of people traveling into Arlington from outside the county; serving a relatively younger population and one of mixed income levels; and leveraging the county's robust transit and active transportation facilities.

Stakeholder Input

Focus groups with both internal and external stakeholders at different parts of the planning process identified both a desire to keep operating successful programs as well as to think critically about what might need to change to address changing travel patterns and needs. The focus groups provided an opportunity to discuss the program with the people who run it every day and understand what works and what doesn't, as well as to obtain input from those with an outside perspective. The stakeholder input was used to ensure that the future operations plan leverages strengths while pivoting to make improvements.

Goals and Objectives and Target Markets

Following the description of each program there are two sections, 5.10 and 5.11, that list how each of the programs serves the target market segments and the goals and objectives, respectively. With regard to target markets, the recommendations overall are focused on gearing programming to multiple trip types and focusing more intentionally on equity populations and low-wage workers. The recommendations also focus on meeting the goals and objectives, with continued focus on behavior change as well as renewed focus on organizational effectiveness and performance tracking.

Program Performance

The performance metrics outlined in Chapter 7 Monitoring and Evaluation Plan were also used to inform the future operations plan. Examples of this include understanding current status and trends of how many business-to-business engagements and community events were held, employers that offer transit benefits, changes to partner levels of participation, sales of fare passes, and use of the customer information center and commuter stores.

PROGRAM OVERVIEW

The services that will be offered by ACCS over the timeframe of this plan are, for the purposes of this plan, categorized into six service areas, shown in Table 14. Each one is addressed in turn beginning in Section 5.4.

Table 14: ACCS Service Areas

Each program listed has a section in this chapter that describes the service and the technology, systems, and tools that it uses. Following these six sections is a summary of how each of the programs supports the target markets and customers of ACCS, as well as how each will help achieve the program's goals and objectives.

Staffing

CURRENT

To lead ACCS's programming, Arlington County employs four staff members, shown in Table 15, who are dedicated to ACCS programs full-time.

Table 15: ACCS County Staff

ACCS's programs are largely implemented using contracted staff. Current contracted staff and their responsibilities are shown in Table 16.

This text-only version is offered as a more accessible alternative to this PDF document: Arlington County Commuter Services Transportation Demand Management Plan (PDF, 3.85 MB).

Text-Only Table of Contents