By understanding the primary transportation agency roles included in this chapter, the DOT gains insight into the current state of the agency from each of these perspectives and how to use strategies to improve capabilities that address change forces.
Transportation agency roles are central to providing clarity on:
• Ownership of responsibility for specific strategic, operational and tactical functions and activities, and
• Enabling effective lines of communication among other roles within and outside of the agency
Roles are various functional positions within the organization. Change forces may impact each role in a different way, and each role has a different part to play in building agency capability.
This chapter identifies selected resources that may be helpful to support capability building efforts for each role.
Guidance for each role includes the following sections:
• Identification of change forces that are most relevant to the role, the associated challenges and opportunities created by these change forces, and the responsibilities of the role for capability building
• Strategies that can be used to build organizational capabilities
• Initial steps that can be considered
• Resources that can be used to obtain further information and guidance on the change forces and strategies
This guidance does not represent an exhaustive list of roles, but includes the primary categories of leaders and practitioners that are critical to the operation of a typical state transportation agency. Note: The roles-based guidance represents the most critical roles at the time of publication. This guidebook establishes a framework for the flexible online guidance that provides for additional roles, evolving change forces, new strategies and emerging resources over time.
Click a role below for a brief introduction to a role, and follow the links provided for more information.