Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
Procedia
Social and
Behavioral
Sciences Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 00 (2011) 000–000
www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia
Conference Title (Transport Research Arena– Europe 2012)
The Attica Tollway Operations Authority KPI Performance
System
Helen Tyrogiannia, Bill Halkias
b, Anna Politou
c, Pagona Kotzampassi
d
aHead of Consulting Services, 41, 9Km Attiki Odos, 19002, Greece
bCEO, 41, 9Km Attiki Odos, 19002, Greece
cCivil Engineer- Transport Planner, 41, 9Km Attiki Odos, 19002, Greece
dApplied Maths Engineer, 41, 9Km Attiki Odos, 19002, Greece
Abstract
PPP’s develop Toll Roads, promote innovation and generally provide above-average, and in some cases,
high-level of service to their users. The level of service provided is either mandated by contractual terms
or by a strong desire to promote legitimate commercial goals. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are
used to measure the level of service provided to the users by the tollway operator, since the services affect
the lives of people using the facility.
Attica Tollway Operations Authority (Attikes Diadromes SA) has developed a program of measuring and
monitoring performance indicators, over and above the contractual requirements, in order to improve
safety, mobility, asset management and user satisfaction. The monitoring of performance using the KPI
system in Attica Tollway offers efficiency, effectiveness, communication and improvement over time to
the Operating Company.
A set of more than thirty key performance indicators are in use nowadays by Attica Tollway. These are
covering the areas of traffic management, toll operation, infrastructure maintenance, HR, violation
enforcement, etc.
The presentation will focus on the design and implementation of this application of KPIs parameters, as
well as on the recorded results and their utilization.
© 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of TRA 2012
2 Author name / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 00 (2011) 000–000
Keywords: Key Performance Indicators, PPPs,Toll, Road,
1. Introduction
The main purpose of measuring performance in the road sector is to improve transportation
service for customers and this is the reason that an increasing importance is given by transportation
agencies. In the road sector, performance measured has long been used as part of a pavement
management and bridge management systems. Nowadays, many agencies are extending the process to
applications in construction and maintenance systems, operations and safety, and administrative structures
and processes (1). In the case of concession projects, the measurement of the project’s performance is set
in the contract and specific contractual obligations are arisen for the concessionaires.
However, road agencies are now expected to meet service level targets at reduced costs and to develop
mechanisms for customer feedback. In general, road agencies now operate in an environment in which
there is a much greater emphasis on customers. Meeting customers’ needs drives business for public
sector as well as private sector agencies. That focus on customers has made the assessment of agencies’
performance more complex and has been a trigger for the study and application of objective performance
measurement (2).
2. Description of Attica Tollway
Attica Tollway has been designated by the European Union to be part of the Trans European
Network, extending along 70 km, enabling quicker access to areas which, until recently, were either
unapproachable or required a great amount of travel time. A road axis connecting the 30 municipalities of
the Attica basin and meeting the transportation needs of millions of people, on an annual basis.
Attica Tollway is one of the biggest peripheral ring roads in Europe. It is an urban motorway, with 3
traffic lanes in each direction and an emergency lane. In the centre, it has a special traffic island, reserved
for the operation of the suburban railway. Attica Tollway is a fully access control tollway, within a
metropolitan capital where the problem of traffic congestion is really acute.
The motorway forms the link which connects the PATHE road axis (Patra – Athens – Thessaloniki -
Evzoni), since it links the Athens – Lamia National Road with the Athens – Corinth National Road, by-
passing the centre of Athens.
Being a closed motorway, it has full control of its access points and consists of three sections:
• The Elefsina – Stavros – Spata A/P motorway (ESSM), extending along approximately
52 km, and
• The Imittos Western Peripheral Motorway (IWPM), extending along approximately 13
km.
• The Egaleio Western Peripheral Motorway (EWPM), extending along approximately 5
km.
The provision of high level of service and services above and beyond of the contractual obligations,
Attica Tollway succeeded to change the initial reluctance of users towards paying tolls. In addition, an
enormous residential and business development occurred to all the regions surrounding Attica Tollway.
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The day to day activities of the Attica Tollway Operation Authority include:
• Traffic management & safety of users
• Detection / intervention / management of incidents
• Routine maintenance of infrastructure and fixed equipment
• Maintenance of vehicles
• Proposals for major maintenance plan and improvements
• Toll Collection
• Design of Commercial Policy & management of commercial packages
• Monitoring of the users complaints
• Public Relations and Communication
3. Scope of Key Performance Indicators Program of Attica Tollway operations Authority
Considering that the customers of Tollways have higher service level demands compared to the users of
non-tolled motorways, systems measuring the performance are recommended to be adopted by Tollways.
The major components of this program are the "Key Performance Indicators" (KPIs), which are based, to
a great extent, on a multifunctional survey, in reference mainly to safety, customer service maintenance
and toll collection.
The aim of this program is the operational application of a reliable management and exploitation
mechanism to measure the service level and to take the appropriate measures to rectify the problems or
improvements needed. In order to achieve this goal the following targets were set according to Anderson
research (2001):
� To implement a reliable and accurate system capable of measuring any fluctuation of
performance on the key areas of safety, maintenance effectiveness, mobility and user
satisfaction.
� To raise the awareness and educate the managerial staff on understanding this action and the
valorization of exploitation through tangible changes of the project results.
� To establish the appropriate management instrument that would have the responsibility for
the evaluation of the results data, in order to plan and monitor the timely intervention actions.
In the case of Attica Tollway, a system has being developed for monitoring and analysing the trends of
the outcome of the Tollway and this system acts as a mechanism protecting the expected “value” that
arises from the payment of toll fee. The application for a period of four years of this program succeeded
in detecting changes in service conditions and in measuring Service Levels, so as to identify the necessary
measures that will lead to the optimization of the level of service offered to the users. The existence of the
vast majority program is not imposed by the contract since only 2 indicators from the total amount of 35
are contractual obligations.
The Key Performance Indicators are measuring and assessing the following categories of issues:
1. Response to incidents
2. Closed lanes to traffic
3. Management of incident
4. Traffic congestion
5. User safety
6. Perceived quality by users
7. Liability
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8. Level of maintenance
9. Level of service of toll lanes
10. Cash discrepancy
11. Level of service of Integrated Toll and Traffic Management System (ITTMS)
12. Electronic Toll Collection(ETC) penetration
13. Subscription Programs
14. Subscribers attitude
15. Level of written communication with users
16. Level of service by Customer Telephone Center
17. Level of user satisfaction
18. Human resources
4. The Structure of KPIs System and the Source of Information
4.1. The structure of the system
The preferred approach for regulating quality of service is to specify and monitor performance outputs
rather than inputs. Regulating outputs promotes innovation and efficiency improvements – but only if the
service provider also has an incentive to reduce costs. As a result, this approach goes hand-in-hand with
other regulatory mechanisms, such as the price cap approach to tariffs (which motivates cost savings).
Specifying and monitoring a limited number of outputs helps to minimise regulation and avoid costly and
bureaucratic regulatory practices and interference in day-to-day operations.
This reliable KPI system was structured in 5 stages :
Stage 1
The definition of the basic principles for the development of the KPI, in order to be:
� Truly representative of the success of the main goal,
� Verifiable to avoid misrepresentation of results,
� Useful and available on time to influence decisions,
� Linked into systems allowing feedback of information for the decision-making.
Other issues that were considered when selecting performance measures to evaluate Attica Tollway
include the followings according to NCHRP Report 446 (2000):
- Forecastibilty: it is possible to compare future alternative projects using this measure?
- Clarity: is it likely to be understood by transportation professionals, policy makers and the
public?
- Usefulness: Does the measure reflect the issue or goal of concern? Is it an indicator of condition,
which could be used as a trigger for action? Does it capture cause-and-effect between the
agency’s actions and conditions?
- Ability to diagnose problem: Is there a connection between the measure and the actions that
affect it? Is the measure too aggregate to be helpful to agencies trying to improve performance?
- Temporal effects: Is the measure comparable across time?
- Relevance: Is the measure relevant to planning and budgeting processes? Will changes in
activities and budget levels affect a change in the measure that is apparent and meaningful? Can
the measure be reported with a frequency that will be helpful to decision makers?
Stage 2
Extensive education of the managerial staff in order to include KPIs in the production process.
Stage 3
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An analytical multiphased selection of the indicators, emphasing on the key differentiation areas between
tolled and non-tolled motorways has lead to the selection of 35 indicators covering the entire operation of
Attica Tollway Operations Authority.
Attention was given to the relation between the indicator and the operational target of the department, the
strategic target of the operation authority and finally the weight of the importance with regards to the
overall performance
Stage 4
A pilot application of the system, conducted for six months, in order to adjust and to evaluate the selected
indicators.
Stage 5
Constant evaluation of the system in order to assess the overall performance of the interventions.
4.2 The source of information
A critical parameter of the efficiency of the performance-measuring system is the quality of its sources of
primary data and the “realistic” selection of indicators. The collection of the relevant data is based on the
accurate and effective Management Information System of Attica Tollway that constitutes also to an
integral tool for the daily operation of the management of the Tollway. The internal data is generated by
the Integrated Motorway Management System of Attica Tollway Operations Authority.
Another source of data for the KPIs system is the conduction of extensive surveys, such as Road Side
Survey (RSS), telephone survey for the subscribers and "mystery shopping", these surveys provide data
for indicators assessing the user’ perception. Indicatively, the annual RSS covers about 7500
questionnaires and "mystery shopping" about 8000 questions on an annual basis.
5. Presentation of KPIs of Attica Tollway
5.1. Presentation of Representative Key Performance Indicators of Attica Tollway
In this chapter the definition, the measurement method and the results of five representative key
performance indicators are presented.
Key Performance Indicator 1: Response Time of Attica Tollway to incidents
A major service provided by Attica Tollway Operations Authority to its users is the incidents’
management. An indicator for the performance of the incident management is the response time on
incidents. Average response time to incidents is calculated as the time from incident detection to patrol
arrival at the incident place, counted in minutes, per detection source (Users, Toll personnel, Traffic
Management Center, Recovery Unit, police, patrols etc). In the following figure the results of the
measured Key Performance Indicator – Response Time is presented. It should be noted that the first
column presents the average response time for all sources of detection and the second excluding the
detection from patrols vehicles allocated along the motorway.
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Fig. 1: KPI 1- Response time of Attica Tollway (minutes) for 2010
Referring to the table above, it should be mentioned that the average response time is around 2.8 min for
all sources of detection and around 5,5 min for all sources excluding patrols that is significantly below the
contractual obligation of 10 minutes.
Key Performance Indicator 2: Closed lanes to traffic due to maintenance
Another indicator is the lane closures to traffic due to maintenance. This indicator records the continuous
availability of infrastructure and shows the efficiency of road maintenance. For the accuracy of the
indicator, two parameters are measured a) the length of intervention and b) the duration of intervention. In
the following figure the results of the measured Key Performance Indicator –Lane Closure due to
maintenance is presented.
Figure 2: KPI 2- Total km-hours of closed lanes due to maintenance for 2010
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As seen above, June has one of the lowest measurements since it is traditionally the month with the
largest traffic flows and the scheduled interventions are minimal. Regarding July, the interventions are
scheduled mainly to second half of the month when traffic flows are much lower.
Key Performance Indicator 3: Hours of queue
Traffic queue is an element of the operation of motorway, therefore an indicator was selected to show
queue duration per four hours intervals. Indicators are the reference points for taking measures that will
aim in reducing congestion (e.g. construction of new infrastructure, new commercial and pricing policy
for these locations and hours etc), wherever this is possible. For the measurement of the indicator, only
incidents relative to congestion are selected. Then the records are grouped according to their start time.
Start times are grouped in 4-hour intervals, the first interval starting at 7:00. Congestions from 23:00 to
6:59 of the next day are not taken into account. Finally, total queue duration and length for the same start
time group are calculated. In the following table the results of the measured Key Performance Indicator –
Total hours of queue is presented.
Figure 3: KPI 3- Total hours of queue per month for 2010
As presented above, August is the month with the negligible queues due to seasonal trends of this month
(typical month of vacations for Athenians).
Key Performance Indicator 4: ETC Penetration
Regarding the toll services, a significant measurement corresponds to the Electronic Toll Collection
(ETC) penetration. The ETC Volume Indicator shows percentage of electronic transactions out of the
total toll transactions. The relevant data derives from reporting of Attica Tollway Integrated Toll Traffic
Management System. In the following figure the results of the measured Key Performance Indicator –
Percentage of ETC Transactions is presented. As presented in the figure below, the electronic toll
transactions cover almost the half of the toll transactions. This high percentage of electronic transactions
denotes better services at toll lanes and low waiting time.
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Figure 4: KPI 4-Percentage of ETC Transactions per month for 2010
Key Performance Indicator 5: Effectiveness of preventive Road Maintenance
This indicator presents the effectiveness of preventive road maintenance. The ratio of unscheduled
(repair) maintenance man-hour effort to preventive maintenance man-hour effort for infrastructure
maintenance is calculated. Unscheduled maintenance works must represent a low percentage of scheduled
maintenance so that:
1. Infrastructure condition to be maintained at the highest level
2. Maintenance cost to be reduced (repairs are always more expensive compared to scheduled works)
3. User satisfaction to increase since infrastructure will be available during peak hours and there will be
no problems due to maintenance works during peak hours (repairs may have to be carried out
immediately, even at peak hours)
Figure 5 KPI 5- Percentage of unplanned man-hours over to total man-hours for maintenance activities per month for
2010
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As shown on the Figure above, the percentage of unplanned man-hours spent to maintenance activities
remains steadily to a low level for all the months of year.
5.2 Demonstratable Achievements of the KPI system
This program produced tangible results for the customers, the agency and the community.The most
significant results are:
� Maintain the response time of Attica Tollway patrols in low level despite the significant increase
of traffic. The daily average traffic volume increased from 195,000 Transactions [KN1](2005) to
281.329 transactions (2010)
� Increase of ETC use (from 36% in 2005 to 47,5% in 2010), therefore better service at toll lanes.
� Subscribers' increase (from 143,000 distributed transponders in 2005 to 445,000 in 2010),
exceeding any preliminary projection.
� The customers satisfaction remained at a very high level: Customer satisfaction from toll
collectors 92% (as the queues were reduced due to higher ETC use), , for safety level provided
95.6% (less closed lanes, better road conditions from more effective maintenance), despite the
significant increase of transactions.
� Increase of the number of internal operating procedures of the agency from 15 (2005) to 47
(2010)
5. Conclusions
Performance indicators can be defined as variables whose purpose is to measure changes in a process or a
function. Indicators used by the principal must be clearly defined, accessible and transparent. Providing
an effective mechanism to measure continuously the level of service protecting the value of the Toll paid
by users, as well as to estimate the consequences of any action or decision to the value of the road.
Aiding the decision-making process, by giving it both forecasting assistance, as well as monitoring
capabilities.
� Setting a high standard of service level for itself and for all the motorways in Greece.
� Managing change without risking value.
� Communicating the effectiveness of the operation to third parties.
Furthermore, the observed customer satisfaction of Attica Tollway users is probably the best proof that
demonstrates the success of this action. Despite the increase of the daily traffic, the quality of customer
service, the high safety level and the innovations brought by the company are highly appreciated by our
customers. Today Athenians feel that they are getting their money’s worth.
References
Anderson, “Quantitative Methods for Business”, 2001.
InVision Consulting S.A. RSS Annual Surveys, 2005-2010.
Gudmundsson, Henrik “Indicators and performance measures for Transportation, environment and
sustainability in North America”, National Environmental Research Institute, Denmark, 2001.
10 Author name / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 00 (2011) 000–000
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), “Performance indicators for the
road sector, Summary of the field tests”, OECD Paris, 2001.
Papandreou K., Tyrogianni H. “Level of Service in Concession Motorway Projects, XXXV ASECAP
Study and Information Days, Crete, 2007.
Transportation Research Board (TRB). NCHRP Report 446: “A guidebook for Performance-Based
Transportation planning”. National Academy press, Washington DC, 2000.
