Around the world, governments and the communities that they serve are seeking to better understand if the services delivered by the public sector are meeting long term strategic objectives and the societal outcomes and needs of citizens.

Public service organizations, including the transport sector, are under increasing pressure to achieve and demonstrate results. While specific drivers may vary from country to country, or within a country, almost everywhere a strong imperative exists to achieve outcomes that matter to the public and improve the quality of people’s lives. A well-developed Strategic Plan supported by appropriate and relevant measures can help to achieve this outcome.

The Technical Committee strategy within this framework was to “define concepts and measures used in establishing a strategic approach to achieving performance goals including the use of information collected to make investment and policy decisions” and to produce “a report and recommendations based on case studies, where appropriate, adopted by countries at different development stages illustrating the established framework.”

While the specific aspect of using information collected in the use of investment and policy decisions was not directly addressed, the findings presented here clarify several unique aspects of performance management that if implemented can lead a Transport Administration to better investment and policy decisions.

A total of 16 case studies summarizing strategies employed to achieve objectives and ensure positive system performance, were submitted by various road and transport organizations from around the world. The case studies received represented a range of countries at different levels of development, from low income to high income.

A key aspect of the report is around the premise of the creation of “value.” In order for transport and road agencies to create public value, they must translate resources into real and beneficial outcomes for citizens. The use of outcomes as drivers for change and measures of organizational performance can make a difference for agencies seeking to create value for the citizens that they serve. In order to determine if value is being created, or if success is being achieved, progress and outcomes need to be measured and reported in an integrated and consistent manner. This report discusses, in the wider context of performance management, the need for integrated reporting to bring together material information about a Transport Administration’s governance, strategic planning, performance and future directions. Our research has enabled us to hypothesize that a Transport Administration can create an alignment between the creation or loss of value aligned against six capitals using performance management and in doing so deliver better outcomes for a strong Strategic Plan.

Strategic and Performance Management frameworks should provide a dynamic way to analyze, formulate, implement and evaluate and in doing so create the ability to respond to change and not just report on past performance. We believe that the five themes we identified will help organizations to achieve that outcome. We have provided guidance for those that continue in our footsteps of seeking to better understand if the services delivered by transport and road administrations are meeting long term strategic objectives and the societal outcomes and needs of citizens.