Enterprise Risk Management for Transportation Agencies

Risk management is implicit in transportation business practices. Administrators, planners, and engineers coordinate many organizational and technical resources to manage transportation network performance. Transportation agencies manage some of the largest and highest-valued public assets and budgets in federal, state, and local governments. It is the agencies' corporate responsibility to set clear strategic goals and objectives to manage these assets so economic growth and livability of their regions improves and the public gets the best value. Risks can affect an agency's ability to meet its goals and objectives. As network and delivery managers, these agencies must identify risks, assess the possible impacts, develop plans to manage the risks, and monitor the effectiveness of their actions. This paper presents the results of (a) a comprehensive literature review, (b) a state-of-the-practice survey of 43 U.S. transportation agencies, and (c) seven case studies from leading transportation organizations in Australia, England, Germany, the Netherlands, and Scotland. The paper concludes with recommendations for achieving enterprise risk management in U.S. highway agencies. Recommendations pertain to formalizing enterprise risk management approaches, embedding risk management in existing business processes, using risk management to build trust with transportation stakeholders, defining leadership and organizational responsibilities for risk management, identifying risk owners, supporting risk allocation strategies, and reexamining existing policies, processes, and standards through rigorous risk management analysis.