IBTTA Three-Year Plan Offers Essential New Services and Programs

Essential programs and services, more robust data and analysis, a continuing commitment to knowledge transfer and an ambitious vision of tolling as a part of the wider transportation community are the four pillars of the newly adopted three-year plan by the IBTTA Board of Directors.

“The three-year plan connects our strategic plan with our vision of the future and the new programs we must advance to stay relevant as an association,” said Pat Jones, Executive Director and CEO, IBTTA.

In 2012, when IBTTA released a similar strategic planning document, its major objective was to launch “an ongoing, proactive, and permanent communications campaign to position tolling in a positive light and give it a seat at the table for important policy discussions,” the plan notes. “We’ve been successful in doing that.” Six years later, “this moment in 2018 feels a lot like 2012 in terms of the opportunities and challenges we face,” prompting the Board’s decision to:

• Enhance the association’s TollMiner platform as an essential clearinghouse for industry data;
• Deliver “indispensable value for members and stakeholders” through the association’s programs, products, services, and meetings;
• Advance policies to facilitate tolling and other forms of user charging; and ultimately
• Effect positive outcomes in transportation.

A Roadmap to Member Service

IBTTA President Tim Stewart’s theme for 2018 has been Trust and Accountability. In a very real sense, the new plan makes that basic commitment a cornerstone for the next three years of the association’s development with an eye toward President-Elect Chris Tomlinson’s theme for 2019, Driving the Future of Mobility.

The focus on strengthening current programs and services is about giving members the relevant content and unparalleled networking opportunities that will help them succeed and thrive in a rapidly-changing industry. It’s about developing a broader view of tolling, bringing non-traditional speakers and perspectives to IBTTA meetings and events, nurturing and developing the next generation of tolling leaders, looking at new ways to deliver content and expanding IBTTA’s international presence and impact.

The upshot? “Members will come away from IBTTA education programs with a better chance to address challenges at home because of access to a wider spectrum of experts, more robust webinars and distance learning, new voices, and more timely and interactive content delivery,” the three-year plan states.

In a similar vein, the expansion of TollMiner will give members the data and state-of-the-art analysis to help them understand their own operations in a wider context. IBTTA will continue to work on expanding not only our data set but also the use cases and analytical tools that will help toll agencies, consultants and vendors to see their own metrics in relation to others and make better business decisions.

Knowledge and Networking

With this plan, IBTTA also recognizes the need for a wider range of learning and knowledge-sharing opportunities for members. The association’s annual conference and workshop series routinely receives rave reviews. But with so many other learning modes and methods available—from peer networking, to expert forums—we have no intention of standing still.

“Peer to peer interaction is key,” said one IBTTA Board member. “We need to make sure we have other channels of communication open to our peers in the industry. We have subject matter experts in different disciplines in our organization, but a lot gets lost. How do we add to what we’re currently doing to get higher levels of communication among other agency staff?”

And finally, at a time when transportation is changing at lightning speed, IBTTA will build on the success of the 2016 Transportation Visioning Summit by connecting more closely with emerging industry trends—from road user charging, to mobility as a service (MAAS), to the impacts of decarbonization on automobile design and production—to find the synergies with tolling and identify any competitive risks to be mitigated.

“These are existential questions,” the three-year plan acknowledges. “But these are also times of great promise. For individuals and institutions that position themselves to embrace change, the future can be bright.” At IBTTA, we will do everything within our means to help our members experience a bright future.

Click here to download your copy of IBTTA’s new three-year plan for 2019-2021.