Transportation Evaluation Criteria (TEC)

TEC is the system utilized by the Pioneer Valley Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) to determine the regional impact of Federal Aid eligible transportation improvement projects.  Every project is ranked by TEC score, projects are funded based on score from highest to lowest and project readiness based on available funding for the current Federal Fiscal year.

TEC has been the tool utilized by the MPO to Rank and fund projects since 2004.  The Scoring was originally based on a range from negative 18 to positive 18. TEC criteria were divided into two categories; Transportation Criteria and Other Impact Criteria.

• Transportation Criteria consisted of three sub categories; Condition, Mobility, and Safety. Each Sub category has several scoring criteria. The Transportation Criteria section of the TEC allowed for up to 9 point or 50% of the total TEC score
• Other Impact Criteria consisted of three sub categories; Community Effects and Support, Land Use and Economic Development, and Environmental Effects. Each Sub category had several scoring criteria. Other Impact Criteria allowed for up to 9 points or 50% of the total TEC Score.

In 2014 PVPC with the assistance of the Joint Transportation Committee (JTC) completed and comprehensive update to the TEC for the MPO.  The purpose of the update was to bring the TEC up to the current requirements set forth by the Federal Transportation Law: Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21^st Century (MAP -21) as well as MassDOT’s - GreenDOT Healthy Transportation Initiative. The new TEC was base on 7 scoring criteria each with multiple sub criteria, and a new scoring range of (-6) to 100.

In March 2015 the updated TEC process was used for the first time.  During integration of the new TEC it became clear that there was a problem with one of the sub criteria.  Instead of having a total potential points of 2, the criteria should have a potential total points of (-1) to 1.  This created a 1 point deficit in total potential points of 99 instead of 100.

The proposed amendment will bring the total points up to 100.