Measuring the Value of Mobility Management

Mobility managers create immense value in their communities, but showing how they do so can be a difficult task. Value can be defined as "the worth or usefulness of a good or service, and the benefit that may be gained from it. Measuring those "goods or services" means attaching a dollar (or other) value to your mobility management-related inputs and activities and look at those in the context of your mission and goals and the outcomes and impacts for your target population. Understanding all these pieces is vital to helping you articulate your value. Below is a visual of all these components.

Pyramid communicating hierarchy of metrics

(See also NCMM's written brief and other resources on performance measures.)

Step 1: Create a Mobility Management Program Mission Statement

Your mobility management program should reflect how it contributes to the organization’s mission, so be sure that you are totally familiar with your organization’s mission statement. Write your organization’s mission statement below as a reference point.

A mobility management mission statement describes the overall purpose of mobility management, including the mobility manager, reflecting mobility management products and services, markets, and values for which you as the mobility manager are responsible. The mission statement focuses on the “why” of the mobility management function, including why your position is important. This is the grand context against which you measure your value. If you are contributing to fulfilling your mission, you are establishing the value of mobility management.

As you begin to write a mission statement specific to your mobility management program, consider these questions:

    • What caused your program to be created?
    • How does it function within your agency’s overall activities?
    • At the broadest level, why is mobility management important to your stakeholders and your organization?
    • What are you trying to achieve?
    • What would success in achieving your mission look like?

Sample mission: "The mission of the Mobility Management Program (MMP) is to provide access to transportation information and resources so that all residents, including older adults, people with disabilities, and individuals with limited income, will be able to access a wide range of transportation solutions to ensure mobility in and around our region."

Step 2: Identify Goals

Goals articulate the ways in which the mobility management function and your position will seek to accomplish your mission over the long term – roughly 3-5 years. Your goals stem from your mission statement. Here are some questions to consider:

    • In the next 3-5 years, what do I hope to accomplish through my mobility management program? How does this tie back to my mission?
    • In the next 3-5 years, what are concrete changes I could make to the current mobility system I would like to change?

Sample goals: "The MMP will  inform 1) Establish a one-call/one-click mobility management center to ensure easier and faster access to transportation information, 2) Increase the number of individuals using a wider variety of transportation services in the region, and 3) Ensure inclusive planning for a regional focus on transportation by establishing an SMMMP Steering Committee with membership representing older adults, people with disabilities, low-income residents and workers, transit agencies, transportation providers, and other organizational partners.

Step 3: Define Measurable Objectives

Objectives are more immediate, measurable, statements of how progress toward longer term goals will be measured. These serve as mileposts that are achievable within 1-3 years, and directly show how mobility managers contribute to achieving its goals. Because objectives require measurement, it is important to develop them practically; the SMART Model, outlined below, is a good template to use in developing objectives:

    • Specific – Clearly describe the who, what, how, and where of an activity/series of activities.
    • Measurable – Define results that are quantifiable in numbers or percentages that can be compared with baseline data to show progress.
    • Attainable – Describe concrete results that can be reasonably achieved within the set amount of time. One way to know if an objective is attainable is to understand the current performance level, or to examine results from similar programs or places.
    • Relevant – Relate to organization/mobility management goals.
    • Time-oriented – To be accomplished within a specific time period.

Here’s an example of objectives for Goal #1 "Establish a one-call/one-click mobility management center to ensure easier and faster access to transportation information."

Year 1: Gather service and cost data on all eight transportation services in the region (numb.

Year 2: Establish a unified MMP website that includes all the transportation services data in one place.

Years 2 and 3: Market the website to up to 10 social service agencies that serve older adults, people with disabilities, and individuals with limited income

End of Year 3: Double the number of “hits” on the website vs. number at midpoint of Year 2.

Step 4: Activities

Activities are the specific, day-to-day tasks that mobility managers perform to do their job, such as making or answering phone calls, holding community meetings, or providing travel training. List our the activities you perform to fulfill your objectives, and label them as inputs, outputs, outcomes, or impacts (described below).

    • What activities can you conduct that will achieve that objective?
    • What are the resources you use to conduct your activities (inputs)?
    • How many people will you serve (outputs)?
    • How will conditions change as a result of these activities (outcomes)?
    • How will people’s lives change as a result of the mobility management activities (impacts)?
    • Will you be able to provide examples and stories to demonstrate the value of your mobility management program?

Step 5: Tying it all together: Creating a Value Statement

To state the value of your mobility management activities, you need to determine the cost of each resource that will contribute to the achievement of the mission, goals, and objectives. This will mean identifying the total cost (including benefits and overhead) of the mobility management position(s), as well as operating expenses needed, identify what you have produced with those resources (outputs), identify and try to put a dollar value to how conditions have changed because of those activities (outcomes), and identify (and put a dollar value, if possible) how the lives of individuals have been affected (impacts). For example, use these to consider economic benefits (connections to jobs), and cost avoidance (health care no-shows reduced) for further evidence of value.

Once you've identified all the components of your mobility management value pyramid, you are finally ready to write your value statement in this format:

With the investment of X (e.g. staff time), we will be able to do Y (e.g. conduct travel training events), which will allow our customers to do Z (e.g. reach doctors' appointments independently)."