How are the Criteria Organized?
INVEST criteria are organized into three modules, including System Planning, Project Development, and Operations & Maintenance.
INVEST includes 81 criteria organized by module. Both System Planning for States (SPS) and System Planning for Regions (SPR) contain sixteen criteria plus one bonus criteria (SPS-4, SPR-4) that agencies are eligible for based on their scores on the first three criteria. The Project Development (PD) module includes 33 criteria that are generally organized from planning to design to construction. The Operations & Maintenance (OM) module includes 14 criteria including four aimed at internal operations and ten focused on maintenance and operations of the highway system.
There is one scorecard each for the SPS, SPR, and OM modules that includes all of the criteria in the respective module. The PD module includes seven scorecard options, including:
- Paving - for projects that are devoted exclusively to pavement preservation or restoration projects that extend the service life of existing facilities and enhance safety, and pavement restoration projects that restore pavement structure, ride quality, and spot safety.
- Basic Rural - for small rural reconstruction or rural bridge replacement project that does not expand capacity of the roadway.
- Basic Urban - for small urban reconstruction or urban bridge replacement project that does not expand capacity of the roadway.
- Extended Rural - for rural construction project of a new roadway facility or a structure where nothing of its type currently exists and major reconstruction projects that add travel lanes to an existing roadway or bridge.
- Extended Urban - for urban construction project of a new roadway facility or a structure where nothing of its type currently exists and major reconstruction projects that add travel lanes to an existing roadway or bridge.
- Recreational and Scenic - for projects on recreational and scenic roads such as those led by Federal Lands.
- Custom - for projects that do not fit any of the pre-defined scorecard options, the Custom Scorecard will allow the user to develop a unique set of criteria that is most appropriate for the project being evaluated. The Custom Scorecard starts with a set of 11 non-negotiable, core criteria that must be included as part of the score. There are no achievement levels associated with the custom scorecard.
Generally, the distinction between rural and urban should be made by an agency's planning department. If needed, a project could use the 2010 Census Urban and Rural Classification to determine the "urban" classification.
Each PD scorecard includes a different combination of the 33 PD criteria based on the type project. The custom scorecard includes nineteen core criteria plus user-selected criteria to make a custom self-evaluation for projects that don't fit well into the five defined scorecards. The following table shows the criteria included in each of the PD scorecards.
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