Unified Transportation Program (UTP)
Transportation planning
The State of Texas is witnessing significant population and economic growth, a development that presents both opportunities and challenges. This growth has a tremendous impact on the state's transportation system, which must accommodate the increasing demand to move people and goods.
TxDOT’s Unified Transportation Program (UTP) plays a prominent role in this effort. Updated annually and approved by the Texas Transportation Commission, the UTP serves as an intermediate programming and development “roadmap” that is used to define, prioritize and assign available funding to thousands of Texas transportation projects over a continuous 10-year period.
TxDOT only publishes a subset of projects in the UTP document’s Highway Project Listings. These projects funded through categories 2, 4, and 12 of the UTP address highway mobility and connectivity and include many projects of significant public interest. TxDOT uses its online portal Project Tracker to supplement the UTP with information about thousands of additional transportation projects not listed in the document.
Because funding levels may change in the future, the UTP does not serve as a budget or a guarantee that certain projects will be built. Instead, the plan authorizes TxDOT and local partnering agencies to prepare projects for construction based on potential future cash flow.
Fact sheets
Transportation Planning and Programming: Overview
During the transportation planning process, TxDOT develops goals and performance targets for the statewide transportation system and sets the direction for future infrastructure investment. The UTP performs an essential role in this process: providing funding to proposed projects and enabling those projects to proceed to construction and completion.
Why does TxDOT plan transportation projects?
- A project can take many years to plan, design and construct before Texans experience the benefits. How TxDOT invests its resources today will impact the transportation system of tomorrow, so the department must anticipate the future needs of the system and focus today’s resources wisely.
- Through its planning activities, TxDOT engages the public and its partners to deliver a system that serves all of Texas. Several federal and state laws also inform and instruct how TxDOT conducts its planning activities.
TxDOT planning and programming process
TxDOT's planning and programming efforts can be divided into two categories, each of which addresses different time horizons. This allows TxDOT to program projects in the near-term while anticipating for the state's transportation needs in the long-term.
- Long term vision
- Statewide Long-Range Transportation Plan - A minimum of 24 years into the future
- Metropolitan Transportation Plans - A minimum of 20 years into the future
- Program development
- Unified Transportation Program - 10 years into the future
- Statewide Transportation Improvement Program - 4 years in the future
Learn more about the UTP
Learn about the process of preparing the UTP each year
Find out about the essential role the public has in shaping the UTP
Explore how TxDOT forecasts and allocates funding for the UTP
See how the UTP supports TxDOT's goals and strategies across the state