With summer traffic reaching its peak, the Martha’s Vineyard Commission is urging more public participation in an annual planning process that helps determine which transportation projects on the Island receive federal and state funding.

The commission will hold a public meeting Thursday to discuss an updated Public Participation Plan — the first in almost 10 years — which outlines the transportation planning process and opportunities for public participation along the way. The meeting begins at 3:30 p.m. in the Olde Stone Building in Oak Bluffs.

It will also present draft updates of the Island’s multi-year Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) and an associated management plan, both of which are updated every year. All three documents, along with a 25-year Martha’s Vineyard Transportation Plan, are required under federal law.

As one of the state’s 13 metropolitan planning organizations, the commission provides a direct link between Dukes County and the state and federal agencies that provide transportation funding. The roundabout in Oak Bluffs, the new intersection of Old County and State roads in West Tisbury, and the new Lagoon Pond drawbridge in Tisbury are among the recently completed projects to receive TIP funding.

But public participation has often been a missing wheel in the process. When the commission updated its 25-year plan last summer, for example, no one attended the public hearing, although an article in the Gazette later drew a number of online comments, many of them voicing specific concerns and ideas.

MVC transportation planner Priscilla Leclerc said this week that despite her efforts to reach out to the community, including through the Facebook page Islanders Talk, the 25-year plan, which is updated every five years, did not include any official comments from Island residents. “They seem to complain on the Facebook page, but they don’t show up,” she said.

There is no requirement to update the Public Participation Plan every year, she said, but the old plan was so outdated and hard to find, she added, that the state Department of Transportation had recommended a new one. The plan outlines the public process, which includes hearings, regular meetings, workshops and open houses, and includes a quick-reference guide for how to get involved. The MVC joint transportation committee usually meets once a month, but less often in the summer.

Ms. Leclerc said the lack of public participation characterizes the MVC’s planning efforts in general, which often take a back seat to its regular reviews of developments of regional impact (DRIs). “There seem to be a lot of developments that make the news, but not a lot of the other planning processes,” Ms. Leclerc said.

The new draft plan states, among other things, that the Dukes County transportation system as a whole “improves with input from its users,” and that public support may provide an advantage for Island towns competing for state and federal funds.

This year’s TIP proposals are much the same as last year’s, although funding for the Beach Road improvement project in Tisbury, and for improvements to Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road in Edgartown was put off until next year, since neither project is ready to be advertised to contractors. Instead, the joint transportation committee allocated about $1,750,000 for the purchase of four VTA busses. To coincide with the state’s five-year capital investment plan, the Island TIP will now cover a period of five years, rather than four.

All three draft transportation plans are available on the MVC website, mvcommission.org. A statewide TIP document that incorporates the Vineyard projects is also open for public comment, at massdot.state.ma.us.