Highlights From the 19th ITS World Congress in Vienna
October 31, 2012
Visitors from over 90 countries came together for five days of networking and demonstrations at the 19th ITS World Congress, in Vienna Austria. This event brought nearly 300 attendees from the United States and Canada, and 50 American presenters to discuss various approaches and solutions, and to showcase pieces on mobility and intelligent transportation systems (ITS). The Americas were also ably represented by six rapporteurs who assisted in efforts to capture the learning’s from the World Congress. With appreciation for their efforts, they were: Rob Bertini, Portland State University, Mike Walton, and the University of Texas at Austin, Carol Schweiger, Transystems, John Funny, Grice Consulting Group, Richard Easley, E-Squared Engineering, and Nu Rosenbohm, ITS America.
Multiple ITS America committees met at the World Congress, including the Americas representatives to the ITS World Congress Board of Directors, the ITS America Strategic Planning Committee, the ITS America International Committee, and a number of the 2014 Detroit World Congress organizers.
The ITS Hall of Fame Awards recognized three influential people from the Americas, Asian-Pacific, and Europe, who have contributed to the vision of ITS. The recipient of the Hall of Fame for the Americas was Gerald Conover from PRC Associates, a longstanding ITS America Member. When presented with the award, Conover commented, “To be recognized by one’s peers for one’s lifetime’s work is very moving.” The Asian-Pacific and European recipients were Xiaojing Wang, from the China National ITS, and the late Job Klijnhout, from Rijkswaterstaat in The Netherlands.
During the World Congress, CH2MHill sponsored an extremely well attended reception at the Americas Pavilion on Tuesday, October 23rd, with over 250 attendees, representing more than a dozen countries. Dan Baxter of CH2MHill and Peter Sweatman, Chair of ITS America hosted the event.
The last day of the ITS World Congress concluded with the closing ceremony, featuring the Best Paper Awards . The American recipient for Best Technical Paper was Matthew Dorfman, D'Artagnan Consulting, his winning paper was entitled "Software as a Service and the growth of ITS." The recipient for the Best Scientific Paper was Ismail Zohdy and Professor Hesham Rakha, Virginia Tech, their paper was entitled "Optimizing Driverless Vehicles at Intersections."