Cross-cutting Issues

Several initiatives on the national Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) agenda will succeed only with strong central leadership to provide vision and coordination. Such programs typically offer tremendous benefits to the traveling public but for various reasons due to either to economic, legal, or social issues do not attract private capital to drive development and implementation. In contrast many items on the national agenda will succeed simply due to the promised economic benefits and/or cost reduction.

If I were in charge of the national ITS program I would emphasize three particular areas due to the reasons stated above. The three areas are: continued development of a national rural crash notification system (frequently referred to as a Mayday system), continued emphasis and funding of Advanced Traffic Management Systems (ATMS) in order to manage our nation’s freeway and interstate system in and about metropolitan areas, and continued development and research on Automated Vehicle Control Systems (AVCS) to eventually deliver on the ITS promise of additional capacity within the existing highway infrastructure.

ITS Essay Competition

Stanley E. Young

Kansas State University

Presented at the 11th ITS Annual Conference and Exposition, June 4-7, 2001 Miami Beach, Florida

This paper presents an overview of the architecture development process for the State of New Mexico. This statewide architecture was based on extensive stakeholder input as to the desired long-term vision for ITS in New Mexico, as well as integrating the existing and planned systems throughout the state. An analysis of centralized, distributed and hybrid architecture integration options evaluated as part of the statewide ITS architecture development is presented, as well as the recommended integration strategy and potential applications.

Kimley-Horn and Associates, Inc.

New Mexico State Highway and Transportation Department

Presented at the 11th ITS Annual Conference and Exposition, June 4-7, 2001 Miami Beach, Florida

The Virginia DOT Smart Travel Program unifies the ITS applications of all transportation modes and levels of government under one umbrella concept – Smart Travel. The NOVA Smart Travel Program planning process anticipates future transportation service needs, including the geographic and functional needs, and envisions complete Smart Travel systems to meet those needs. It directly addresses the need for planning and coordination in system development, and also provides a solid foundation for the development of a VDOT centric Northern Virginia ITS architecture. While a Metropolitan Washington regional ITS architecture and Maryland Statewide ITS architecture are undertaken at the same time, it provides an unique opportunity for three architecture teams to work cooperatively in producing architectures in a consistent manner. Due to the development of the Metropolitan Washington regional ITS architecture that will address regional stakeholders’ interconnects, VDOT could therefore focus on a VDOT NOVA Centric ITS architecture development.

VDOT Northern Virginia District

Presented at the 11th ITS Annual Conference and Exposition, June 4-7, 2001 Miami Beach, Florida

Designers at the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) have developed the Advanced Law Enforcement & Response Technology (ALERT) system for use in police cruisers. The interface for this system is a large touch-screen display along with a keyboard for text entry. The interface was developed using an intuitive usability approach rather than a formal human factors approach. Since this technology is likely to be deployed rapidly if it finds acceptance in those agencies currently testing it, the Federal Highway Administration contracted with the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI) to perform baseline and human factors evaluations of the ALERT system. The rationale for this study was that a thorough evaluation might result in opportunities for improvement of the ALERT interface before it was widely deployed.

The results of the baseline study showed that the ALERT system generally required more frequent and longer glances to the interface in order to perform the same functions than was the case for the other two vehicle types. There were some tasks for which ALERT outperformed the other vehicles types, and these improvements could be generally credited to the larger screen size and more favorable positioning of the ALERT screen. For Code 3 calls (high priority responses), a less cluttered work area was found to reduce visual demand. The human factors evaluation uncovered several usability and error problems with ALERT, including problems with reliability/trust, time delays, user expectations, and human error; suggestions for correcting these problems are provided. Finally, the future of in-vehicle information systems for law enforcement is discussed, with the conclusion that greater standardization of forms and databases nationwide would enhance the commercial viability of systems such as ALERT.

Virginia Tech Transportation Institute

Federal Highway Administration

Science Application International Corporation

Presented at the 11th ITS Annual Conference and Exposition, June 4-7, 2001 Miami Beach, Florida

This paper presents the findings of a study that demonstrates the feasibility of estimating link travel time and speeds in real-time for a rural, mountainous section of an interstate freeway in Colorado using vehicles instrumented with global positioning system receivers, serving as probes in traffic streams. The system configuration proposed includes a very cost-effective, portable GPS deployment unit, communication links to a PC server, and an integrated prototype system for vehicle tracking, estimating statistics on link travel time and a user interface.

The section of the I-70 corridor in Colorado selected for this study is located in a mountainous terrain just east of the Eisenhower Tunnel - gateway to the ski resorts, including Winter Park, Vail, and Aspen, from the Denver International Airport. It carries high traffic volume during the ski season and also during the summer months. Currently there is very limited surveillance infrastructure to monitor traffic conditions for this critical corridor. In this mountainous terrain, loop detectors are difficult to maintain due to icy conditions and snow removal practices. Video surveillance is also not feasible due to limited communication links.

Colorado TransLab - Department of Civil Engineering - University of Colorado

Colorado Department of Transportation

Presented at the 11th ITS Annual Conference and Exposition, June 4-7, 2001 Miami Beach, Florida