Cross-cutting Issues

The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) has begun the rWeather Program to collect and disseminate real-time and predictive statewide road and weather information. The program is being accomplished in two phases. In phase I, WSDOT is gathering all available data and developing better ways to more accurately predict detailed weather conditions. These high-resolution weather forecasts are then being integrated with information from road condition models developed for use in Washington State.

Washington State Transportation Center (TRAC)

Washington State Department of Transportation - Advanced Technology Branch

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

Many operating agencies, throughout the world, have implemented computerized, traffic adaptive, signal control systems in the last several decades. Many latest traffic signal control and management methods, currently being used, are somewhat inadequate to handle the dynamic traffic demand growths in most rural tourist attractions in the ever-changing rural environment. On the other hand, tremendous advancement has been made in the traffic control system hardware, system optimization/simulation software, local signal controller, traffic data collection, and system performance evaluation technologies to support the implementation of these advanced traffic management strategies. This paper reviews recent computerized traffic signal control system technologies, growing users’ operational needs, and implementation considerations for the increasingly critical rural traffic management.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory

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

Mainstreaming of ITS and regional architecture consistency with the National ITS Architecture are much sought after goals in the transportation community today. Toward these goals, a regional ITS architecture for FDOT District 7, including Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco, Hernando, and Citrus counties, was completed in December 1999. A mail-in survey of the public agencies, representing the five counties and FDOT District 7, was undertaken to solicit input on the architecture development. The survey results were analyzed to determine primary stakeholders, types of legacy systems, level of traffic/traveler information sharing, and interest in continuing ITS deployments, types of institutional agreements needed, institutional barriers, and funding issues. The market packages for each County and FDOT District 7, prioritized as part of the District 7 Strategic Deployment Plan for ITS study were further refined based on the survey results.

A Division of Parsons Brinckerhoff Quade & Douglas, Inc.

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

Transit agencies have increasingly developed internet sites to provide information on their services, sell fare media, and encourage increased ridership. Previous research has indicated a number of desirable features for these transit web sites. This paper summarizes the results of a review of over 600 transit web sites for prevalence of these features. It describes the features reviewed, and summarizes the demographics of the agencies with web sites. It includes the results of the review for all agencies, grouped by type of federal funding, and by type of service area. The review shows that there is wide variation across web sites in content and presentation, overall and within groups. Fare and schedule information is common, but advanced capabilities such as itinerary planning and real time information provision are rare. Web sites for tourist areas tend to have more features than most other rural transit web sites. A high proportion of transit web sites have links to other sites, but the links frequently include sites that are irrelevant and sometimes imply transportation options that are not available. Quality of transit web sites could be improved by identifying appropriate content based on the desired audience and purpose, improving user interfaces to make it easier for users to access the information, and developing appropriate linkages among transit and other transportation web sites.

USDOT/Volpe Center

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

The San Diego Intermodal Transportation Management System (IMTMS) is a regional project consisting of the integration of four transportation modal management systems: the Intermodal Advanced Traffic Management System (ATMSi) for freeway management, the Regional Arterial Management System, Transit Management System, InterCAD Incident Management System and Advanced Traveler Information Management System for Information Service Provider dissemination. A separate project for event management, called the Mission Valley ATMS/ATIS System provides a data and video Intertie between the City of San Diego and Caltrans and will fall under the regional IMTMS umbrella. A regional communications network will be built (and leased) to support connection of the modal management systems. Systems connecting to this regional network will conform to the Common Object Request Broker Architecture specifications being developed for the Southern California Priority Corridor Showcase network. These specifications also conform to National ITS Architecture standards for Center to Center communications. Part of the specifications include an Interface Definition Language, a lingua franca for describing transportation objects in a common format across dissimilar systems.

National Engineering Technology Corporation

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