Cross-cutting Issues

With the proliferation of Ethernet as a technology to connect  traffic controllers, video surveillance camera’s and other intelligent end devices (IED’s), comes the need to build mission critical fault tolerant networks. This paper discusses the application of Rapid Spanning Tree (RSTP) to the construction of robust intelligent transportation systems (ITS) networks. 
We will review the differences between traditional Spanning Tree and Rapid Spanning Tree.  Practical examples will be provided to help the audience better understand the need and use of Rapid Spanning Tree. Guidance will be offered to help in the design of networks requiring redundancy and failover.

RuggedCom Inc.

Presented at the ITS America Annual Conference and Exposition, April 26 - 28, 2004 San Antonio, Texas

University  of  Siegen  developed  recently  a  Velocity  Profile Planning Module to support the drivers during the ride on the road [1]. The main task of this module is to adjust the velocity
of  a  vehicle  to  the  road  parameters.  So,  in  front  of  a  bend  the velocity  must  be  reduced  automatically  in  time  and  behind  the bend the car can speed up again. In order to realize this, the road data and the current position of the vehicle have to be known for
the Velocity Planning Module. Thus, the data of roads are stored in a database and the current position of the vehicle is determined by a GPS (Global Position System) receiver. The problem that the position  given  by  GPS  contains  errors  falsifying  the  correct position,  was  unavoidable  during  implementation  of  the  Profile Planning  module.  Here,  a  strategy  is  presented,  how  the  fact  of GPS errors can be opposed.

University of Siegen

Presented at the ITS America Annual Conference and Exposition, April 26 - 28, 2004 San Antonio, Texas

There is a growing need in the intermodal industry for better tracking of containers in transit to improve handling and throughput, increase security, and enable the use of electronic data interchange (EDI). Since radio frequency (RF) tags or electronic seals (e-seals) are not standardized in the container shipping industry, automation of the container recognition process must be achieved by using the identification numbers printed on the containers.
It is in this context that the Transportation Development Centre (TDC) of Transport Canada, the Montreal Port Authority, and the prime systems integrator DTI Telecommunications have developed and delivered a system that integrates automatic equipment identification (AEI) with an optical character recognition (OCR) system to automate the identification of railcars and containers. This paper describes the final testing and integration phase associated with the delivery of an AEI system with a proprietary, state-of-the-art OCR system for automatic identification of railcars and containers. The integration of these two systems into an information technology (IT) environment meets the Port community’s requirement for timely, accurate information, and provides a basis for customer service improvement.

Transportation Development Centre (TDC), Transport Canada

Presented at the ITS America Annual Conference and Exposition, April 26 - 28, 2004 San Antonio, Texas

This study begins to examine the potential demand for ITS technologies in Minnesota’s populace, both in the Twin Cities and statewide, with a focus on those attracted to services that do not require owning a single occupant vehicle to serve as the primary mode of transportation. The primary objective is to better understand how the needs of travelers are changing and how
ITS can be used to provide better transportation services to meet those changing needs.  
The research identified three populations that would benefit from ITS solutions. As travel
behavior has become much more diverse, corresponding groups of diverse travelers are
emerging. Car sharing, flexible transit and telecommuting / Advanced Traveler Information
Systems (ATIS) are ITS solutions for these diverse groups that can be tailored to meet the
assorted travel needs of these groups. The research problem is to identify the nature of the gap between the emerging needs and existing services, and to propose ways to use technology to bridge the gap, both in terms of providing better transportation options and in reducing the cost of these options.

University of Minnesota

Presented at the ITS America Annual Conference and Exposition, April 26 - 28, 2004 San Antonio, Texas

It does not take a clairvoyant to predict the role and importance that web services will
have in intelligent transportation systems (ITS).  The question that is in everyone's mind
is how will it fit into the framework already established by the many standards and
working groups?  This paper examines one web service aspect that is compatible with the
current ITS framework and is foundational to its future development.  That one aspect is
discovery, which is the publishing and finding of resources over a wide-area network.  
Generally speaking, a discovery system requires a namespace that adequately defines its
domain.  Therefore, an ITS discovery system needs an ITS namespace based upon a well
known and accepted taxonomy in the transportation industry.   The obvious fit for the ITS
namespace is the taxonomy defined by the National ITS Architecture.  By mapping this
taxonomy into a discovery system, transportation can take an easy but vital stride in
defining standards for center-to-center (C2C) web services.  This is especially important
for emerging C2C applications, because a common discovery system will facilitate the
future networking of transportation regions. The C2C working group has already taken an
important first step by defining a naming convention to uniquely identify centers and
resources within the United States (NTCIP 1104).  Without much effort, the ITS
namespace can provide a valuable extension to this convention through the specification
of the ITS discovery service.  In other words, ITS discovery is a web service that uses the
C2C naming and the National ITS Architecture taxonomy for the definition and
discovery of centers and their shared resources.  This paper begins by comparing three
parts of business-to-business (B2B) activities with and center-to-center (C2C) activities.  
Of the three parts, discovery is shown to be key.  The B2B industry is in the process of
adopting a standard discovery web service, called the Universal Description, Discovery,
and Integration (UDDI) service.  Likewise in California, the San Diego region is
developing a so-called Center Description, Discovery, and Integration (CDDI) service.  
There are five steps for adapting B2B UDDI service for use with C2C CDDI service.  
CDDI data structures are discussed and the paper concludes by showing how centers
would use CDDI.  This approach is under development in San Diego's Intermodal
Transportation Management System (IMTMS) and may become the regional standard.  
At the National level, the CDDI and its associated center object designs have not yet been
presented to the center-to-center working group, mainly because of development delays
and overloaded agendas.

National Engineering Technology (NET)

Presented at the ITS America Annual Conference and Exposition, April 26 - 28, 2004 San Antonio, Texas