Cross-cutting Issues

The Crosstown Connector is a limited-access toll road under construction that is slated to
connect the Lee Roy Selmon Crosstown Expressway and Interstate 4 corridors, near
downtown Tampa, Florida. With a price tag of approximately $389.5 Million, this will be one
of the largest public works projects in Tampa, within the Florida Department of
Transportation’s (FDOT) District 7 region. When completed, the highway will not only
connect the two corridors but also be able to transport people and cargo to and from the Port
of Tampa and downtown Tampa. The first phase of the project, ITS planning, included tasks
such as stakeholder outreach, ITS project architecture development, compliance to the
regional architecture per the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) Rule 940,
subsystem identification, communication and electrical systems, and conceptual location of
devices and communication infrastructure in a graphical plot, all summarized as part of a
feasibility study (1). Once the study was completed, ITS design activities were initiated.
During the years 2006 through 2009, several ITS design milestones along with all project
disciplines were completed including roadway, lighting/electrical, signing and marking,
structures and geotechnical. The project is currently in construction with the completion date
likely in the year 2013.

Author: Ron Pati, P.E.

Presented at the 18th World Congress on ITS, October 2011, Orlando, Florida

In 1995, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT) initiated the Traffic Incident
Management Enhancement (TIME) Program to improve the safety and efficiency of the
freeway system in Wisconsin, and to emphasize the importance of incident management in
overall system operations. Not only did the TIME Program quickly become the institutional
and operational complement to the state’s ITS deployment and infrastructure, it also became
the basis for on-going and emerging initiatives involving Work Zone Safety and Mobility and
Emergency Transportation Operations (ETO). The early success of TIME led to WisDOT
and the Program receiving an ITS America “Best-Of” award back in 2002. Over the past
fifteen years, TIME has matured into an on-going, sustained, statewide incident management
program and has further evolved into serving as a foundation for dealing with a wide range of
emergencies and situations such as traffic incidents, work zones, planned special events, and
severe weather.

Authors: Steven J. Cyra, PE, PTOE, John M. Corbin, PE, PTOE, Anne I. Reshadi, PE

Presented at the 18th World Congress on ITS, October 2011, Orlando, Florida

Transportation agencies in Metro Detroit were early adopters of intelligent transportation systems technologies, but the use of these technologies to support regional transportation operations depends on the involvement of a wide range of partners with similar interests in safe and efficient traffic movement.  This recognition led to the establishment of a traffic incident management program and a regional concept of transportation operations to organize both transportation agencies and public safety partners to promote safer, more efficient operations.  This organization provides the institutional support to sustain continuing regional transportation operations.

Author: Richard F. Beaubien, PE, PTOE

Presented at the 18th World Congress on ITS, October 2011, Orlando, Florida

This paper aims to apply Social Network Analysis method in an investigation of interagency relationship in regional ITS system development. Government agencies who are involved in policy making, planning, and implementation of ITS systems rely on inter-agency cooperation to achieve their goals and expectations. From a network analysis perspective, these agencies build up ties with others and form networks for a specific purpose. We suggest a network-based approach to investigate the inter-agent interactions in regional ITS communities. Data on interagency relationships are based on direct observations and historic data. The network analysis approach enables us to recognize key groups/communities, identify key nodes and links, and discover structural holes with the potential of recommending new ties between agencies. The New York-New Jersey-Connecticut metropolitan region is a very unique example of complex transportation systems, where agencies are involved in multiple levels of policy making, planning, and implementation of activities in the transportation domain. By studying the centrality measures and component partitions of the individual networks and their combination, we found some agencies who were appointed to address regional issues function effectively and are active in assisting interagency communication. It was also observed that some agencies present themselves in more favorable positions when they participate in the regional ITS developments, while others are not as powerful in terms of controlling and monitoring information exchange in the network. The result of this research may facilitate the improvements of collaboration mechanism between agencies to achieve higher effectiveness.

Author: Xi Zou

Presented at the 18th World Congress on ITS, October 2011, Orlando, Florida

We study the problem of congestion in metropolitan areas and propose an adaptive Intelligent Transport System for Metropolitan Areas (ITSMA) – a traffic congestion management system that manages high occupancy vehicular traffic, commercial truck traffic and helps in coordination of commuter and ride share traffic. Most of these components are already available in parts – in form of stochastic algorithms for managing truck traffic, systems for ride share coordination using 5.9 GHz Vehicular Area Networks and numerous systems for HoV and toll management. The proposed ITSMA system consists of a prediction engine that takes multiple real time indicators to build a traffic congestion model. The decision engine component of ITSMA system takes the traffic congestion model, and using a database of previous actions and their impacts, proposes and implements actions in real-time. The outputs of the ITSMA system can be used to suggest routes, control high occupancy restrictions, traffic light durations, toll rates and access of commercial traffic. It can also aid in coordinating ride shares and public transportation units. Such a combined system can best leverage the investment at a metropolitan level and provide the best traffic congestion management solution.

Author: Amrinder Arora, DSc

Presented at the 18th World Congress on ITS, October 2011, Orlando, Florida