Cross-cutting Issues

This paper will focus on how ITS benefit-cost research products can be transferred to
transportation professionals as credible, useful decision support tools for state department of
transportation (DOT) officials. Research has been conducted for several years by Partners for
Advanced Transit and Highways (PATH) at the University of California, Berkeley, sponsored by
the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans). This research effort has produced
models and a body of academic work establishing the unique benefits of ITS applications
working in synergy to improve system management, increase traveler information, make transit a
better alternative, improve safety and reliability. With the products of the research effort
becoming available, the challenge is to transfer the research to the practitioners.
This paper elaborates the process of developing an approach to achieve this transfer of ITS
benefit-cost research to the practitioners and to develop a credible decision support argument for
funding ITS in Caltrans’ transportation system management strategies. To accomplish this goal,
Caltrans has undertaken to develop an “ITS Benefit Assessment Toolkit” for state planners and
engineers. The Toolkit will provide an array of decision support tools geared to the existing
Caltrans decision support framework. In addition to development of the Toolkit, is the need to
gain acceptance of the ITS benefit-cost assessments within existing plans, programs and project
development processes.

California Department of Transportation

Presented at the ITS America Annual Conference and Exposition, April 29-May 2, 2002, Long Beach, California

The present paper is concerned with a presentation of the PORTAL of the Centre for Research
and Technology Hellas - Hellenic Institute of Transport (HIT PORTAL). HIT PORTAL is a
web-based, user oriented online platform that supports all transport related entities in their
various activities.
HIT PORTAL aims at the creation of critical information content concerning the operations of
all basic transport fields, the disposal of expert tools to be used by institutions and companies
in the transport field, the regular monitoring of the national transport system and the support
of innovation in the field of transport through the provision of state-of-the-art technological
infrastructure, operational environment and data.
The services provided by the online platform of HIT PORTAL include the Transport
Observatory. Transportation and traffic data provision, Routing, Advanced transportation
forecasting and simulation tools, Info-mobility services and a Test Bed for new products’
temporal hosting.

Hellenic Institute of Transport

Presented at the 15th World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems, November 16-20, 2008, New York, New York

This study develops two on-line stochastic routing policies/algorithms which identify the optimal next action at the current decision node (intersection) for travelers preferring either the shortest path or the most reliable path given the current network conditions. Considering that real-time traffic information is usually available with a certain level of accuracy, the proposed on-line routing policy integrates an existing information fusion model which provides real-time short-term link travel time distributions by considering information accuracy. Further, this study uses numerical experiments to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed routing policies/algorithms as well as the impacts of realtime information accuracy on the on-line stochastic routing.

NEXTRANS

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

The I-95 Vehicle Probe project (VPP) has been in production since July 2008 providing estimates of speed and travel time on network of roadways that has expanded to over 5,000 freeway miles. Each estimate of speed is accompanied by two metrics that provide an indication of the level of confidence and/or quality of the traffic data: Score and C-value. This paper statistically characterizes the distribution of Score and C-Value in the VPP data archive in order to better understand the quality of the VPP and reveal any improvements over the life of the project.  Both Score and C-Value are tested to determine their effectiveness as a data filter to improve real-time traffic data quality.

Authors: Stanley E. Young, P.E., Ph.D., Nayel Urena Serulle

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

Protected/permissive left-turn (PPLT) control is used at locations where there is a separate
display for left-turn movements. One of the disadvantages of the PPLT control is the “yellow
trap”. The configuration of the flashing yellow arrow (FYA) signal design allows for various
left turn phasing throughout the day, eliminates the “yellow trap” condition present during
certain phasing schemes, and provides a clearer meaning of a permissive left turn. This study
presents an approach to analyze drivers’ understanding of this new FYA display
arrangements and indications through a field observation. The left-turn drivers’ reaction from
the video observation is classified into sixteen categories with four phases: solid red arrow,
solid yellow arrow, flashing yellow arrow and solid green arrow. The intersection at MO 340
and Barnes Drive, St. Louis, MO is selected to demonstrate the proposed observation and
analysis approaches.

University of Missouri – Kansas City

Presented at the ITS America Annual Conference and Exposition, November 16-20, 2008, New York, New York