Cross-cutting Issues

As one of, if not the first public/private partnership for the implementation of a rural advanced traveler information system (ATIS), Travel Shenandoah provides a key activity in the understanding the ATIS development process from two perspectives.

The first would be the issues faced in the implementation of a partnership between the Virginia Department of Transportation, the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (formally the Center for Transportation Research) and Shenandoah Telecommunications Corporation. This paper provides insight into the key areas of a true partnership between a public entity and a private sector firm.

The second element of the project was the structure that evolved during the development process. For Virginia, Travel Shenandoah represents a model that may be applied to other regions of the Commonwealth, i.e., creating regionally supported, directed and operated ATIS under the umbrella of a "Travel Virginia". In developing individual regional ATIS in this manner, the local/ regional tourism, traveler services and economic development actors can play a specific role in providing the necessary regional perspective as well as the "look and feel" that the region wants to present. In addition, by working with regional communications firms, the ATIS is connected to and incorporated into the local/regional marketplace providing the ability to create revenue through local/regional advertising and marketing.

Rural ITS Planning

Presented at the 10th ITS Annual Conference and Exposition, May 1-4, 2000 Boston, MA

As intelligent transportation systems are built and expanded, enormous quantities of data are becoming available which describe the status of the surface transportation system. This data is commonly communicated in the form of a system status map. One can find these maps in such applications as freeway management systems, signal control systems, automatic vehicle location systems, and web-based traveler information systems. While a number of these maps are excellent, inspections of many of the maps reveal that those developing them have not taken full advantage of basic cartographic design principles.

At the Smart Travel Laboratory (http://SmartTravelLab.virginia.edu), a joint research facility of the University of Virginia’s Center for Transportation Studies and the Virginia Transportation Research Council, we have found that system status maps are an indispensable communications tool. In fact, these maps play an important role in transforming raw data into true information that can be used by system operators and the public to improve their decisions. By using well-accepted cartographic design principles, we have been able to significantly improve the quality of our prototype maps. The purpose of this paper is to describe a generic map application development process that we have developed based on cartographic design.

University of Virginia

Presented at the 10th ITS Annual Conference and Exposition, May 1-4, 2000 Boston, MA

This paper takes a look at the wider context for performance management and addresses some potential concepts that the transportation profession can consider for the future. Of necessity, transportation performance initiatives focus on the transportation context only. However, there are many examples and applications in other fields that can yield interesting insight. To help provide a wider frame of reference and offer some thoughts for the future this paper takes a wider view, looking at the application of performance management techniques beyond publicly provided transportation.

Authors: Bob McQueen, C.Eng, MICE

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

This paper examines the use of transportation asset management (TAM) as a mechanism for “mainstreaming” intelligent transportation systems (ITS) into the transportation decision-making process. TAM is an emerging set of tools and techniques that comprise “… a comprehensive and structured approach to the long-term management of assets as tools for the efficient and effective delivery of community benefits” (1). Support for TAM as a guiding approach for managing publicly owned transportation facilities such as highway and transit systems has been increasing, although it is still in its early stages.

ITS is an emergent set of transportation “user services” that are enabled by the deployment and integration of advanced computing and communication technologies. A central concern of the ITS community has been how to incorporate or “mainstream” ITS into decisions about transportation investments. The traditional decision-making process is largely oriented towards large-scale investment projects, like highway expansions, bridges and transit systems, and is arguably ill suited for evaluating ITS investments.

Recent regulatory proposals have sought to modify the traditional planning process as a mechanism for mainstreaming ITS. This paper examines an alternative, which is to utilize the growing adoption of TAM by state departments of transportation as the springboard for mainstreaming.

George Mason University

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

This presentation will give an overview about the differences between voluntary and compulsory use of electronic HOS logging, what technologies are available, examples from successes and failures in other parts of the world, the key success factors for an EOBR regulation, and how compulsory EOBRs will look like.

Continental Automotive

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