Cross-cutting Issues

MOT+ is a next-generation online Intelligent Transportation Systems application designed to facilitate the multi-jurisdictional communication and planning processes between the construction and traffic management disciplines. The benefits of MOT+ to the ITS and roadway construction industries, community events venues and planners, and commercial vehicle operators and the motoring public include:

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Improved maintenance of traffic on roadway, railway and utility construction and maintenance projects

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Keeping people and goods moving to enhance our economy and improve safety

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Enabling traffic management operators and incident management teams manage traffic safely

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Alerting the traveling public and the news media of upcoming congestion related to workzones and Planned Special Events

Global-5 Communications

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

Much has been written about how mass transit operators can use social media to benefit their agencies. This paper highlights some of these advantages but mostly focuses on some of the issues that keep organizations from getting started with social media. These may include concerns about technical requirements, the digital divide and access for people with disabilities, staff management, controlling the conversation, cyber-security, and record-keeping requirements. These concerns are examined and strategies for addressing them are presented, based largely on the experience of other transportation organizations in the U.S. and Canada.

Author: Susan Bregman

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

Mn/DOT has a systems interchange project at the I-494/TH 169 interchange in the southwest part of Minneapolis. The current interchange is experiencing backups of 3 miles in the northbound direction of TH 169 and 1.5 miles backup in the southbound direction during the peak hours on a daily basis and is one of the most congested locations in the Twin Cities. The current interchange is an odd mixture of a cloverleaf and a diamond interchange. TH 169 has three closely spaced traffic signals along the project segment, the last three signals on a highway that is designed as a full access-controlled facility for everywhere except the I-494 interchange area in the Twin Cities area. The three traffic signals and the weaving caused by the cloverleaf design are causing the majority of the daily traffic congestion.

Author: Joel K. Marcuson

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

Managing congestion and improving personal mobility is an obvious concern for the transportation industry. Adoption of new technology is helping, for example, by providing more frequent and detailed data using cheaper GPS devices and networks of wireless sensors. However, with approximately 800 million vehicles on the world’s roads today, estimated to increase to four billion vehicles by 2050, reducing congestion will require operational systems to process a vast volume of data, but also to automate responses to changing conditions in real-time.

This paper presents the requirements for low latency intelligent transportation systems, and uses a case study to illustrate how these requirements can be addressed to deliver real-time analytics for Travel Time and congestion detection applications.

Author: Damian Black

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

The Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority (OOCEA) has been a leader in the
deployment of Intelligent Transportation Systems in the Central Florida area over the past
decade, for the benefit of their customers. In an effort to further improve operations and planning
of the Expressway system, the Authority is deploying a real-time traffic data statistics system to
collect real-time volume, summary classification, and point speeds from across the Authority’s
roadway network. The Authority is designing this system for high data availability and accuracy
by means of redundant sensor deployment and improved site resilience. Traffic data will be
available to Authority staff in real time to allow for improved operation of the Expressway
system. Planning reports will also be available to summarize annual statistics and also to allow
analysis of system performance after incidents and special events. Finally, real-time volume
information will allow the Authority to expand its suite of performance metrics to document
system performance in even more comprehensive terms.

Authors: L.A. Griffin, Charles R. Lattimer, P.E., PMP

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