Cross-cutting Issues

Funding cutbacks and reduced budgets are the new normal for government organizations and private industry, necessitating creative approaches to educating the public about ITS products and services. In order to make the most of available marketing dollars, it is imperative to develop strategic partnerships with the news media, government agencies, large employers, commercial vehicle operators, commuter services organizations and others to leverage their resources to tell your story.

Global-5 Communications

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

This paper presents an evaluation of the speed harmonization control of Active Traffic
Management (ATM), one of the strategies of Managed Use Lanes (MUL) study team
proposed for the Long Island Expressway (I-495) for the New York State Department of
Transportation (NYSDOT). The evaluation is conducted by the comparisons of before
and after-implementation of the speed harmonization strategy under recurrent traffic
congestion on a section of the Long Island Expressway (I-495), the Measures of
Effectiveness (MOEs) for operations and safety, extracted from the micro-simulation
software VISSIM and the Surrogate Safety Assessment Model (SSAM). The operations
MOEs include throughput, vehicle miles traveled (VMT), vehicle hours traveled (VHT),
vehicle hours of delay (VHD) and average travel speed. Speed variance, number of lane
change and collision severity are selected as safety MOEs. Initial results are encouraging.
This approach should be easily applied to the evaluation of other MUL strategies such as
ramp metering, queue warning, junction control, HOV lane and HOT lane etc.

Author: Zifeng Jiang

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

Previous studies indicated that some drivers have a poor perception of safe speed and distance when approaching a queue. This type of poor judgment is the major cause of rear-end vehicle collision, which is a primary type of multi-vehicle collision on freeways. A significant reduction of collisions is possible, if informative and timely warnings are provided to drivers to help adjust the speed before being very close to the queue. Current practices of queue warning only inform drivers about queue occurrence and the distance of the queue-end position from the message sign. Because it is difficult for some drivers to estimate the safe approaching speed, additional advisory information about the required speed is desirable. This paper presents the current state of the art and the practice to integrate the queue warning and variable speed limit systems to enhance traffic operation efficiency and improve system safety performance.

Authors: Tanveer Hayat, Gouhui Zhang, C. Michael Walton

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

A request was made by the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) District Five to
perform a technical study to evaluate the operation and performance of the Variable Speed Limit (VSL) system. The focus of the study is to determine if the use of VSL’s improve safety
measured by driver compliance, crash rates, and crash types. On September 15, 2008, the  Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) began using VSL deployed on Interstate 4 (SR 400, I-4) from Rio Grande Avenue (just south of the downtown district) to Maitland Boulevard, SR 414 (north of the downtown district). This 10 mile segment of I-4 is one of the heaviest traveled stretches along the roadway as the annual average daily traffic (AADT) exceeds 200,000 vehicles per day.
Due to these large demands it has been proposed by District Five that this segment of I-4 would benefit from the implantation of the VSL system by reducing speeds, make speeds more uniform across all lanes, and to reduce the number of secondary accidents by slowing drivers down in advance of a stop or reduced speed condition. This report provides conclusions based on data provided by District Five to make an evaluation on performance of the VSL system.
According to the FDOT the Variable Speed Limits along I-4 are used as a traffic management
2 I-4 Variable Speed Limit Performance Analysis 8/23/2011 tool to create optimum speed limits for current traffic conditions. By considering multiple factors, FDOT can decrease or increase I-4 speed limits displayed on digital speed limit signs.

Author: ATKINS

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

Many “players” have been involved in Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) for a long time, beginning in earnest with the USDOT Vehicle Infrastructure Integration (VII) program.  Each player has a vision for their role in the future of ITS.  In recent years, with the declining economy and more conservative investments in technology research, the ITS landscape has changed.  Players have had to adapt, evolve and innovate to stay relevant in the ever-changing ITS puzzle.  This paper presents the story of one such ITS technology evolution.  From the 2008 World Congress demonstration success of a Cooperative Pedestrian Warning System, to a stand-alone prototype Universal Pedestrian Warning System, to a new Infrastructure Basic Safety Message (BSM) Generator in support of vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) safety applications being showcased at the 2011 World Congress on ITS, the key to success has been adapt, evolve and innovate.

Author: J.R. Richardson

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