Cross-cutting Issues

One solution for mitigating the adverse impacts of weather on the transportation system is to provide improved road and atmospheric hazard products to road maintenance operators and the travelling public. With funding and support from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (USDOT) Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA) Connected Vehicles initiative and direction from the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) Road Weather Management Program, the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is conducting research to develop a Vehicle Data Translator (VDT) that incorporates vehicle-based measurements of the road and surrounding atmosphere with other, more traditional weather data sources, and creates road and atmospheric hazard products for a variety of users.

 Authors: Sheldon D. Drobot, Michael Chapman, Paul A. Pisano, Gabriel Guevara

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

This paper illustrates the potential of using cellular phone positioning techniques in tracking

cross-region traffic and deriving dynamic transit demand data. A traffic corridor between Topeka,

Lawrence, and Kansas City, Kansas was used to test and demonstrate the application and

operational process of the proposed cellular phone tracking algorithms. The experimental test

found that the cellular phone data provided by the vendor can capture about 14 percent of the

average traffic data in the study area. About 49 percent of the total traffic was identified as

commuting traffic, which had a round trip between two regions (cities). Assuming the

commuters among these regions are the potential transit users, the expected values of dynamic

transit demand data by various time intervals were derived based on the commuting traffic O-D

data, the possible staying and commuting times. These data can be used for transit schedule

assignment and to assess traffic impacts along the traffic corridor by the time-of-day.

KU Transportation Research Institute

Department of Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering, The University of Kansas

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

During the 2008-2009 winter season, the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT)
conducted a state-wide deployment of a Maintenance Decision Support System (MDSS) into
their winter operations strategy. Similar to other agencies, INDOT was looking for the
opportunity to bring a research project into operations and provide tangible cost savings for their winter maintenance budgets. MDSS was poised to fill this need; so, with the support from upper management, the state embarked on a full deployment of the MDSS technology as a cost saving package and a cornerstone of their winter maintenance philosophy.

Large amounts of road and weather data are collected for the MDSS to perform optimally and
the resulting answers from MDSS could be used in an agency’s TMC as well. The information in
MDSS would provide known areas where weather is impacting the roads, current status of an
agency’s snow fighting vehicles, and forecasted locations of where hazardous road conditions
may be encountered by the traveling public. This information could and should be used to inform the travelling public of: locations of snow fighting equipment (including a specific lane and direction), locations where weather (especially winter weather) may be impacting traffic, and actual road conditions (icy, wet, dry, etc.).

This paper will address the lessons learned during the Indiana MDSS Implementation, and how
those lessons can be applied to other system implementations within an agency. The paper also addresses the possible uses of data within MDSS for the ITS arena, including suggestions on how to integrate the information available from MDSS into TMC operations.

Authors: Anthony McClellan, Benjamin Hershey

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

This paper brings technical light and an innovative approach to a specific application that can utilize the existing infrastructure of RWIS data and Adaptive Traffic Signal Control (ATSC) to create more efficient signal phasing and safer intersection conditions during inclement weather.  It defines in general adaptive signal control applications and current atmospheric and pavement condition data assets. The paper then presents ideas on how to combine those two to create system applications that adapt to current traffic conditions and the associated changes in driver behavior, with the goal of creating safer, more efficient weather based adaptive signal phasing systems.  For example, if a sensor senses that the friction coefficient of the pavement at an intersection is significantly reduced so that the stopping distance of  a vehicle is increased by 50%,  the signal controller can take that data and modify the signal timing to increase yellow lights or increase the delay between red and green light phasing.  This will allow vehicles more time to clear the intersection, reducing collisions caused by vehicles unable to stop in their normal time because of reduced friction.  This is just one example of the many applications that could be developed by integrating these two existing ITS systems.

The paper concludes that by utilizing existing ITS infrastructure to develop new advanced applications without significant increase in costs, we can increase the return on investment and effectiveness of Intelligent Transportation Systems. It also demonstrates that by developing systems that have multiple applications we can increase the resolution of data derived from these systems, thus increasing the overall effectiveness of Intelligent Transportation Systems throughout the world.

 Author: Antony C. Coventry

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

The City of Pasadena’s traffic management center currently monitors and operates over two

hundred and fifty signals throughout the City. The operation and maintenance of existing

traffic signals and traffic communication network is facilitated from the Traffic Management

Center (TMC) through use of three different traffic management systems: Series2000,

QuickNet Pro, and Siemens i2. The City is transitioning to newer traffic signal controllers,

standard traffic signal firmware, and a more centralized advanced traffic management system

(ATMS). The purpose of the conversion is to provide a more technologically advanced and

specialized traffic signal control means to address the most challenging traffic conditions.

This paper will describe the thorough process of converting the base timing parameters for

over one hundred and twenty signals to a new firmware, inputting and uploading the

converted firmware into the existing central system software (i2), preparing intersection

graphics, and re-allocating data channels of the existing links to accommodate the maximum

number of controllers per channel. The paper will also describe the limitations brought on by

this transition, and the difficulty of deploying and implementing new firmware and software

using older communication infrastructure.

Kimley-Horn and Associates, Inc.

Traffic Management Center, City of Pasadena

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