Cross-cutting Issues

The Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) industry provides high tech solutions for managing traffic congestion. One of the main foci of ITS relates to the software integration of the various field components, commonly referred to as the system. Systems projects are characterized by their higher than standard implementation risk. Project risks may be defined in terms of schedule, quality, cost, or requirements risks. The risks increase exponentially as the amount of new software development increases. Development may be in any part of the project, but this paper will primarily discuss risks and costs associated with levels of central software development.

PB Farradyne

Presented at the ITS America Annual Conference and Exposition, May 19-22, 2003 Minneapolis, Minnesota

Integration of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) services is dependent on various factors including leadership, technology, jurisdiction and financial strength of the implementers. In order to streamline policy decisions for integration of ITS, an Integration Relationship and Leadership Matrix (IRLM) has been developed and discussed in this paper. The potential role of an ITS implementer has been identified with one or more of the three categories – Lead, Participatory, and Regulatory – depending upon the agency’s relationship to various levels of integration. Several levels of integration and priority focus areas are identified. The IRLM is intended be an analytical framework for ITS integration decisions to be made within an agency as well as in a multi-agency regional context. The framework is designed to assist the ITS implementers to plan for optimal integration of ITS at local, regional and state jurisdictions, eventually leading to ITS integration nationwide.

University of South Florida

Florida DOT

Presented at the ITS America Annual Conference and Exposition, May 19-22, 2003 Minneapolis, Minnesota

This paper describes not only the specific ITS design challenges facing the Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport, but also the unique ITS requirements for today’s modern airports. Institutional integration as well as system integration challenges abound. For example, it is mandatory that the Metro Airport system be linked with the Michigan ITS Center in Detroit to provide airport patrons with timely, reliable information in and around the airport. Additionally, Dingell Drive, the new access road to the McNamara Terminal, will be instrumented with safety, security, and parking management systems. The need to integrate these systems together and with the ITS systems on the highways 3 surrounding the airport is critical to ensuring the safety and convenience of airport patrons.

Iteris, Inc.

Wayne County

Presented at the ITS America Annual Conference and Exposition, May 19-22, 2003 Minneapolis, Minnesota

The GCM Corridor was one of the four priority corridors established under the ISTEA legislation. The Gateway TIS is the core system that facilitates the integration and interoperation of many other ITS systems within this corridor. The Gateway TIS collects transportation related information from geographically widely distributed TIS data source systems, validates and fuses the information collected, and disseminates it to interested public and private entities and the general public via internet and intranet.

The implementation of the Gateway TIS involves integrating a growing number of ITS related center systems of assorted natures and various technical configurations. Apart from a myriad of institutional issues that needed to be solved, a range of Center-to-Center (C2C) technical standards were needed to define communication protocols, data formats, and application programming interfaces (API). It was realized at the beginning of the project that the adoption of and compliance with national ITS standards would considerably increase the chance of success in effectively achieving C2C interconnectivity and interoperability. However, it was soon discovered that, not only the C2C API standard was absolutely absent, but also the available national ITS C2C data standards were specified as data dictionaries, message sets, which were not in a form to support object-oriented or CORBA-based software engineering practices.

Recently, the Object Management Group (OMG), an international standard development organization, formed a Transportation Domain Task Force (DTF). This OMG Transportation DTF issued a RFI in an effort to start a process of full scale specification development of CORBA-based ITS C2C standards. The Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) and Parsons Transportation Group (PTG) have jointly responded to this RFI by providing information on GDOM, GMOM, and our Gateway implementation experiences. We hope our pioneering efforts in CORBA-based C2C standardization in the GCM corridor could provide a proven starting ground for national CORBA-based standardization process.

Parsons Transportation Group

Illinois Department of Transportation

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

The present study examined the opinions of transit agency officials and Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) stakeholders regarding Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) in transit. Two forms of information gathering (a questionnaire and personal interviews) were implemented. Forty-four (44) stakeholders were interviewed over the course of seventeen (17) interviews.

The questionnaire and interviews gathered opinions concerning ITS-transit technology already implemented, and the potential for ITS-transit in the future. Opinions on the potential obstacles to deployment of ITS-transit, and other numerous issues relating to ITS-transit, were also gathered. This paper outlines the various issues relating to ITS-transit that were discussed, and includes the responses to the follow-up questionnaire and the interviews. The study indicates that most transit professionals contacted think ITS-transit can potentially revolutionize transit. However a lack of funding to create ITS-transit systems and initiate deployment is stated as one of the obstacles that significantly hinder its development. Nevertheless, the majority of respondents think ITS-transit – with the proper funding – can bring the “choice rider” to transit. Despite the enthusiasm for the potential of ITS-transit, the respondents often stated a reorganization of transit was needed. Only after that occurs can ITS-transit flourish. In fact, many of those contacted for this study think there are too many areas within conventional transit operations that require improvement before ITS-transit needs to be a concern. This view – that ITS-transit in most areas is merely a decorative add-on that can only be implemented with a solid, structured, and organized transit system for it to work within – permeated throughout many  conversations with the transit professionals.

Center for Urban Transportation Research

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