Cross-cutting Issues

The City of Palo Alto, which owns and operates 96 traffic signals, is in the process of implementing an Advanced Transportation Management System (ATMS) that will include features such as adaptive traffic control and integration with ITS devices. This spring the City will select a vendor to implement an ATMS comprised of a central signal system server located in their traffic management center (TMC), 25 non-actuated NEMA controllers for their downtown intersections and 71 Model 2070L controllers for the rest of their network. All of the 2070L controllers will be equipped with Ethernet ports and Ethernet switches and will be connected over the City’s fiber optic network to an Ethernet switch in the TMC. The Central server will communicate with all of the controllers using Ethernet. The system will be compliant with National Transportation Communications for ITS Protocol (NTCIP) standards.

Kimley-Horn and Associates

City of Palo Alto

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

Developing a frontal collision warning system (FCWS) for transit buses is considerably much more difficult than that targeted to highway applications due to the significant differences in operating environments. In this paper, a histogram analysis was applied to several months of real-world data collected on an experimental bus in normal service in San Francisco Bay Area. This analysis addresses the unique characteristics of the operational environment of transit buses. Figures and pie charts as well as analyses are presented.

University of California, Berkeley

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

This paper details information on the development of a guidance document for implementing real-time transit information systems that is scheduled to be published by the Federal Transit Administration in the second quarter of 2003. The guidance document is intended to provide relevant and practical information on planning, implementation, operational, and maintenance issues along with any solutions to the challenges faced by transit agencies that have successfully implemented real-time information systems. The background research for this guidance document included a literature review on existing systems and site visits and telephone interviews of key staff at selected transit agencies that have successfully deployed real-time transit information systems.

Battelle Memorial Institute

Multisystems

Federal Transit Administration

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

Just as the ITS National Architecture introduced “systems engineering” to many practitioners in the transportation community, the new NTCIP content will further help transportation professionals with their system engineering of ITS. The new NTCIP document content will: help determine user needs; relate functional requirements; define how the functional requirements are to be implemented in a common, unambiguous way; and help develop test procedures. This paper explains the content of the document sections, and how to use that content, for the revised NTCIP standard documents.

Joerg “Nu” Rosenbohm,

PB Farradyne, a Division of PB Q&D

National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA)

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

This paper presents results from Phase II of the Field Test of Non-Intrusive Traffic Detection Technologies (NIT project). The project was sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration and was conducted by the Minnesota Department of Transportation and SRF Consulting Group. The sensors were tested in a variety of mounting locations at both intersection and freeway test sites. Emphasis was placed on urban traffic conditions, such as heavy congestion; locations that typify temporary counting situations, such as 48-hour or peak hour counts; and real-time applications that support ITS activities.

Minnesota DOT

SRF Consulting Group, Inc.

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