Safety

The status of road surface and its configuration are critical elements for road safety. In order to estimate the road surface condition including ground and underground temperature, humidity, salinity and local weather, road surface sensor that costs very high and causes pavement damage for installation can be considered. Overcoming above demerits of the existing sensor, the paper presents a road condition estimating method using image analysis technique. The method utilizes properties of water molecule on a moisturized road surface, which is dispersed with ultraviolet lays and absorbs the infrared ray energy. Published in 2010 by JT Corporation.

With actual ITS deployment now underway, this paper looks back on the 7-year ITS curve and some of the issues that have been addressed during that time, including ITS stakeholder development, ITS benchmarking, ITS funding and the realities of “partnerships.” Items of discussion will include the successes and difficulties encountered with ITS partnerships and how contingent funding expectations have affected ITS deployment Nebraska’s statewide plans for roadside instrumentation, communications, and operations centers. It is noted that Nebraska has been very successful in the area of ITS funding and some strategy will be shared, including the pitfalls and difficulties of funding ITS projects. Published by Nebraska Department of Roads.

The USDOT Federal Highways Administration and agencies throughout the United States have noted the increased need for safety in construction work zones. Because most of the work in these construction zones is viewed as temporary, many of the tools used for safety have been limited to traditional, low technology safety devices such as temporary barricades, barrels, and arrow boards.

The Internet and advancing wireless communications options now opens another excellent possibility for increasing safety and efficiency in work zones. Now, work zones can be home to fully operational transportation management systems using ITS devices. These systems can be deployed in a very short period of time, used for the duration of the construction project, and then dismantled or incorporated into a permanent traffic management system.

New Mexico State Highway & Transportation Department

ADDCO, Inc.

Presented at the 11th ITS Annual Conference and Exposition, June 4-7, 2001 Miami Beach, Florida

There has recently been much discussion within the ITS community about how extensive an Integrated Network of Transportation Information (INTI) is necessary and what that functions it should fulfill. This paper discusses an application that uses existing highway data collection and communication capabilities to improve safety. Inductive loop detectors and video surveillance cameras are currently used to assess the operational status of highway facilities. With fairly simple technology upgrades we can also use these roadway sensors to examine the finer structure of traffic flow and measure parameters related to the difficulty of driving in that flow. FHWA is sponsoring a project that will do this and that will attempt to use these measures to estimate the relative safety of that roadway at that time. This information can be used to evaluate the effect of geometric and ITS improvements on safety and to provide information to travelers. This is a potentially valuable safety use of information infrastructure that has mostly been thought of as a tool for responding to operational transportation disruptions due to weather events, terrorist activities, and hazardous material incidents.

US DOT Federal Highway Administration

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

Following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S., the Department of Transportation was asked to identify areas within the transportation system that were vulnerable to terrorist attack. One major area of concern identified was the transportation of hazardous materials (hazmat). The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is conducting a field operational test (FOT) to quantify the security costs and benefits of an operational concept that applies technology and improved enforcement procedures to hazmat transportation. The FOT will demonstrate an approach that enhances the safety and security of hazmat shipments from origin to destination.

An initial paper was presented on this FOT at the 2003 ITS America Annual Meeting held in Minneapolis, MN on May 19-21. This paper updates the readers on the progress of the overall FOT and focuses on the public sector portion of the FOT. Published by Battelle with input from FMCSA, CVSA, Qualcomm and ATRI.