Safety

Maintaining a safe, efficient surface transportation network is the goal of transportation
authorities throughout the world. Technological advancements in Intelligent Transportation
Systems (ITS) have led to numerous devices and applications that have the capacity to
facilitate enhanced monitoring, management and control of the transportation network. In
addition, these advancements have resulted in novel strategies for communicating essential
information to the traveling public. While ITS solutions have brought about tangible
improvements in network planning, assessment and management, many solutions are limited
by their lack of a single salient element – weather. There has been some discussion of
weather within the ITS community, but relatively little has been done to truly realize the full
benefits of integrating weather data and information into ITS. This paper attempts to shed
light on how the use of weather-based ITS solutions can help to mitigate the impacts of
adverse road weather conditions. It also describes different levels of deployment in terms of
complexity, along with some present day examples.

Vaisala Inc.

Presented at the ITS America Annual Conference and Exposition, May 3-5, 2010, Houston, Texas

This paper presents an evaluation of two supplemental traffic control devices, a Lighted Stop
Bar System (LSBS) and light emitting diode (LED) outlined traffic signal backplates. The
LSBS consists of lighted pavement markers placed in the pavement parallel to the painted
intersection stop bar. The pavement markers of the LSBS emit a red light during the red
indication of the traffic signal. The LED backplates emit a red light around the perimeter of
the traffic signal backplate when the traffic signal indication is red. These two types of
devices were installed separately at separate intersections, and a before and after study was
conducted to determine changes in crashes, red light running violations, and right turn on red
violations. It was determined that right turn on red violations were significantly reduced at
the LSBS intersection, while the intersection with the LED backplates exhibited significant
reductions in red light running violations. Additional intersections were later outfitted with
LSBSs and/or LED backplates, and an aggregate crash analysis for all treatment intersections
shows a reduction in red light running crashes over time since the devices were activated.

Texas Transportation Institute

Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County

Presented at the ITS America Annual Conference and Exposition, May 3-5, 2010, Houston, Texas

Rural roads carry approximately 40 percent of the vehicle miles traveled in the United States, yet annually they account for nearly 55 percent of the fatalities. In 2006, there were 23,339 vehicle fatalities in rural areas compared with 18,359 that occurred in urban areas. This is even more alarming considering that only 23 percent of the U.S. population resides in rural areas.(1) Further, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA’s) Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), the fatality rate for rural crashes is more than twice the fatality rate in urban crashes. The fatality rate for rural areas in 2006 was 2.25 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled (VMT), compared with 0.93 fatalities per 100 million VMT in urban areas.

Noblis

South Carolina Department of Transportation

US DOT

Battelle Transportation

Presented at the ITS America Annual Conference and Exposition, May 3-5, 2010, Houston, Texas

The current emergency evacuations practices are mainly focused on two levels: either in a relatively larger scale of urban or state area; or in a small-scale like a building and elevators. In this paper, a microscope simulation framework is proposed to develop suitable transportation evacuation plans for Multi-Institutional Centers (MIC). VISSIM is selected as the simulation tool, while the Genetic Algorithm (GA) is used to calibrate driving behavior parameters for VISSIM. As a case study, the Texas Medical Center (TMC) network is modeled and the evacuation plans are developed and evaluated. Results show that the proposed framework is a good and practical tool for developing and evaluating appropriate evacuation plans under similar instances.

Texas Southern University

KOA Corporation

Presented at the ITS America Annual Conference and Exposition, May 3-5, 2010, Houston, Texas

A study commissioned by Wisconsin’s Governor post-Hurricane Katrina identified the need
to enhance evacuation planning and documentation for the 12 most populated cities in
Wisconsin. This paper highlights the Wisconsin Department of Transportation’s (WisDOT)
role in enhancing evacuation planning documentation for key cities throughout the state and
describes lessons learned in preparing these documents. Recognizing the almost infinite
number of variables associated with an emergency requiring evacuation, WisDOT
emphasized “emergency mobility” approach for the evacuation planning efforts. Therefore,
the resulting Evacuation Route and Traffic Control Guidance component of Wisconsin’s
emergency evacuation plans serves as an informational resource that focuses on providing
incident commanders and responders guidance in planning for and implementing evacuation
at almost any location within the jurisdiction.

HNTB Corporation

Presented at the ITS America Annual Conference and Exposition, May 3-5, 2010, Houston, Texas