Safety

This paper examines possible roles that TMCs can play in the event of homeland security threats, and raises other questions that should be considered in the design and operations of existing and future TMCs. Procedures, policies, and communication protocols that should be in place between the TMC and the EOC during potential terrorist attacks are discussed. Information that should be monitored, and how that information is verified, shared, and disseminated is also discussed. Finally, the paper recommends improvements to the existing protocols to maximize communication and coordination between the EOC and TMCs during homeland security events.

Transportation Solutions, Inc. (TSI)

Center for Urban Transportation Research (CUTR)

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

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

Collisions between vehicles at urban and rural intersections account for nearly a third of all reported crashes in the United States. This has led to considerable interest at the federal level in developing an intelligent, low-cost system that can detect and prevent potential collisions in realtime. We propose the development of a system that uses video cameras to continuously gather traffic data at intersections (e.g., vehicle speeds, positions, trajectories, accelerations/decelerations, vehicle sizes, signal status etc.) which might eventually be used for collision prediction. This paper describes some of the challenges that face such a system as well as some of the possible solutions that are currently under investigation.

University of Minnesota

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

Congestion due to incidents on highways throughout the United States is a growing problem. An incident is an unplanned event that reduces the capacity of a freeway. A way to address the problem of congestion caused by incidents is through incident management. Incident management refers to the series of actions by traffic and public safety officials to return a highway to its normal operating capacity after an incident has occurred. An effective incident management system seeks to have a well-coordinated incident response plan that reduces the time of delay caused by the incident. The prototype Incident Analysis Toolkit described in this paper is intended to provide techniques to analyze past incidents in order to learn about current and future incidents, and aid in devising a well-organized incident management system. For one specific test case, this toolkit is being applied to the region monitored by the Hampton Roads Smart Traffic Center in the urbanized Southeastern area of Virginia.

University of Virginia: Smart Travel Laboratory - Department of Civil Engineering

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

Even with exponential growth in cellular phone use, not everyone owns a cellular phone. Many motorists still need a means of requesting emergency assistance on the roadway if they do not have cellular phones or do not have cellular coverage, particularly in rural areas.

The Georgia Department of Transportation installed its first Emergency Motorist Aid Call Box Pilot Project in May 1999, installing 147 cellular / solar powered call boxes on I-185, a rural Georgia interstate. This report includes results of the pilot project evaluation, which determined the benefits and effectiveness of call boxes and provided future deployment recommendations based on experience from the first year of operation.

TransCore

Georgia Department of Transportation

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