Sustainability

This paper discusses a broad congestion pricing approach that may be implemented
in the near term, since technologies needed to implement it are already deployed extensively.
The approach involves converting existing freeways (all lanes) into premium-service freeflowing
highways that provide fast, frequent and inexpensive express bus service, while charging
all private vehicles a variable toll -- except for authorized buses and certified vanpool vehicles.
The toll could vary by level of demand and could be set high enough to guarantee that excessive
demand will not cause a breakdown of traffic flow. Public acceptance could be a major hurdle,
but could be achieved with careful system design along with a major public education and
outreach campaign.

Federal Highway Administration

Presented at the 15th World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems, November 16-20, 2008, New York, New York

Maricopa County is one of the fastest growing regions in the United States (US).  The
region’s cities, once separated by large distances, are now immediate neighbors.  The
transportation, public safety, and emergency management agencies at these cities rely more
and more on information about neighboring systems for traffic management. The region has a
statewide Arizona Department of Transportation Traffic Operations Center (ADOT TOC),
Maricopa County Department of Transportation (MCDOT) Traffic Management Center
(TMC) and eight local traffic management centers, with additional municipal TMCs coming
on line in the region over the next several years. The MCDOT TMC was built in 1998, and
was the first TMC in the region with focus on arterial traffic management; it is integrated
with the ADOT TOC and with several of the local TMC’s to support enhanced regional
traffic operations and incident management. Traffic Management Centers house a substantial
amount of systems and equipment, and much like data centers, they draw significant power
due to the operating requirements of the various systems. According to Information Week,
data centers used “1.5% of all power consumed in the United States” in 2006 (1).

Maricopa County Department of Transportation

Presented at the 15th World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems, November 16-20, 2008, New York, New York

A  response  to  environmental  issues  is  one  of  the  things  society  is  asking  of  ITS,  and especially the reduction of CO2 emissions from the transportation sector is a major theme. In Japan  the  “Transportation  and  Logistics  Renaissance”  project  was  launched  last  year  by  the public  sector,  private  sector,  and  academia.  This  project  aims  to  cut  congestion,  CO2 emissions, and logistics costs by half and to reduce traffic fatalities to zero by 2020. We have been considering a way of upgrading logistics systems and have been estimating the effect of that upgrade as an activity of the transportation and logistics renaissance project. In this paper, the  results  of  our  study  on  a  way  of  improving  the  logistics  system  and  a  way  of  using  ITS technologies which are indispensable for achieving the goals are presented.

Fujitsu Limited

Presented at the 15th World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems, November 16-20, 2008, New York, New York

This paper examines how the CO2 cost of implementing and operating some ITS schemes could be almost halved  through  the  use  of  renewable  energy.  A  case  study  analysis  of  an  ITS  scheme  which  includes 40Km  of  Variable  Mandatory  Speed  Limits  (VMSL)  and  road  lighting  shows  that  wind  turbine generation is a feasible power supply option, with an estimated payback period of 19 years. Given that the expected life of a wind turbine is 25 years, this arrangement is demonstrated to be an economically viable solution. Climate change poses a major challenge to society and opportunities such as this to reduce CO2 emissions should be implemented to help address this global issue.

Mouchel

Presented at the 15th World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems, November 16-20, 2008, New York, New York

This paper’s purpose is to illuminate the role that ITS and operational improvements can fulfill in reducing transportation-related GHG. It is organized into an overview of  GCC  and GHG, trends and impacts  of GHG, nation-wide GHG targets , commo n approaches to reduce  transportation -related  GHG, utilization of multi-modal GCC Action Plans, and the potential contribution of  ITS strategies to reducing GHG.

PB Americas, Inc.

Presented at the 15th World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems, November 16-20, 2008, New York, New York