Personal Mobility

The Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT) and its Las Vegas area partners have identified a need for a freeway management system (FMS) to help manage traffic during fluctuating periods of vehicle demand on freeways and arterials, as well as provide enhanced incident response capabilities. The Freeway and Arterial System of Transportation (FAST) will combine the existing LVACTS (Las Vegas Area Computer Traffic System) with the new Freeway Management System (FMS, currently being designed) into one integrated system, maximizing mobility.

This paper describes the purpose of dynamic trailblazer signs and the types of signs that were considered. It then discusses the communication media that were considered for the signs, and reasons for selecting an existing 800-MHz voice and data radio system for use with the signs. A program to test prospective sign vendors’ compatibility with the radio system is described. Both an analog and digital means of communication were tested. Our experience with each sign vendor is discussed, and our team’s lessons learned are presented. To date, six vendors have tested their equipment with the NDOT radio system, and four are prequalified.

Kimley-Horn and Associates, Inc.

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

Traditional driver performance data collection methods have ordinarily relied on experimenters riding with drivers to collect data. Such methods are limited because drivers may exhibit performance that differs from that while driving alone. Alternatively, naturalistic observation methods can be employed by the use of vehicle instrumentation to collect data in an unobtrusive manner.

This paper outlines the data types, data collection, data analysis, expected results provided by these data, and how these data can be used by designers in the development of safe, naturalistic Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) of the future. Additionally, this paper includes an overview of a lane change and passing study that is currently taking place. The study involves 16 commuters who drove to and from work for 20 business days, for a minimum of 50 miles round trip each day. Starting in September 2000, ordinary drivers drove instrumented vehicles instead of their normal vehicles during their commute to and from work. Data collection was fully automated and equipment was unobtrusive. Both a sedan and an SUV were used in this study.

Virginia Tech Transportation Institute

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

The Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon (Tri-Met) has entered into an agreement with the City of Portland, Oregon to enable its transit buses to use the low Transit Priority request of the signals within the City’s jurisdiction. The three primary goals for the use of transit priority are: 1) to increase throughput within specified traffic corridors; 2) to reduce transit running times; and 3) to improve transit schedule reliability. This paper will focus on methods Tri-Met will employ to evaluate the effectiveness of its transit signal priority effort on transit operations, and to determine if its goals have been met. The project was scheduled to commence in February 2001, and preliminary evaluation results are expected by June 2001.

Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon (Tri-Met)

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

Traveler information is exchanged between public sector agencies, private companies, and private citizens. The World Wide Web is one of the most widely used dissemination mechanisms, along with voice telephony. Wireless Web access is rapidly growing. Most Web-based information exchange, however, can be classified as semi-automated. The information is primarily formatted for, presented to, and used by a human. The information is formatted for presentation using HyperText Markup Language (HTML). It is difficult to cost-effectively automate the processing of large amounts of HTML coded material, because the HTML doesn’t provide information about the meaning of the data, just how to present it. For this reason, the Web has not been a particularly attractive mechanism for fully-automated exchange between computer systems.

This paper describes the TripInfo proof-of-concept prototype. TripInfo has successfully demonstrated the applicability of XML to traveler information integration. TripInfo uses XML to integrate traveler information from multiple sources, and provide trip-based, rather than inkbased reports. The rational for the project, the project itself, and the lessons-learned are described.

Mitretek Systems

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

As one of the four priority corridors originally established by the US Congress under the ISTEA legislation, the Gary-Chicago-Milwaukee (GCM) Corridor has been the scene of numerous, ITS projects. One of the largest and most complex is the Gateway Traveler Information System (TIS) which is being led by the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT). Parsons Transportation Group is assisting IDOT in their work. The Gateway is one of the largest, most complex TIS ever implemented. It involves the collection of transportation related data within a three state area and distribution of this data back to the sources as well as to the public and information service providers. It also includes provision for joint control of field devices across jurisdictional boundaries. In implementing the Gateway, several issues needed to be addressed, many of which have national significance. This paper presents an overview of these issues and details the actions taken to mitigate the effect of these issues. Among the issues discussed are the results of the Corridor’s efforts to exchange geographically based data across several different databases. This is a necessity if information is to be transmitted electronically from computer to computer without any operator intervention. Currently, there are at least eight different location referencing systems in use within the Corridor. The Gateway is not the only system in the US facing this problem, and as a result, a national Location Referencing Messaging System (LRMS) developed by Oak Ridge Laboratory under a contract with the Federal Highway Administration has been implemented in the Corridor. Other issues addressed in this paper include: the need to be NTCIP compliant, specifically what is meant by this; how the design accommodates changes in National Transportation Communication for ITS Protocol (NTCIP); and what is considered as the baseline for NTCIP compliance. Additional issues addressed include: data fusion/verification; consensus building amongst diverse participants and procurement difficulties.

Illinois Department of Transportation

Parsons Transportation Group

Presented at the 10th ITS Annual Conference and Exposition, May 1-4, 2000 Boston, MA