Personal Mobility

In the winter of 2002, the Minnesota Department of Transportation (Mn/DOT)
began pilot testing a Mobile Data Acquisition and Reporting System (MDARS) as an
expanded module of its Condition Acquisition and Reporting System (CARS).  Seventy-
five plow operators in southwestern Minnesota used web-enabled cell phones to enter
road condition information through MDARS.  Over 500 situations were entered during
the pilot.  Based on the success of this pilot a second phase is planned, during which
other forms of mobile and potentially automated reporting will be explored.

Minnesota Department of Transportation

Presented at the ITS America Annual Conference and Exposition, April 26 - 28, 2004 San Antonio, Texas

INFORM was the first major Transportation Management System in NY, it is the largest in NY
and one of the largest in the country. We have been operating the INFORM system since the
Spring of 1987. It has more than doubled in size since its initial implementation and has become
an integral part of the New York Metropolitan Region’s daily operations.
INFORM currently monitors Long Island’s Northern and Southern corridors, consisting of the
Island’s major east-west highways and its busiest north-south connecting routes. The Corridor’s
roadways are monitored 24 hrs per day, 7 days/wk, in order to detect incidents and then
minimize their effects on traffic flow, both during peak and off-peak periods
Monitoring of the roadways is achieved through various methods. Vehicle detectors embedded
in the roadway as well as non-intrusive types, Closed Circuit TV, monitoring Police radios and
direct reports from various sources, including our Highway Emergency Local Patrol (HELP)
program. All these methods aid us in detecting incidents as well as monitoring changing traffic
conditions.

NYSDOT Region 10

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

This paper, using the short story format, illustrates the utility of a Reservation System to
efficiently allocate travelers to scarce transportation resources.  The story uses an analogy
with the passenger air transportation system, where a reservation system for allocating
travelers to seats in aircraft is used ubiquitously today, and shows the consequences of
switching the resource allocation mechanism from “advance reservations” to “first-come-first-
served”.  The traveler's “freedom” to go to the airport whenever he or she wishes, without first having to make a reservation, is shown to be hollow.  The implication for congested surface transportation links are left for the reader to imagine at the end of the story.

Consensus Systems Technologies (ConSysTec) & Chair, ITS America RITE Forum
and Thea D. Jaffe

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

This paper details the procurement of a Dynamic Message Sign Network (DMSN) by the Rhode Island Department of Transportation (RIDOT). The DMSN will allow RIDOT to provide incident and congestion information to motorists traveling through the Providence metropolitan area.The DMSN procurement is the first major RIDOT ITS procurement that is facilitated through an RFP process.This paper examines the rationale behind, and process of, transitioning from a traditional procurement package to a multi-contract, qualifications based, procurement. Lessons learned from this approach will be of benefit to DOTs who may be considering this same migration path. This paper also illustrates the benefit of converting traditional design specifications to a requirements checklist within an RFP. This is particularly useful for those DOT’s that have invested in a specifications library who may want to adapt these specifications to support qualifications based procurements.

Rhode Island DOT

Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc.

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