Personal Mobility

Traveler Information Services such as 511 must be easy for the customer to use and
provide useful information. The alternate route information system developed for the
Central Florida area allows motorists to request routes for their origin and destination in
very generic terms such as Downtown and Airport. They are then provided two or three
routes and travel times for those routes based upon a real-time traffic network. Since
some of the alternate routes contain toll roads, a motorist is able to choose a toll/nontolled
route based upon the travel time.

HNTB Corporation

Florida Department Of Transporation

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

511 has been a successful traveler information system in the Bay Area since the telephone number was adopted and launched in 2002. Planned and unplanned events in 2007 further evolved 511 from a traveler information resource to a key tool for public outreach to be used for emergency management and response. These events were: 1) the MacArthur Maze freeway collapse, 2) planned Bay Bridge closure over the 2007 Labor Day weekend, and 3) formal 511 participation in a 2007 regional emergency preparedness exercise with Caltrans and the California Highway Patrol. This paper will review each of these events along with specific lessons learned in using 511 as a tool for public outreach during emergencies. The most significant lesson learned was that the public and policymakers who regularly rely on 511 in the Bay Area automatically expected 511 to be a resource in emergencies. Fulfilling such expectations requires considerable investment in specific tools and operational protocols.

Metropolitan Transportation Commission

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

The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) has relied on customer feedback
to assess the effectiveness of its travel information program, including 511Virginia program.
VDOT launched a statewide 511 service in February of 2005, and in 2007, the system was
upgraded with several new services added, largely based on the input of the systems’ regular, as
well as, casual users. VDOT has a long history of collecting and measuring user satisfaction,
going back to the deployment in 2002 of its regional traveler information service covering only
the I-81 corridor.

Virginia Department of Transportation

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

511 has been a successful traveler information system in the San Francisco Bay Area since
the telephone number and Web site (511.org) were adopted and launched in 2002. The
Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) operates both systems and works to
enhance their features. Users send MTC daily comments with ideas on system
enhancements. The most requested enhancement was a tool for users to save their most-used
trips so as to avoid restating their inputs for every call or Web visit. MTC listened and has
created MY 511, a personalized traveler information tool.

Metropolitan Transportation Commission

ICx Transportation Group

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

5-1-1 is the nationwide dialing code for real-time travel conditions, but deployment is scattered
and financing is left to individual jurisdictions. In many states, including Wisconsin, the key
question was whether it is possible to deploy a statewide 511 traveler information system for
relatively low cost. Many business models have been considered nationwide, several have been
tried, but few have succeeded. Comparable five-year costs for 511 deployments around the
country range widely from around $1.5 million to over $50 million, with a median value in the
$4 million to $7 million range. Wisconsin is proceeding with a bottom-dollar budget, but if the
schedule holds, the system will have been live for about six weeks at the time of the ITS World
Congress in November 2008, making this a particularly timely topic.

University of Wisconsin-Madison

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