Thinking Highways North America Nov 2008

THIN KING

HIG HW AYS NORTH AMERICAN EDITION Volume 3 • Issue 4 • November/December 2008

15th ITS WORLD CONGRESS SPECIAL CORE BUSINESS

A different view of New York as the ITS world descends on the Big Apple

RUNNING FREE

Ryan Lamm and Louis Nastro on the drive towards automated vehicles

PROLOGUE TO HISTORY

Phil Tarnoff’s concerns for the VII program

THE OTHER WAY

Tampa’s reversible highway

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Foreword Thinking

Congressional memories

Thinking Highways may be exhibiting at an ITS World Congress for the first time this year, but some of us have been making a show of ourselves for years...

Kevin Borras is co-founder and vice-president, publishing of H3B Media and editor-inchief of Thinking Highways North American Edition.

This really should have been my 11th World Congress on ITS, but I’ve managed to miss three for very similar reasons. As a fairly sizeable portion of the ITS population heads for New York City, I couldn’t help but think back over my previous seven congressional experiences and wonder what memories I’m going to take away from this one. I didn’t get to go to Seoul in 1998 so my first ITS World Congress was the following year’s in Toronto (I still use the bag on a daily basis). My abiding memory from that one is undoubtedly being asked to take a photograph of a Japanese tourist while on the observation deck at Niagara Falls and just as I pressed the shutter about 25 of his friends appeared out of nowhere and crammed themselves into the picture just before they all got soaked to the skin in Falls spray. The 2000 ITS WC was held in the former FIAT factory in Turin and other than the

Sub-Editor and Proofreader Maria Vasconcelos Administration Sales and Marketing Jodie Graham ([email protected]) Luis Hill ([email protected]) Tim Guest ([email protected]) Subscriptions and Circulation Pilarin Harvey-Granell Design and Layout Visualisation Phoebe Bentley, Kevin Borras Tom Waldschmidt ([email protected]) Associate Editors Richard Bishop ([email protected]) Conferences and Events Amy Zuckerman ([email protected]) Odile Pignier (odile@h3bmedia.,com) Website Contributing Editors Bruce Abernethy, Lee J Nelson, Andrew The Mind Corporation Pickford, Phil Tarnoff, Harold Worrall Financial Director Martin Brookstein Contributors to this issue Bruce Abernethy, Terry Bills, Pete Costello, Jan Hellaker, John Horsley, EDITORIAL AND ADVERTISING Mark Johnson, Bob Kelly, Ryan Lamm, H3B Media Ltd, 15 Onslow Gardens, Stephen Little, Paul Najarian, Louis Wallington, Surrey SM6 9QL, UK Nastro, Lee Nelson, Ofer Ronen, Tel +44 (0)208 254 9406 Randy Salzman, Rick Schuman, Martin Fax +44 (0)208 647 0045 Stone, Phil Tarnoff, Amy Zuckerman Email [email protected]

incredibly long walk from the showfloor to the press room, the thing that sticks in mind from that show was the announcement over the public address system that George W Bush had won the US Presidential election, despite the fact that it wasn’t made official for another six weeks. Sydney 2001 is probably my favourite location, the stunning backdrop of the city skyline, the superb dinner at the zoo and accidentally sleeping for 16 hours on my first day in Australia leaving the most lasting impressions. Twelve months later, sitting in a bar on the 100th floor of the Hancock Tower in Chicago, watching aeroplanes take off from O’Hare and seemingly head straight for us, gave me an unsettling but mercifully brief taste of just what a horrific experience being in the World Trade Center a year earlier must have been. Madrid 2003 was an odd one. Still the best Congress food, it had an odd atmosphere as quite a number of delegates Thinking Highways

Editor-in-Chief Kevin Borras ([email protected])

www.thinkinghighways.com

were mugged in the city and the expo center seemed to get further away every day. I elected to give Nagoya a miss (shame that hurricane didn’t) so my next World Congress was San Francisco, venue for the VII-precursor, the IMS showcase, and the chance to visit one of the most iconic river crossings in the world, the Golden Gate Bridge. Shame the fog was so thick you couldn’t see it even when you were on it. London 2006 meant I could leave my house at 8am and be on the exhibition floor an hour later, but the abding memory of that one was the fact that we chose to launch Thinking Highways at our “home” event. That was something we’ll never forget and we’re very pleased to say that two years (and another missed Asian ITS World Congress) later, we’re still here. You’ve made us feel very welcome, I must say, and I look forward to seeing you in New York... and Stockholm... and Busan... TH

is published by H3B Media Ltd.

ISSN 1753-43Z1 Thinking Highways is published quarterly in two editions – North America and Europe/Rest of the World - and is available on subscription at £30/€40 (Europe/RoW) and US$60 (North America). Distributed in the USA by DSW 75 Aberdeen Road, Emigsville, PA 17318-0437 USA. Periodicals postage paid at Emigsville, PA. POSTMASTER: send address changes to Thinking Highways, 13705 North Ivy lake Road, Chillicothe, Illinois 61523, USA.

CEO Luis Hill Vice-President, Publishing Kevin Borras www.thinkinghighways.com

Although due care has been taken to ensure that the content of this publication is accurate and up-to-date, the publisher can accept no liability for errors and omissions. Unless otherwise stated, this publication has not tested products or services that are described herein, and their inclusion does not imply any form of endorsement. By accepting advertisements in this publication, the publisher does not warrant their accuracy, nor accept responsibility for their contents. The publisher welcomes unsolicited manuscripts and illustrations but can accept no liability for their safe return. © 2008 H3B Media Ltd. All rights reserved. The views and opinions of the authors are not necessarily those of H3B Media Ltd. Reproduction (in whole or in part) of any text, photograph or illustration contained in this publication without the written permission of the publisher is strictly prohibited. Printed in the UK by The Manson Group

Thinking Highways Vol 3 No 4

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Contents

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COLUMNS Bob Kelly and Mark Johnson’s Legal Brief

08

Paul Najarian’s Connected World

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THE THINKER Phil Tarnoff, a self-confessed VII sceptic, shows his concern for the long-term future of the program Climate Change The Thinker

The Thinker

Stunted growth Thinking Highways’ financial analyst MARGARET PETTIT looks at the European Territorial Cooperation Programme and finds that like with any other major programme, it’s a matter of priorities

Stormy weather PHIL TARNOFF poses a potentially taxing question: is the past prologue to VII’s future?

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16

p80

Vol 3 No 3 Thinking Highways

www.thinkinghighways.com

“The disappearance of VII would represent another setback for the application of technology to the transportation system” During the 1990s many champions of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) technology felt that its impacts would be equivalent to those of the construction of the US Interstate system. Unfortunately, as transportation agencies cautiously adopted the use of this technology on an as-needed basis, this dream never materialized. In an effort to “realize the dream” the Automated Highway System (AHS) program was established. This program which was initiated in 1992,represented an attempt to enable vehicle operation without requiring human intervention. AHS was an effort to leapfrog the gradual introduction of ITS technology by providing significant improvements in roadway safety and capacity. This program with its 10+ year horizon was eventually cancelled by the USDOT in 1998 due to funding pressures and a feeling that the development of near-term safety systems should be given a higher priority. Research programs conducted both in parallel with the AHS and subsequent to its conclusion offered alternative approaches to the use of technology to advance safety. In 2003 these programs coalesced into a major initiative known as the Vehicle Infrastructure Integration (VII) program. VII takes advantage of the extensive instrumentation installed in the modern automobile to measure speed, roadway and weather conditions, vehicle location and direction. The cumulative information received from a sample of the overall traffic stream could be an invaluawww.thinkinghighways.com

ble asset for both safety and traffic management applications. The combination of applications possible by taking advantage of on board vehicle sensors is extensive. Like AHS, the VII program offers the possibility of a significant paradigm shift in terms of both the safety and mobility impacts it would have on the transportation system. Unfortunately, storm clouds are now on the horizon for VII. The program appears to have lost much of its momentum along with the support of many within the transportation community. The disappearance of VII would represent another setback for the application of technology to the transportation system, not to mention a significant loss for its users. What has gone wrong? How can the loss of momentum be reversed? Does the program need to be restructured? The answers to these questions are vital to the future efficiency and safety of the nation’s transportation system.

So what exactly is VII?

After many years of development, definition of the VII program should be an easy task. Unfortunately, due to the number and variety of participants, there is little consensus on the objectives, business model and architecture of the system. Participants providing planning and guidance for include various segments of the US DOT (Joint Program Office, highway operations, safety, transit, motor carriers), state governments, the automobile industry, aftermarket equipment manufacturers, Thinking Highways Vol 3 No 4

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INFRASTRUCTURE Randy Salzman examines the small print of the I-81 development program and finds history is playing a major part in the road’s future 62

21

THINKING CARS Another milestone is reached in H3B Media’s 7th Framework Programme TV documentary project 66

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24

THE THOUGHT PROCESS Volvo Technology North America’s vice president of business development, Jan Hellaker

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ITS Martin Stone and Stephen Little on Florida’s Reversible Express Lanes 80

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AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES New York’s 11th Avenue will be populated by automated cars during the ITS World Congress. Ryan Lamm looks at what’s behind the technology Louis Nastro on how and why autonomous vehicles are emerging from the laboratory and on to the streets

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511 AASHTO’s John Horsley on the progress of the US’s traffic information service 98

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ITS WORLD CONGRESS Thinking Highways’s guide to who is launching what (and why) in New York’s Jacob K Javits Conference Center

VIOLATION ENFORCEMENT An American company’s camera lowering systems have revolutionised Israel’s cellular phone network DATA COLLECTION Rick Schuman and Pete Costello focus on the National Traffic Scorecard EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT After Katrina, how did the much-maligned emergency management systems cope with Hurricane Gustav? Bruce Abernethy report SURVEILLANCE Lee Nelson has been watching the video surveillance market so you don’t have to.... GIS How geographic information systems are being fully integrated into ITS deployments, by Terry Bills ALTERNATIVE FUEL Amy Zuckerman garners expert opinion to answer the question posed by hydrogen vehicles COMMUNICATIONS Planning an ITS Regional Communications Network? You might want to read what Bruce Abernethy has to say first

104 Advertisers’ Index

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Robert Kelly and Mark Johnson’s Legal Brief

Called to account...

Robert Kelly is a partner with the Washington, DC based law firm Squire, Sanders, Dempsey

Is it time for a “New Deal” for transportation? If so, Can ITS Lead the Way? Although it is clear that the United States - and the world - is facing a long road to economic recovery, there may yet be a key role to play for transportation, and ITS, to help in this effort. Despite the expected large outlays of government funds to “rescue” banks and other financial institutions, there are already calls for additional government outlays to “jumpstart” the US economy to try to stave off an economic depression. Any new economic “New Deal” would certainly include expenditures on transportation projects: highways, transits, rail and air. However, any such program would need to re-think how transportation projects are funded and how they are implemented. In particular, continued reliance on the Highway Trust Fund as the primary funding mechanism seems misplaced. This past September the Highway Trust Fund almost went broke because of significantly declining revenues due to the American public driving less and less miles. The fund was saved - at least temporarily - by a onetime US$8billion cash infusion. Already, the Secretary of Transportation, Mary Peters, has highlighted the new for new funding mechanisms (see www.dot.gov/affairs/ dot12808.htm). Clearly, user-pay funding mechanisms should be

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considered, which is where ITS technologies are implicated. In a recent article in The New York Review of Books, co-authored by the eminent investment banker and former US Ambassador to France, Felix Rohatyn, it is proposed that the next administration establish a “National Infrastructure Bank” to address the vast backlog of

needed or create the incentives to best manage the country’s existing infrastructure.

Fit for purpose

The purpose of a National Infrastructure Bank, according to the authors, would be twofold: (1) to use existing federal resources more efficient; and (2) raise additional funding by accessing private capital. Proposed projects over a certain funding threshold would have to be submitted to the bank. The bank would be independent, and managed by include Cabinet officers from the Executive Branch and representatives appointed by Congress, and its chief executive would need to be confirmed by the Senate. The authors further argue that much of the US Government’s infrastructure projects across existing funding for the United States. The authors infrastructure be transferred to cite a recent report by the the bank. American Society of Civil A key element of any such Engineers that an investment National Infrastructure Bank of US$1.6trillion is needed to would be its ability to seek repair and renovate existing additional funding in the public infrastructure: roads, capital markets. The authors mass transit, bridges, ports, estimate that each dollar of flood control systems and the federal funds can garner three like. According to the authors, the additional dollars of private borrowing. existing funding levels for Importantly, the authors do public infrastructure, including not propose that the bank for transportation-related should not receive support in projects, is not only the form of the “full faith and insufficient, but the current credit” of the US Government, funding structure fails to fund as the current economic crisis the projects that are truly

“A key element of any such National Infrastructure Bank would be its ability to seek additional funding in the capital markets”

Vol 3 No 4 Thinking Highways

Mark Johnson is an attorney at law with Squire, Sanders, Dempsey based in Buenos Aires, Argentina

www.thinkinghighways.com

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Robert Kelly and Mark Johnson’s Legal Brief

having resulted, at least in part, from the abuse of this guarantee by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Instead, according to the authors, the bank should be subject to unfettered market scrutiny for its proposed loans, securities or other funding mechanisms. (The authors do argue that, given the great need for new investment in the country’s infrastructure, returns should be tax-free.) Loans and securities issued by the bank could then be resold in the capital markets, providing additional receipts to the bank for new lending, thus greatly increasing the funding impact.

Capital gains

Mr. Rohatyn and his co-author also see the National Infrastructure Bank as a better mechanism for integrating private capital into infrastructure projects. They criticize the recent practice of several state and local governments to sell, in effect, existing highways or other transportation infrastructure to private interests because tolls cannot be increased to a sufficient level. They argue that governments run a significant risk of selling these assets for far less than their true value or under other onerous terms. Governments also run the risk of squandering the one-time payments from these asset “sales.” Conversely, the authors contend that a National Infrastructure Bank would

6

provide a better mechanism to manage the influx of private money into infrastructure projects. It is worth nothing that this article was written just before the economic downturn entered its recent critical stage in early October. Clearly, the concept of “repackaging” loans and other financial instruments for resale in the capital markets is now suspect. However, where such loans or other securities are backed by real and measurably revenues, such as from tolls, potential investors should have additional confidence. Additionally, there is a long history of governments, state, county and local, raising revenues for transportation and other infrastructure projects through their bonding authority. A National Infrastructure Bank would appear to be an attempt to build on this history, but with a national perspective and with the ability to access new levels of funding not otherwise available at the state or local level. Mr. Rohatyn and his coauthor note the important role of “smart” technologies (i.e., ITS) for new transportation projects, including electronic tolling, congesting pricing and other user fee systems. Project sponsors would need to show that they considered such approaches when seeking funding from the bank. Further, the authors recognize that these technologies must be integral

Vol 3 No 4 Thinking Highways

to transportation projects that would be funded by a National Infrastructure Bank. Not only are they needed to relieve existing congestion, but they also provide a key source of new funds for transportation projects.

Providing stimulus

Finally, in the current economic crisis, a National Infrastructure Bank could be the lead tool in an economic stimulus program. Direct government investment in public works projects leads to new jobs - and, consequently, new economic activity at all levels. Only the Obama Campaign calls for a similar program, called the “National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank,” but on much more modest scale. Senator Obama proposes that US$60billion be provided over 10 years to direct investment in transportation infrastructure projects, which would create up to an estimated two million new direct and indirect jobs and stimulate approximately US$35billion in new economic activity. Whether Obama or McCain is the next president, either one will need to consider how best to reinvigorate the US economy. A National Infrastructure Bank as proposed by Mr. Rohatyn may just be the best way to “kick start” the economy. For ITS, such a bank could renew the efforts for nationwide deployment. TH www.thinkinghighways.com

TUCM1475

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$2)6).'#(!.'% Motorists in the metropolitan Washington D.C. region experience America’s second longest delay in traffic congestion. That’s a ranking the region doesn’t want, so Transurban is working with the Virginia Department of Transportation to do something about it. We’re doing this by adding two High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes in each direction to a 14-mile section of the Capital Beltway.

HOT lanes will provide congestion relief while minimizing the impact on the local environment, and will improve public transport opportunities in the region. Visit www.virginiahotlanes.com to find out more about the benefits HOT lanes will bring to commuters—including carpoolers, bus riders and the Northern Virginia community as a whole.

www.transurban.com

Paul Najarian’s Connected World Paul Najarian

The toilet àush test

Paul Najarian was director of telecoms at ITS America from 1996-2006. He can be contacted via email: [email protected]

PAUL NAJARIAN on how ITS should conduct its own “upload and download” trials for the Vehicle Infrastructure Integration program Recent information on the results of the Michigan Vehicle Infrastructure Integration (VII) Proof of Concept (POC) test has been rather ambiguous. On one hand, reports indicate several accomplishments which have clearly met the objectives of the technical feasibility of VII, while identifying a number of shortfalls with the IEEE 802.11p Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) standard. These shortfalls have been forwarded to the standard body for review, modification and possible amendments by its technical committee. On the other hand, anecdotal stories circulating among members of the technical committee reflect a wide rift between the test results and the technical specifications, operational characteristics and realistic capabilities of DSRC.

A drain on resources

In the United States and probably other parts of the world, when a new sports stadium with a very large seating capacity is about to be inaugurated, the sports stadium must first pass a toilet flush test. In 2009, with new stadiums anticipated for the

8

New York Yankees and the New York Mets in baseball, and the Dallas Cowboys in football, such tests will be conducted prior to the official opening of the stadium. In some cases, full passage of the tests may be part of the health regulations and building occupancy permit.

“Computer modeling and simulation do not provide a substitute for a real stress-test” “Toilet flush test day” at a stadium is a major press event covered by television and the local news media. On such a day, hundreds (if not more than a thousand) volunteers are recruited and instructed to flush all the toilets and urinals, and fully open the water faucets in bathrooms, sinks and vendor areas simultaneously at a precise synchronized time. This test is repeated several times, in chorus, within a 15 to 20 minute period. Television media and corporate sponsors conduct lotteries and contests to recruit such volunteers giving them a sneak-preview of the stadium and the

Vol 3 No 4 Thinking Highways

opportunity to spend a day at the park before its official opening. The objective of the toilet flush test is to simulate a mad rush during a break such as a time-out or half-time, and to ascertain whether the water pressure (including the sewer system) can sustain the “upload and download” requirements of the water flow. Similarly, radiocommunication and wireless systems must also pass the toilet flush test, relative to the requirements of the applications and the operational capabilities of the system.

Stressing the point

In order to pass such a test in a wireless communications environment, the system must be stressed to its full capability. Assessment of test results (including the “upload and download” of information, data speed and throughput) would be meaningless, unless the test is conducted in a fully stressed environment. Computer modeling and simulation do not provide a substitute for a real stress-test. Unfortunately, rather than being tested in a controlled environment, the only time these systems were stressed in recent history was in New York on 9/11 and in London on www.thinkinghighways.com

July 7, 2005. On 9/11, wireless networks in New York City and Washington, DC were unable to sustain the stress test. Although this might be viewed as a unique or extreme case, nevertheless it is still a significant test case especially considering that some applications (e.g. VII or DSRC) are listed as Public Safety applications. The expectations are that such applications should not fail, even in a stressed environment. As a result of the network failures on 9/11, some features have been put in place for public safety entities, including signal pre-emption and priority.

The small print

Besides the toilet flush test, consumers must be made aware of the true operational characteristics of their wireless systems. In a recent press release, a wireless carrier demonstrated throughput from 50 to 150 Mbps using a 4th generation wireless standard called Long Term Evolution. The test was conducted in a European country. Although this press release was widely circulated (including in the United States) and received a lot of consumer hype, a closer examination of the test reveals that it was conducted with a single user driving a predetermined course, and occupying a 10 MHz bandwidth. In fact, the throughput could have been much higher if the user was stationary. Realistically, it is impossible to reach such speeds or to meet such requirements if there are additional users on the network, if the antennas were configured differently, if the road circuit was altered, if the propagation characteristics differ, if dataintensive applications are being downloaded, etc. www.thinkinghighways.com

Reality bites

Both the toilet flush test and the above example must be taken into consideration when assessing the full results of the DSRC tests in a real world environment. There is clearly a wide gap among those who are drafting the IEEE 802.11p DSRC standard, the users and implementers who are coming up with ideas for DSRC and VII applications and the field operational test designers and conductors. It is quite easy to come up with a list of unique and exotic applications while brainstorming at a workinggroup level roundtable. However, could these applications be sustained over DSRC or any other wireless network? Could they be sustained when multiple users are on line, or when multiple vehicles are at an intersection?

“It is puzzling that a Þeld operational test was needed to come to such a conclusion identiÞed as a shortfall in the DSRC standard” Do the designers and conductors of the field operational tests understand radio frequency propagation? Do they realize that signal propagation at 5.9 GHz is vastly different than emissions at 902-928 MHz from electronic toll collection antenna placed under a gantry? Have they taken into consideration the differences between IP-based applications and traditional voice or data applications? Among the shortfalls of an IP-based application that were identified by the Michigan POC is the loss of probe data under the current technical

characteristics of the IEEE 802.11p standard. This data loss is inevitable when a vehicle is located in a weak signal coverage zone. To remedy this, for example, the DSRC receiver sensitivity must be increased to such levels that it would be cost prohibitive for any manufacturer to develop such radio, yet alone for any car manufacturer to integrate such an expensive system.

How did it come to this?

It is puzzling that a field operational test was needed to come to such a conclusion identified as a shortfall in the DSRC standard, as every consumer has experienced a dropped wireless call in a weak signal zone. It may also be impossible to predict how DSRC will behave in a fully stressed environment. These are just a sample of questions that must be tested and answered before realizing a full assessment of the test results. Simply forwarding the shortfalls of the test to the standard body for review, modification and possible amendments by its technical committee may not be the best solution, and may not provide any solution. If the standard cannot be modified without major technical changes (including cost considerations), perhaps the applications must be rescaled or downsized. Testing the capabilities of the 5.9 GHz DSRC communications using the IEEE 802.11p standard and establishing baseline performance data in a realworld environment was among the stated goals and objectives of the Michigan Proof of Concept. A real-world environment must include a toilet flush test for all VII applications, especially for those concerning the public’s safety. TH

Thinking Highways Vol 3 No 4

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The Thinker

Stunted growth Thinking Highways’ financial analyst MARGARET PETTIT looks at the European Territorial Cooperation Programme and finds that like with any other major programme, it’s a matter of priorities

Stormy weather PHIL TARNOFF poses a potentially taxing question: is the past prologue to VII’s future?

10

Vol 3 No 4 Thinking Highways

www.thinkinghighways.com

Climate Change The Thinker

“The disappearance of VII would represent another setback for the application of technology to the transportation system” During the 1990s many champions of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) technology felt that its impacts would be equivalent to those of the construction of the US Interstate system. Unfortunately, as transportation agencies cautiously adopted the use of this technology on an as-needed basis, this dream never materialized. In an effort to “realize the dream” the Automated Highway System (AHS) program was established. This program which was initiated in 1992,represented an attempt to enable vehicle operation without requiring human intervention. AHS was an effort to leapfrog the gradual introduction of ITS technology by providing significant improvements in roadway safety and capacity. This program with its 10+ year horizon was eventually cancelled by the USDOT in 1998 due to funding pressures and a feeling that the development of near-term safety systems should be given a higher priority. Research programs conducted both in parallel with the AHS and subsequent to its conclusion offered alternative approaches to the use of technology to advance safety. In 2003 these programs coalesced into a major initiative known as the Vehicle Infrastructure Integration (VII) program. VII takes advantage of the extensive instrumentation installed in the modern automobile to measure speed, roadway and weather conditions, vehicle location and direction. The cumulative information received from a sample of the overall traffic stream could be an invaluawww.thinkinghighways.com

ble asset for both safety and traffic management applications. The combination of applications possible by taking advantage of on board vehicle sensors is extensive. Like AHS, the VII program offers the possibility of a significant paradigm shift in terms of both the safety and mobility impacts it would have on the transportation system. Unfortunately, storm clouds are now on the horizon for VII. The program appears to have lost much of its momentum along with the support of many within the transportation community. The disappearance of VII would represent another setback for the application of technology to the transportation system, not to mention a significant loss for its users. What has gone wrong? How can the loss of momentum be reversed? Does the program need to be restructured? The answers to these questions are vital to the future efficiency and safety of the nation’s transportation system.

So what exactly is VII?

After many years of development, definition of the VII program should be an easy task. Unfortunately, due to the number and variety of participants, there is little consensus on the objectives, business model and architecture of the system. Participants providing planning and guidance for include various segments of the US DOT (Joint Program Office, highway operations, safety, transit, motor carriers), state governments, the automobile industry, aftermarket equipment manufacturers, Thinking Highways Vol 3 No 4

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The Thinker communications providers, navigation and traffic information providers, and many others. Considering the number and diversity of interested parties, it should not be surprising that consensus has been difficult to achieve but there is general agreement among the majority of participants that the objectives of VII are to: • Significantly improve safety through reduction of both single vehicle and multiple vehicle crashes • Improve mobility by generating traffic and roadway status data nationally for use by both public agencies and motorists • Support automobile industry requirements for improved communications with both their customers and their products • Provide enhanced commercial in-vehicle services such as downloading of entertainment and drivethrough services for applications such as fast food and banking. • Support various electronic payment applications such as electronic tolling and collection of parking fees. These objectives are implemented through the devel-

The promise of VII

Imagine the possible safety improvements possible if either the driver or the vehicle knew about the possibility of imminent crashes due to the presence of other vehicles, or that vehicle speed was too high for pavement condition or geometrics, or that the driver is deviating from the travel lane due to inattention or impairment. The promise of VII is a significant reduction in the 6m crashes occurring in the US each year, at a direct economic cost of more than US$230billion (in 2000 dollars).1 The goal of the VII program is to reduce vehicle crashes by 90 per cent by 2030.2 Unfortunately, similar goals have not been established for mobility or for the commercial benefits of the system. Imagine the possibilities of VII for improved safety, management and operation of the roadway system, with access to high quality information related to travel times, pavement condition, weather, visibility, sun glare, etc. It would be possible to automatically detect incidents, provide accurate detour information to motorists due to an incident, disseminate accurate travel times to motorists and provide improved traffic signal timing.

Database Roadside Unit (RSU) On-Board Unit (OBU) Figure 1. High Level VII Architecture

opment of a myriad of applications that take advantage of a system made up of on-board vehicle sensors combined with a roadside communication, storage and processing infrastructure. As indicated by the simplified Figure 1, these applications are supported by an architecture that includes two-way communications between the vehicle and a roadside unit using a protocol known as Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC). The roadside units communicate through routers (not shown in the diagram) which direct the appropriate vehicle data to large databases with temporary storage that is used by a variety of applications. Also not shown in the diagram is the vehicle-to-vehicle communications required for multiple vehicle crash avoidance. As implied by this architecture VII has been created as a homogenous system that requires installation operations and maintenance of an extensive national installation of RSUs with supporting communications and database infrastructure, for its success. It also requires strict adherence to communications and data standards by all participants.

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Traffic Management Centers Manufacturers Routing and Navigation Retail and Banking Etc. There is little doubt that VII offers the potential to significantly reduce both recurring and non-recurring congestion, which currently costs the American traveler approximately US$73billion per year.3 This conservative estimate does not take into account the impact of late shipments on the retail and manufacturing sectors of the economy. It also ignores the benefits of significant reductions in fuel consumption and reduced emissions that result from unimpeded traffic flow. In fact, US DOT publications discussing the VII program make only passing mention of its mobility benefits which are rarely quantified, while safety is discussed at length and is the basis on which the VII program has been justified. This bias toward safety has important implications for the VII architecture and application development. In the case of the VII architecture, many of the safety benefits can be achieved without the need for an extensive network of roadside units with extensive supporting communications infrastructure, since the many of the more significant safety applications rely on autonomous vehicle instrumentation (lane keeping) or vehicle to vehicle communications (intersection crash avoidance). The current emphasis on safety unneceswww.thinkinghighways.com

The Thinker sarily limits the degree of support that can be marshaled for the program, not because safety is unimportant (quite the opposite is true), but because there are many who feel that travel delays, travel reliability, fuel consumption and emissions are equally important. Thus ignoring mobility and its associated benefits ignores a source of support.

The (poor) health of the VII program

Things are not currently going well with the VII program for a variety of significant reasons including: • Short attention span. Review of earlier US DOT programs, leads to the conclusion that the maximum life of these programs is eight years. This was true of the AHS (six years), the traffic signal control research of the 1970s (five years), the in-vehicle traveler information research of Pathfinder and Travtek (seven years). There may be many reasons for this short attention span, not the least of which is changing political administrations with different priorities and interests. With this consideration in mind, VII which is now five years old, may be approaching the end of its life. • Absence of a balanced approach to the twin benefits of safety and mobility. The emphasis on safety has diluted potential support for the program as national priorities (including US DOT priorities) shift toward increased emphasis on congestion management and energy consumption. This could have been readily avoided.

• A monolithic architecture based on a Federal Mode. The current VII architecture defines a monolithic standardized national architecture that requires national consensus and uniform participation by all states and local agencies. Achieving the “buy-in” of 52 states and approximately 300 local agencies is a difficult task. Thus the assumption of a centrally managed, national architecture may be fundamentally flawed. One could argue that the standardized national architecture might be possible if a major national corporation such as a telecommunications firm assumes the responsibility and cost of operating and maintaining the system. Efforts to identify such a firm have been unsuccessful, due in part to the lack of a business model adequate to attract private sector investment in the VII venture. • A cumbersome working group. In an effort to ensure that the VII program meets the needs of both the private and public sectors, a VII Working Group has been formed to provide strategic direction for the program. This group initially includes US DOT with its constituent administrations and the ITS Joint Program Office, both domestic and foreign automobile manufacturers, state and local agencies, and a number of associations. Since its initial creation, the group has evolved into the VII Coalition which has expanded to more than forty members. Advancing the design of a monolithic architecture requires the consensus of the Working Group and the VII Coalition. In essence, a complex system is being designed by a large diverse committee.

The VII Showcase in Nebraska in 2006. Has the Program lost momentum since then?

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VII • Absence of a credible business model. In spite of the fact that the VII program has been in existence for approximately five years, questions related to its continuing ownership, management, operations and funding remain. Until these questions are resolved, it is inconceivable that public or private sector funding will become available. Thus there are many daunting challenges ahead for the VII program, challenges that must be resolved if the program is to succeed.

Where do we go from here?

Because of the many issues surrounding the VII architecture, it is important to disassociate the program from the architecture. This is an important step, and one that will lead to a natural restructuring of the program. The needed reorientation should occur rapidly to compensate for deteriorating Federal support while ensuring that all the potential benefits of the program are preserved. In addition, new directions for VII must take into account that technology is being developed and deployed by vehicle manufacturers, information service providers and telecommunications firms, which overlap with many of the safety and mobility functions planned for VII. These developments are proceeding without recognition that they might be coordinated in a manner that will benefit the traveling public. For example, several information service providers are collecting and marketing traffic information nationally that is being purchased by both private and public sector users. Within the next five years, it is likely that the quality of this information will meet or exceed that which could have been provided by VII. With the exception of a unified multi-state project being led by the I-95 Corridor Coalition, states are independently addressing the many issues associated with such a procurement (data use restrictions, location reference standards, validation, compensation, etc.) Most of these activities are being conducted without the support and guidance of the Federal government or the VII Coalition. As a result, a patchwork of uncoordinated data acquisition efforts is emerging that will be of little benefit to the long-distance multi-state traveler.

By no means a lost cause

VII can be rejuvenated and its implementation accelerated through an approach based on the following five principles (several of which are already being considered or adopted by the US DOT): (1) Recognize that a national, “one size fits all” architecture will not succeed within today’s governmental structure and funding climate. There is little need for a system that combines the attributes of millisecond response times for intersection collision avoidance with the networked requirements of areawide traffic surveillance into a single architecture. A one-size fits all system is costly, and requires impractical levels of agreement on extensive sets of standards (including high quality maintenance standards). Disaggregate the needed VII functionality into a series of more manageable smaller systems, some of which are lead by the pri-

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vate sector, and a few of which may become the responsibility of public agencies. (2) For the private sector-led systems such as traffic flow data collection, provide coordination and support, rather than developing a VII-like system that competes with these ventures. Coordination includes funding of demonstration projects, development of interoperability standards, preparation of industry supported data ownership agreements, etc.) (3) Monitor the emergence of new technologies that offer the promise of providing VII-like functionality. Develop a process for vetting these technologies to ensure that they truly offer the potential advertised by their developers, and provide funding to accelerate their development. (4) Minimize or eliminate the impact of VII functions on existing public sector organizations. For example, avoid solutions that require the modification of 50 per cent of the nation’s traffic signal controllers and/or cabinets. It is unreasonable to expect state and local agencies to assume such an expanded set of responsibilities. (5) Create a program of mobility application research to fill the current void. It cannot be assumed that private industry will on its own, conduct such research because of the cost, lead time, and unknown market size of these applications. Yet these applications are needed if the VII promise of enhanced mobility is to be realized. (6) Develop a well-defined, aggressive outreach program to disseminate these principles and their impact on the program. While ongoing changes to the current VII program appear to embrace many of these principles, most program participants are unaware of them. A well-defined vision for this program will ensure that everyone is working toward a common goal.

Summary

Taken together, these principles represent a reorientation of the VII program away from a Federally-oriented design toward a more distributed approach, responsive to existing political and technological realities. They are also sensitive to the unique responsibilities of state and local agencies for systems management and operation. It is essential that these changes be made if the promise of VII is to be preserved with, a critical need in view of the increasing vehicular demand and decreasing expansion of the nation’s transportation system. ` TH (1) Vehicle Infrastructure Integration website, Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA), 2008, www.vehicle-infrastructure.org/vii-overview/ (2) VII Research Program, August 2008, www.vehicle-infrastructure.org/program-information/ vii-research-program-overview.pdf (3) “What Does Congestion Cost Us?”, Texas Transportation Institute, 2005, http://mobility.tamu.edu/ums/ report/congestion_cost.pdf www.thinkinghighways.com

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Infrastructure

Past, crescent Stunted and future growth Thinking Highways’ financial analyst MARGARET PETTIT looks at the European Territorial Cooperation Programme and finds that like with any other major programme, it’s a matter of priorities

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Climate Change Infrastructure The over-simplified version of this story is whether America’s transportation future should be sought in the 1800s, the era of John Henry, Cayce Jones and the Wabash Cannonball, or the 1950s, the decade of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and the dozens of audio recordings glorifying the open highway. There’s simply a whole lotta shakin’ going on today over an ageing highway in Western Virginia and while that tension might simply be legal and economic, it might also be social and historic. It might be a clash of two futures, both based heavily in the past. If it comes out one way, the 1950s’ era of the Eisenhower Interstate Highway system bringing ever-smaller communities the glory of ever-more consumer goods - as well as more and more congestion, pollution and safety concerns could be reaffirmed. If it comes out the other way, the public-private rail partnership that opened the Old West (and was a key step in the beginning of the end of it, too) could arise again. This on-going clash between the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) on one side, and a dozen Virginia communities, historical and tourism organiza-

tions on the other, might indeed be the beginnings of the New East. The old battles were fought with backroom bribes and, occasionally, six shooters as towns were determined to bring the rails their way. The new skirmish trying to keep an interstate highway from incurring further into Shenandoah Valley life - is being fought in US District Court in Charlottesville, Virginia. The 19th Century fights were over quickly and “John Henry was a steel driving man” as soon as the bribes were in the bank. This new encounter won’t conclude with this court case; the I-81 “fast-track” planning process will stretch through at least two more “tiers” before a spade of earth is turned even if international issues like Global Warming and Peak Oil remain outside of planning consideration.

Off the rails?

The primary issue, whether to spend state and federal tax dollars expanding 325 miles of I-81 through Virginia, is contrasted with moving public dollars into Norfolk Southern’s Crescent Rail Corridor that ranges from New Orleans to New York - could determine whether to

RANDY SALZMAN explores the finer points of a story that is very close to his heart and more importantly, his home. History is proving to be a rather difficult obstacle to overcome for the future development of Virginia’s stretch of the I-81 www.thinkinghighways.com

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Infrastructure

The red line indicates the intended route of the Crescent Corridor

return the nation to an era of rail public-private cooperation unseen since the 19th century. As a Norfolk Southern official puts it: “It’s (potentially) a brave new world for us.” Should America provide state and federal tax money to build, operate and stock private companies for what is perceived as the greater good? For lesser congestion and pollution and more perceived safety? Or maybe just for the bucks? “It’s economic suicide by the state of Virginia to keep buying a 1950s transportation model,” laments The Coalition for Smarter Growth’s Stewart Schwartz, one of the plaintiffs. That model, building and expanding highways with few environmental or social considerations, provided America with the world’s most extensive highway system on one hand, but also helps contribute, through transportation inefficiency, almost half of the world’s automotive carbon dioxide emissions on the other. In this case specifically, that model plans to add another I-81 travel lane in each direction, and perhaps two lanes along two-thirds of the highway, which would cost Virginia US$7-US$12 billion, while the price tag for the public-private rail partnership moving the NAFTA-truck traffic bound for the consuming markets

of New York, Philadelphia and Boston onto rail as far south as Memphis, TN and New Orleans, LA is under US$3 billion. At least a third of rail intermodal funds would come from Norfolk Southern, the other states and the federal government.

A little over capacity

Built expecting 20,000 vehicles a day in the 1960s, I-81 today carries 74,000 around Roanoke, the largest city along the interstate. Projections indicate I-81traffic will virtually double by 2035 and much of that will be through-state, long-haul trucks. Already, an 18-wheeler is almost one of every three vehicles on the nation’s main deep South to Northeast highway. VDOT and the FHWA haven’t decided on any specific plan to battle the present and future congestion but their First Tier environmental impact statement implies that highway expansion will be necessary regardless of whether Norfolk Southern and the Department of Rails and Public Transportation can put together an unprecedented coalition of states, the federal government and private interests to remove a projected one million trucks annually off the over-capacitated interstate. Besides legal and bureaucratic concerns in spending public dollars for private benefit, the VDOT-FHWA

“As a Norfolk Southern ofÞcial puts it: It’s (potentially) a brave new world for us”

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Infrastructure assessment suggests that local Virginia traffic will increase as rapidly as the long-haul truckers. The year-old VDOT assessment minimizes the probability of Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, Louisiana, Alabama, North Carolina, New Jersey and Pennsylvania managing to work together, along with Norfolk Southern and Uncle Sam, fast enough to move enough freight traffic off the highway and onto the Crescent Corridor. Therefore, the First Tier concept leans heavily toward expanding the interstate through Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, a beautiful area of gentle farms and Civil War battlefields. Fearful that the ensuing path dependency throughout the planning process will ensure more asphalt and less nature and history, the plaintiffs desire to insert an ongoing study analyzing Norfolk Southern’s intermodal rail concept into Tier I. Those results, expected early this fall, will project truck and train travel times, rail operating and financial considerations and provide a schedule of needed infrastructure improvements, plus of course forecast the number of long-haul truckers. Including this data, plus work in local transportation demand management along the interstate, the plaintiffs suggest, will greatly affect the Tier I analysis.

Here come the greens

The plaintiffs argue that environmental factors beyond Virginia’s borders should be included in the original assessment, as well as practical considerations like the probability of a “carbon tax” to minimize America’s greenhouse emissions. That, plus erratic auto fuel prices and the possibility of international regulation in carbon dioxide emissions, they believe, will cut the need for additional automobile capacity. The Commission on the Future of Transportation in Virginia, furthermore, declared it a “futile exercise” for the state to try to build its way out of congestion in 1998. As yet, however, the planning process has no method of quantifying these kinds of potential future effects to determine a realistic “level of service” by 2035, VDOT’s target date. While wanting I-81 safety improvements - like truck climbing lanes and wider shoulders - built rapidly, the plaintiffs fear that once the lane expansion path is codified, reality will not be allowed to interfere with the highway planning and construction process. If a concept wasn’t included in Tier I, they argue, it won’t be included in Tier II or III and, with that in mind, all stopgap projects will be designed with an eye on the probable expansion indicated in Tier I. “Look at the truck climbing lane in Rockbridge County,” says Megan Gallagher, the head of Shenandoah Valley Network. “The design calls for three lanes, actually; the maximum widening called for in Tier I. It’s an abuse of the safety improvement concept.” VDOT does not argue the point, instead pointing out

that it’s economically efficient to build for the probable future. In the Rockbridge County situation, highway engineers note that new construction safety design standards require 12ft – in effect a new lane – separation from moving traffic to protect workers. With that safety requirement, the actual climbing lane itself, and the compulsory paved shoulder, the one-climbing-lane expansion comes to 60ft – or three potential lanes. “If there are funds for it, any improvements that we make we want to ensure that it fits the ultimate footprint for the future,” says Fred Altizer, head of VDOT’s I-81 project. “I don’t know of a road anywhere on the East Coast that needs widening and substantial improvements as much as I-81.We need to get our traffic moving safely along a corridor that has far outreached its capacity.” Altizer, indeed, emphasizes safety, noting that many I-81 bridges today provide no space for drivers to pull off the road and that much of the highway’s shoulders are “substandard.” Rather than chance the narrow shoulder amid the massive air turbulence from passing 18-wheelers, he suggests that drivers with flat tires should stay in their vehicles and call a tow truck.

Politics and finance

VDOT and DRPT – and their governing body, The Commonwealth Transportation Board -- are interested in the possibility of rail removing trucks from I-81. But, like the Tier I impact statement implies, many find the chances of so many governments overcoming the inherent turf and funding battles in any reasonable time frame questionable. Should, for example, New York provide funds for improving and equipping Norfolk Southern’s Crescent Corridor? Or can Virginia dollars be diverted to help construct the Memphis, TN terminal? Many goods traveling the public-private rail would be bound for The Big Apple yet not a single foot of track would enter the Empire State. Memphis, though it’s 500 miles from the Virginia border, is Norfolk Southern’s most efficient location for the Southwest corner of the corridor. That terminal would keep hundreds more North-America-Free-Trade trucks out of Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. Unlike the 1800s, if the public-private rail partnership does come to pass, Uncle Sam and the states will not be providing free land to the railroads. It will require hard cash. Norfolk Southern already owns the Crescent Corridor right of way but can’t afford the necessary track, terminals or enough piggy-back rail cars to carry all the types of long-haul trucks. In effect, under Virginia’s Rail Enhancement Fund, Virginia’s - and potentially other states’ - public money would be purchasing capital equipment for Norfolk Southern as long as the railroad meets dedicated 15-year goals in getting trucks off the highways. “We’re on the leading edge of what’s going on in the United States and I’d call the passage of the REF (Rail

“If the publicprivate rail partnership does come to pass, Uncle Sam and the States will not be providing free land to the railroads”

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Thinking Highways Vol 3 No 4

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Enhancement Fund in 2005) the historic change,” says Virginia Department of Rails and Public Transportation’s Chief of Staff Jennifer Pickett. “It’s an innovative approach to getting the maximum result out of state funds.While it’s helpful to have the other states on board (the Crescent Corridor) because the benefits are so much greater, I don’t know that we’ll throw the project out if another state doesn’t participate.” The tricky funding and political solution has been modeled by NS’s Heartland Corridor which, also merging public-private funds in a 70/30 match, will piggyback containers from the port of Norfolk, Virginia to distribution points in Ohio. Norfolk Southern dealt with three state transportation bureaucracies to begin enlarging 28 tunnels through the Appalachian Mountains and kick off Heartland Corridor construction this summer. Presently, Norfolk Southern and Virginia are combining for US$57m in track improvements which will benefit trains running on both the Heartland and Crescent Corridors. This five-mile project could be considered the transitional phase between, in effect, the pilot and demonstration projects of the “brave new world” of multi-state, public-private funding. One key to the Crescent Corridor’s dynamic commercial potential is the railroad’s ability to run enough trains - about 20 trains daily, 8000ft long - in a comparable time frame to long-haul trucks. From the shippers’ perspective, the energy efficiency and cost gains of rail over highway could be wiped out by a huge time differential between the two modes.

The case rumbles on

Meanwhile, the I-81 court case proceeds, mired in the legal question of whether VDOT and the FHWA followed their existing regulations properly to arrive at the Tier I impact statement. The plaintiffs, however, are more concerned with saving “7,400 acres of developed land, 1,062 acres of prime farmland, up to 2,400 residences, 662 businesses, 1,238 acres of Civil War Battlefields, 361 acres of floodplains, and 23 miles of streams” that might fall under bulldozers if the I-81 Tier I stands. Getting DRPT’s rail study, and transportation demand management possibilities, into a re-tooled Tier I, they believe will go a long way in the smart direction. “We’re still hoping that VDOT will say ‘We need to reconsider’ and include these facts, plus the views of most (people) in the Shenandoah Valley,” Schwartz says. “We regret that we had to sue.” If the multi-state/federal rail public-private partnership does turn the tide and break 50 years of highwayfirst American transportation planning, “the new model here” as a Norfolk Southern official calls it, could be historic: “It might pale on the scale of the interstate highway system or the land grant era but it also might be the template for the future.” TH Randy Salzman can be contacted via email at [email protected] www.thinkinghighways.com

Climate Thinking Change Cars

Think on... H3B Media’s European Commission project has taken a significant step forward with the launch of the Thinking Cars website

The European Commission’s Smartest Cars Video Project (SCVP) has reached a new milestone with the launch of the project website. As reported in earlier issues of Thinking Highways, SCVP is taking aim at the relatively low public awareness of active safety systems. Led by H3B Media, a top quality TV documentary is being produced under the working title of “Thinking Cars.” The idea is to reach people in their homes with a dual message – everyone, even you, is vulnerable to a road crash and when you buy your next car there are systems available which can potentially prevent that next crash which may lurk in your future. The project structure includes negotiations with European broadcasters to air Thinking Cars – two one-hour programs – in late 2009 or early 2010. A key strategy is the creation of a sophisticated website which will be associated with the TV program and serve as a conduit for the public to get more information about active safety

systems and the particular car models on which these systems are available. Enter www.thinkingcars.com and under the banner of “Be Well Protected in A Crash – Or Never Crash At All,” the new site provides full information on SCVP as well as “teaser” introductions to the 13 systems which users can click to access an easyto-understand synopsis. The systems include lane departure prevention, collision mitigation braking, pedestrian detection, and eCall. Animations illustrate the functions of some of the systems. Once the TV documentary is finished, users will also be able to access short video downloads of extended topics based on the program. Links are provided to the car manufacturers offering active safety, and a survey page will informally poll viewers of Thinking Cars as to their awareness and perception of active safety. The site will also provide up-to-date news relevant to the active safety scene. TH www.thinkingcars.com

What would you rather do - be well protected in a crash or never crash at all?

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Want to try "foot free" driving? Cruise control has been around for ages, but on most highways today, we are constantly MANUFACTURERS fiddling with our cruise control settings to accommodate someone slower ahead. AUDI ACC enables your vehicle to react on its own - it keeps your set speed; if a slower BMW vehicle is ahead, it "sees" it and will slow FIAT your car down and automatically match that speed, while maintaining a safe gap HONDA between you and the guy ahead. In these RENAULT situations, your car is a "car follower" and TOYOTA you can set the gap you're comfortable with. If that slower vehicle moves out of VOLKSWAGEN your lane, or if you change lanes, and the VOLVO CARS way ahead is clear, your car accelerates back to the set speed. ACC is a "convenience system," and SURVEY users say it EVER HAD THE FEELING YOU WERE OUR LATEST really reduces the stress of driving on long BEING WATCHED? Do you think that the automotive trips.

Driver monitoring used to be just the wife nagging, not anymore.

industry should take note of blah,

blah? "Stop and Go" blah, ACC is a newer version which can take care of the pedals in YES NO UNSURE

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Thinking Highways Vol 3 No 4

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The Thought Process

Thinking Highways’ financial analyst MARGARET PETTIT looks at the European Territorial Cooperation Programme and finds that like with any other major programme, it’s a matter of priorities

Jan Hellaker Vice-President, Business Development, Volvo Technology, North America 24

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ClimateProcess Change The Thought Many years ago I accepted a job at Volvo within an area that was so obscure that no one really could explain to me what it was. It wasn’t until years later that it came to be called ITS. I would never have guessed back then how big a part of my professional life it would become. Being part of the early cooperative research involving all the European car manufacturers (althought it was more like brainstorming) was a fascinating experience. Today the close cooperation between fierce competitors and the open doors at the research labs in Stuttgart, Turin, Munich and elsewhere seems quite unbelievable, but it was a very fruitful type of process that I think our industry should try again. The first estimates of when we would see a significant penetration of GPS-supported navigation systems were probably off by some four to five years, but it’s remarkable how fast this market has grown in the last few years. The mass proliferation of inexpensive handheld devices is putting a lot of good pressure on the automotive OEMs. Initially they completely owned the navigation segment but now they need to step up and prove that the benefits of having access to the vehicle multiplex buses and complete in-vehicle integration will beat the arguably faster software development cycles of the aftermarket industry.

At Volvo we consider VII an extremely important tool in our efforts to make transportation safer and more efficient. It’s understandable that car applications of VII initially have attracted most of the interest, but one should not forget that as far as daily mileage, medium and heavy trucks play an extremely important role for our society and the impact on road traffic. Someone said that:“Cars move Americans, but trucks move America”, which can hardly be disputed. Hopefully sooner than later we will be talking about true deployment of VII, and in that context the ITS trade associations around the world will play an important role. Volvo was quite instrumental when ERTICO was formed in1991 and I consider the importance of these organizations as even bigger today. Never before has there been more of a need to coordinate so many players to achieve the full potential of ITS. In this context the importance of the World Congress also should be emphasized, as they provide the ultimate possibility for people from all segments of ITS to intersect and cross-pollinate. Although nowadays I live in the US, I will be thrilled when the World Congress finally makes it to my native Sweden in 2009.With four world-class car and truck manufacturers in a country of only 9 million inhabitants, there is little doubt that next year’s Congress will have an unprecedented impact on the host society.

“Although I live in the US, I will be thrilled when the World Congress Þnally makes it to my native Sweden next year”

When Ford Motor Company acquired Volvo’s car business, it certainly changed the landscape for our ITS R&D. However, I am happy that Volvo Technology is one of a few Volvo Group companies that is still working closely with Volvo Cars. I think it’s essential for a good understanding of both the potential and the pitfalls of ITS, to keep all types of applications and end users in mind when designing your next product.

I consider VII as by far the most exciting thing going on in ITS today. It took longer than anyone would have anticipated getting the early ITS concepts for active safety into the hands of end-users, but now that we see an avalanche of autonomous systems and features being launched, the next chasm will be crossed when truly cooperative systems are deployed. It is encouraging that - for once - we have a common frequency band allocated for VII between Europe and the US, but we all know that this is only the beginning. Even from a nomenclature perspective we are still using different terms for this type of system in all corners of the world, be it Cooperative Systems,VICS or something else. I personally tend to think that the global ITS community needs to straighten this out; we need to be extremely crisp and clear when we communicate this to our lawmakers. They sometimes listen across the borders and we need to make sure we all speak the same language. www.thinkinghighways.com

Regardless of current and very important deployment issues, the entire ITS industry needs to re-energize its innovation efforts. Starting from scratch in the late 1980s, it was easy to generate lots of product ideas but sometimes it feels like true creativity faded away along the way. Maybe it was because we were too busy bringing the first-generation ideas to real products, which took longer than expected. Volvo has recognized this, and we are sharply increasing our efforts in the field of soft product innovations.

ITS as a whole still suffers from the lack of a solid comprehensive system architecture, in particular if you look across different countries or continents. For a global OEM such as Volvo, it is very frustrating having to meet different standards in different markets and this may well impede the speed of continued development. My long-term vision for ITS is that we would one day get to a global, standardized communication infrastructure for road transportation. Call it VII or whatever you like, but it would ultimately encompass all vehicles, infrastructure components, traffic management centers, maybe even pedestrians and cyclists. My dream is that this universal network - just like the Internet – would allow tomorrow’s engineers to develop and deploy software – at Internet speed - for new traffic and transport-related features and services. TH [email protected] Thinking Highways Vol 3 No 4

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ITS

Reverse psychology Stunted

growth

ITS is helping to make Florida’s Tampa Hillsborough Reversible Express Lanes a success as MARTIN STONE and STEPHEN LITTLE are about to tell you...

Thinking Highways’ financial analyst MARGARET PETTIT looks at the European Territorial Cooperation Programme and finds that like with any other major programme, it’s a matter of priorities

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www.thinkinghighways.com

Climate Change ITS In 2006, the Tampa Hillsborough County Expressway Authority in Florida opened the most unique toll road in the world, the Reversible Express Lanes (REL). The project is the first anywhere to address urban congestion by combining the innovations of land-based concrete segmental bridges, reversible express lanes, reversible cashless multi-lane open road tolling and full electronic controls, all constructed within the existing right-of-way of Tampa’s Lee Roy Selmon Crosstown Expressway. Over the past 20 years, continued population growth and ever increasing traffic has resulted in severe congestion for thousands of daily Expressway commuters. The ability of the Expressway to provide direct service to the heart of the city is important to these commuters as well as being vital to the growth and prosperity of the downtown core and the continued expansion of the Port of Tampa, Florida’s largest deepwater port. The original plan from the Department of Transportation (FDOT) was to widen the Selmon Expressway by opening one additional lane in each direction and to connect the Expressway directly with I-4 to improve mobility on the region’s limited-access highway system. Unfortunately, projections of future Expressway traffic growth indicated that volumes would exceed the peakhour capacity of the planned three-lane section in the peak direction and both the Expressway and the new connection to the Interstate would be severely congested within less than 10 years. Authority staff believed that these unique traffic conditions warranted an innovative solution, one that would produce a more efficient use of the more than US$200m that would have been spent on the traditional widening of the Expressway. The Authority’s extraordinary solution to relieve this severe peak-hour congestion and improve access on the Selmon Crosstown Expressway was to build 10 miles of reversible express toll lanes between I-75 and downtown Tampa.To preserve the valuable Expressway corridor for future transportation needs, most of the project was constructed as an elegant concrete segmental bridge built using only 6ft of space within the existing Expressway median, dramatically reducing project costs and impacts to the community and the environment.

operators monitor the lanes, oversee the change of direction and direct a dedicated “Road Ranger” service patrol vehicle to provide immediate motorist assistance thus quickly clearing the roadway of stalled vehicles. The REL ITS system had very stringent design criteria; firstly that it be based on a mature software platform that had been utilized in similar environments. Because there was a variety of field equipment to be controlled and several operations to be executed concurrently the system elements had to be fully integrated and accessible from any operator workstation. It was also important that the REL ITS be configurable and scalable as connections to other Tampa-area freeways and arterials was already under consideration. The Authority chose Transdyn, Inc. to be its system integrator for the project due to their experience with “mission critical” control systems including a similar project for the Virginia DOT in Hampton Roads, home of the US Atlantic Fleet. Transdyn designed the REL ITS with assistance from local engineering firm, TEI (now HNTB). The resulting system employs 32 variable message signs along with 25 CCTV cameras, 30 warning gates, five impenetrable barrier gates and an interface to two signalized intersections. The core software is Transdyn’s DYNAC ATMS®, an integrated software suite used for advanced transportation management, process automation and SCADA applications. It has user-configurable applications designed specifically for customers that require a high level of security, availability, performance, and data integrity.

“Reversible express toll lanes were the Authority’s extraordinary solution”

ITS Technologies

Critical to the acceptance and success of Tampa Hillsborough’s REL was the safe and efficient management of the reversible roadway. Technological innovations included an open road tolling system that operates in both directions and a fully integrated centralized traffic management system (REL ITS) to manage, control, and operate the reversible lanes and safely control each ingress point into the reversible lane system. The Authority manages these lanes from a central Traffic Management Center (TMC) constructed as part of the REL project. Full-time professional traffic signal www.thinkinghighways.com

Express delivery

The system delivers operational information to expressway customers and ensures that no vehicle may enter the reversible lanes in the wrong direction while providing feedback to TMC operators for the management of incidents on the roadway. The graphical interface features real-time graphics showing the complete status of the roadway. Operators have pan-tilt-zoom control of the cameras and full access to the message signs. Thinking Highways Vol 3 No 4

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ITS

The system also manages a checklist that ensures the gates are opened and closed in the proper sequence. Travel times are calculated based on data imported from the toll system.

Project success

The Tampa Hillsborough Expressway Authority’s REL project has received many awards based on the overall performance of the project against stated goals. In the first year of operation there were no accidents on the lanes and projected traffic volumes were exceeded by more than 30 per cent. While a number of the protective warning gates have been clipped, none of the impenetrable barriers have been struck and no vehicles have accessed the travel lanes in the wrong direction. Because of its unique design, the bridge was able to be built entirely within the existing right-of-way, dramatically reducing project costs and virtually eliminating any impacts to adjacent land uses, the surrounding community or the environment. Often called “Six lanes on Six Feet,” the bridge piers use only 6ft of the Expressway’s 46ft wide median to construct the three reversible lanes.The remaining land is therefore preserved, ensuring this irreplaceable transportation corridor will be available in the future to serve the growing transportation needs of the immediate community and the region. After the opening of the REL, Expressway customers experienced freeflow traffic conditions, with average trip times being reduced to 10 minutes or less depending on the trip length - a reduction of 20-30 minutes in trip time during the morning commute for both the REL and the existing Selmon Expressway toll lanes. What makes these time savings even more valuable to the community is that average daily traffic on the eastern end of the Expressway actually increased by more than 110,000 trips per month after full operations in January,

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2007. These additional Expressway trips represent diversions from local parallel non-tolled highways and roads that improve the mobility of the entire transportation network. The REL project guarantees customers a trip time of 10 minutes or less for their morning and afternoon commute into and out of the city thus delivering a time savings of up to one hour per day for some travelers. Additional customer value, in terms of reduced stress and improved employee performance, has been documented within a number of local media reports. Reversing the lanes greatly reduced the cost. For the project as a whole, the extremely low cost of the bridge, coupled with the elimination of the need to acquire virtually any right-of-way for these new express lanes, resulted in one of the lowest costs for a major urban expressway expansion anywhere in the United States. Using state-of-the-art ITS technologies to safely control the reversible lane operations has made all the other benefits possible. Customer acceptance has been exceptional and the Authority has hosted transportation officials from around the world.

Conclusion

While the combination of innovative design, construction techniques and technology was developed specifically for this project, many of the concepts employed on the REL have direct application to other transportation needs throughout the world. The concept of increasing the capacity of transportation corridors through innovative bridge design and maximizing the use of existing public rights-of-way is directly applicable to traffic congestion problems in many urban areas all over the world (tolled and non-tolled). The role ITS plays in this model is crucial and clearly demonstrates its value as we move toward more efficient transportation systems. TH Martin Stone, Ph.D., AICP is Director of Planning for Tampa Hillsborough County Expressway Authority. Stephen Little is Transdyn, Inc’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Manager. www.thinkinghighways.com

Autonomous Vehicles

Driven to it Stunted growth

Thinking Highways’ financial analyst MARGARET PETTIT looks at the European Territorial Cooperation Programme and finds that like with any other major programme, it’s a matter of priorities

Imagine jumping in your vehicle on your way to work, but instead of turning on the radio or plugging in your iPod, you decide to get some work done on your laptop or catch a few more minutes of sleep before arriving at the office. A self-chauffeured vehicle is crossing over from the sphere of science fiction into the realm of reality in the foreseeable future. The technology necessary to allow a car to drive itself is in development today by engineers and scientists around the world. In the United States, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) held a series of challenges in 2004, 2005, and 2007 to accelerate the development of enabling technologies for autonomous vehicles to help military vehicle autonomy initiatives. In Europe, the Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (INRIA) has been working on the CyberCar concept for several years, which has the potential to revolutionize door-to-door

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commuting in dense urban centers. Around the globe, the automotive industry is investing in active vehicle safety systems to enhance the driver’s perception of the environment and make vehicles safer. One frontier remains, preventing one of the largest causes of vehicle collisions – driver error. Removing the driver from control of the vehicle has the potential to revolutionize what surface transportation might look like. Imagine densely packed vehicles moving at high rates of speed, all communicating with one another, using each other’s sensors, sharing observations about the roadway, while incorporating information from an intelligent highway to make split-second decisions to keep the macro transportation systems flowing like well-oiled deterministic machines, all without human intervention. Imagine rush hour, without traffic jams. Imagine trauma centers without motor vehicle accidents. Imagine reducing, or even eliminating, motor vehicle fatalities altogether. www.thinkinghighways.com

ClimateVehicles Change Autonomous RYAN D LAMM takes an inside look at the future of surface transportation as autonomous, driverless vehicles invade New York City at the 15th World Congress on ITS

“Imagine trauma centers without motor vehicle accidents. Imagine reducing, or even eliminating, motor vehicle fatalities altogether” www.thinkinghighways.com

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Autonomous Vehicles

Figure 1: Intelligent Vehicle System Technology

The technologies to create tomorrow’s intelligent vehicle systems are being developed today, including: • Actuators (steering, throttle, and brake) with software interfaces. • Real-time control systems capable of implementing intelligence commands to cause the actuators to function as needed with little to no delay. • Advanced sensors that not only measure a vehicle’s specific position but also distance to and characteristics of objects in the environment (other vehicles, pedestrians, cyclists, animals, and road furniture/ debris). • Increased computing power inside the vehicle to handle extensive sensor fusion algorithms for perception and intelligence systems. • Robust, low-latency, high-availability, interoperable communication systems. • Software… lots and lots of software.

Not just yet, but...

Obviously, we are years away from this being reality; however, at the 15th World Congress on Intelligent Transportation Systems, held at the Jacob K. Javits Center in New York City from November 16-20, 2008, attendees will not only see this technology in action on the streets of Manhattan, but will also have the opportunity to “take a peek under the hood” of these intelligent vehicles and talk with the experts working to make this technology

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mainstream. Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), one of the oldest and largest independent, nonprofit, applied research and development organizations in the United States, is coordinating a major demonstration at the World Congress. Leaders in the field of autonomous vehicles, including SwRI, Carnegie Mellon (sponsored by General Motors), and Stanford (sponsored by Volkswagen) will preview what the future of surface transportation might look like. Three autonomous vehicles SwRI’s “SSTI”, CMU’s “Boss”, and Stanford’s “Junior”, will simultaneously navigate a closed portion of 11th Avenue in Manhattan in front of the Javits Convention Center. Boss, Junior and SSTI will chauffeur VIPs as they perform a series of obstacle avoidance maneuvers, pass both parked and moving vehicles and dynamically interact with each other at several intersections along the course. The demonstration will be simulcast on a large outdoor video wall for spectators along 11th Avenue. From 10:00am until 1:30pm each day, the vehicles will be on display outside the Javits Convention Center. Engineers from each team will be on hand to discuss the what, where, when, how, and why. Additionally, for World Congress attendees, several technical sessions addressing topics relevant to unmanned driving include a special session (SS43) on Vehicle Automation (Wednesday, November 19, from 3:30pm - 5:00pm) and the Advanced Telecommunicawww.thinkinghighways.com

Autonomous Vehicles

(Above) Figure 2: SwRI’s Southwest Safe Transport Initiative (SSTI) Autonomous Vehicle (Left) Figure 3: An autonomous vehicle’s view of the world

tions and Consumer Electronics (ATCE) Forum, which will highlight the making of the World Congress demonstrations, particularly the intricacies demonstrating the autonomous vehicles.

board sensors that would be needed for individual vehicles. This cooperative vehicle system also demonstrates how the unique characteristics of Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) facilitate crash avoidance in an environment containing both vehicles and pedestrians. The system, developed by SwRI and INRIA engineers, was initially evaluated on CyberCar platforms at INRIA in Versailles, France, in June 2008 and will be loaded onto the SwRI SSTI autonomous vehicle for demonstration at the World Congress. The demonstration will involve a pedestrian crossing a crosswalk on 11th Avenue in front of a large vehicle, such as a van or bus. The SwRI SSTI autonomous vehicle approaching the intersection will not be able to “see” the pedestrian about to cross its path due to the large vehicle obstructionAnother vehicle, equipped with sensors to detect the pedestrian will transmit information, via DSRC, to

“SwRI and INRIA Another World Congress demonstration have developed a will highlight how international collabounique system ration and joint research between SwRI (US) and INRIA (France), is fostering rapid allowing vehicles technology and system advancements in to share active this field. safety sensor SwRI and INRIA have developed a unique system allowing vehicles to share data” active safety sensor data, via Vehicle-toEurope’s involvement

Vehicle communications, to form a more extensive situational awareness of a traffic environment.We developed a scalable cooperative vehicle system to allow vehicles to compensate for occluded visibility, or blind-spots, in the environment demonstrating that a large-scale deployment could ultimately reduce the number of on-

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www.thinkinghighways.com

Are you looking for a solution that facilitates intelligent safety and mobility applications, forming a platform for VII and ITS solutions, ideal for tolling and HOT lane management, offering lower costs and greater value, superior performance with reduced infrastructure density, scalable in size and functionality, adaptable, easily enforceable, revenue-maximizing? It’s here. 5.9 GHz WAVE. Join us at the 15 th World Congress on Intelligent Transportation Systems, New York City, Nov. 16-20, 2008. Booth 537 | www.kapsch.net

We make your traffic flow. At 5.9 GHz WAVE.

Autonomous Vehicles the “blind” autonomous vehicle allowing it to vicariously “see” the approaching pedestrian. Using the data sharing, the SSTI vehicle will stop automatically, without driver intervention or cues from its own sensors, averting a potential accident and allowing the pedestrian to safely cross the intersection.

On the ball

Autonomous vehicle technology is in a rapid growth phase and will ultimately affect everyone from the soccer-mom to the commuter to the soldier. While full automation is still years away, the building blocks for vehicle autonomy will soon be standard on-board equipment in production vehicles. The US Department of Defense (DoD), along with a US Congressional objective, have set goals that one third of ground combat vehicles will be unmanned by 2015. Vehicle manufacturers, suppliers, the construction and mining industry, and private industry are all investing to make this vision a reality. Demonstrations like the ones planned for the World Congress in November help pave the way to public acceptance of the technology. If you want to catch a glimpse of what the roadways of the future may look like on the streets of Manhattan, you know where to come. TH Ryan D. Lamm is the Manager of Intelligent Vehicle Systems at Southwest Research Institute. Based in San Antonio, TX, he is contactable via email at [email protected]. Left, above: Figure 4 An autonomous vehicle negotiating traffic barriers Left: Figure 5 V2V Cooperative Sensor Sharing demonstrated in Versailles, France in June 2008

Figure 6: Dynamic interactions at intersections

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www.h3bmedia.com

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Autonomous Vehicles

Tomorrow’s world... today

Stunted growth

Photo by Bjoern Gantert

Thinking Highways’ financial analyst MARGARET PETTIT looks at the European Territorial Cooperation Programme and finds that like with any other major programme, it’s a matter of priorities

The 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge

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LOUIS NASTRO on how and why unmanned, robotic vehicles are leaving the laboratory ... www.thinkinghighways.com

ClimateVehicles Change Autonomous

The DARPA (US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) Challenges of 2005 and 2007 had an astounding ambition: to take the driver out of the vehicle and give full control to onboard systems. Sounds like science fiction, but for those developing the technology, it is just a matter of time until it’s an available reality. And that time is soon. The Pentagon sees the automated vehicle as the warrior of the future and has mandated that one-third of the military’s ground combat vehicles be unmanned by 2015. Commercial possibilities for this technology are extensive as well. So the race is on to perfect this technology! One of the principal challenges researchers face is achieving reliable and repeatable positioning data of a vehicle. Robust positioning (the ability of a positioning system to maintain accurate position and orientation information even during GPS outages), is a necessary component of successfully navigating a vehicle; necessary for both pre-planning functions and real-time navigation. Onboard sensors must be provided with correct and relevant data in order to steer their vehicles on their intended track, and in order to deal with unanticipated conditions en-route. Applanix Corporation, a pioneer in autonomous vehicle navigation, and an important contributor in all DARPA challenges, provided the position and orientation data systems for the top finishers of the challenge in www.thinkinghighways.com

both 2005 and 2007. The Applanix POS LV (Position and Orientation System for Land Vehicles) delivered top results because it not only guided vehicles physically but also helped them perceive their environment and respond to it. It is all made possible by ensuring the vehicle’s onboard systems know, within a few centimeters, where it is in relation to everything around it. This is where POS LV comes in.

Introducing the POS LV

The POS LV system is a tightly coupled inertial/GPS system which optimally blends the inertial data (from the IMU or Inertial Measuring Unit) with raw GPS observables from individual satellites (ranges and range rates). The result is improved navigational accuracy, improved re-acquisition time to recover full RTK position accuracy after satellite signal loss, and improved integrity of the resulting navigation solution. The inertial navigator computes position, velocity and orientation of the IMU. A Kalman filter estimates the errors in the inertial navigator along with IMU, distance measurements instrument (DMI) and GPS receivers. System components are shown in Figure 1. The distance measurement instrument (DMI), another essential piece of the POS LV hardware, outputs pulses representing fractional revolutions of the instrumented wheel. These pulses are converted by the POS LV into measurements of incremental distance travelled by the Thinking Highways Vol 3 No 4

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Autonomous Vehicles

Figure 1: POS LV System Components

Figure 2: All-seeing eye: a 360 degree LIDAR scan

vehicle when no GPS is available. DMI data can be used not only to bridge GPS outages and provide POS LV with incremental distance estimation, but also as an input into the velocity controller for detection of when the vehicle may be stuck. Wheel slippage can be monitored by comparing the DMI output to the velocity reported by the POS LV system.

Planning and vehicle control

The 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge

The 2005 Grand Challenge pushed participants to develop solutions for terrain perception and obstacle avoidance at ranges of 40m directly in front of the vehicle. Applanix collaborated with Carnegie Mellon’s “Red Team” for the position and orientation component of their two entries, “H1ghlander” and “Sandstorm.” The data provided by the POS LV was essential for governing vehicle dynamics in safely navigating the course in real-time operation. Both vehicles utilized a series of LIDAR and radar systems to sense terrain and feed that information into onboard computers which would modify pre planned route information to avoid obstacles and deal with changes in terrain. The Red Team’s approach involved a methodical analysis of the course terrain and modification of the RDDF (the route definition file) in order to provide both vehicles with the optimum path. LIDAR data (provided through a gimbal located on the roof of the vehicle which provided medium and long range terrain data) and supplemental lasers (scanning the boundaries of the navigable track) in addition to the short range radar (vital for detecting targets in the immediate vicinity of the vehicle), were incorporated to form a view of the world within which the robots could sense and evaluate terrain. Position information from the POS LV was critical in determining the direction of rotation of the gimbal in order to sense the oncoming terrain and georeferencing point cloud data. With data derived from the LIDAR and radar systems, it is fused into a composite model of the terrain. Errors in terrain characterization can, in most cases, be attributed to errors not in the data acquired by the sensor, but by errors in position and orientation estimation (pose).

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With reliable data from the POS LV integrated into the drive-by-wire systems of both Red Team Robots, pure pursuit tracking was made possible. But to further maximize performance, the robot was also provided with apex and curve entry and exit information, in addition to terrain condition, prior to the mission. These terrain models are best obtained by driving a vehicle equipped with laser scanner and POS system over terrain and recording topographic imagery. This was done with an H1 Hummer called ‘Topographer’ which utilized a POS LV and laser scanner to derive drive by topography typically with .25m resolution and 1.5m accuracy. The resulting surface models provide resolution and accuracy that are unobtainable from satellites or from traditional maps. The result of this pre-planning is illustrated in Figure 3 overleaf. The black lines denote raw RDDF file waypoints and speed limits provided by DARPA. The red dotted path illustrates the route as edited by human planners heavily interpolating the original set of waypoints.

The 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge

The 2007 iteration of the Grand Challenge, in an urban environment, pushed the state of the art further not only in perception, but in object prediction and autonomous vehicle interaction in dynamic environments. There were three timed mandated mission tests, each of which tested different core skills (parking, traffic collision avoidance, driving precision). Pose estimation was critical to perception, planning, control and providing key data to the drive-by-wire systems of the autonomous vehicles. Data fusion was key in determining a robot’s success in characterizing and interacting within its environment. In each phase of the mission, the robot needed to integrate the composite representation of the world and understand what was safe and unsafe given the changing targets around it impeding its route. Given the improved skills of the robots, the benefits of pre-planning were not as profound as with the 2005 www.thinkinghighways.com

Autonomous Vehicles

2007 Carnegie Mellon Univeristy winner Tahoe utilizing the Applanix POS LV system

Challenge and instead of two hours to prepare a vehicle, teams had 15 minutes. The missions therefore required much more processing of real-time obstacle avoidance. When obstacles in question are moving, there are three fundamental challenges: reliable position tracking relative to where the vehicle is and where it needs to go (in the local coordinate), accurate range and target bearing so the robot can determine what lane the obstacle is in from the route network definition file (RNDF), and most importantly, what is the predicted path of the obstacle? As the course presented obstacles in rapid succession, very accurate pose estimation was required to avoid collisions. So the key elements determining success in this Urban Challenge were real-time situational awareness and data fusion. High-level capability required two levels of characterization, that of the robotic vehicle in relation to the road and that of the dynamic obstacles on it. The vehicle must not only track and predict where it will go, but it must do this while tracking within its lane, sensing the terrain (road radius of curvature, grade/cross fall) to ensure any maneuvers are within the performance envelope and actually predict where the obstacle will move to. The vehicle does a lot of thinking.

Lessons applied to real-world scenarios

Fundamentally these autonomous vehicles are mobile mapping platforms and the advances made here have significant implications for how mobile mapping data can be used. Consider the automotive industry. Currently GPS is utilized as a convenience feature utilizing GPS, matching map and odometer data to route a driver through GPS outages. When looking at position and ori-

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Figure 3. The black lines denote raw RDDF file waypoints and speed limits provided by DARPA

entation data in terms of driver assistance/active safety systems, the accuracy required changes dramatically. Data needs to be thought of in a layered approach much like the data fusion discussed above. Base maps utilized by onboard computers need to be very accurate for sensors to determine dynamics in relation to a vehicle’s current and predicted path so the vehicle can determine if a driver is making turns at unsafe speeds or passing through an intersection without stopping. By having detailed maps along with accurate position and orientation data, vehicles will be able to actively ensure the safety of passengers. Still sound like science fiction? TH Louis Nastro is the Director for Land Products at Applanix Corporation, where he is responsible for new business development and overall product direction for the land business. [email protected] www.thinkinghighways.com

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FINANCIAL SERV IC E S

511

To begin in the beginning

Call and response

Technology, whenever and wherever meaningfully put to use, can reap huge benefits for individuals and the quality of their lives. The widespread implementation of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) across the United States in recent years effectively proves this point. The investment of funds, effort, and creativity in ITS by both the private and public sectors has done much to facilitate the movement of people and goods along highways and transit systems throughout the nation. ITS applications have also helped guarantee greater public safety in those settings. A key example of ITS in action can be seen in something as basic as a three-digit telephone number. That number is 511 and, over the past seven years, it has been the conduit whereby many highway motorists and transit users gain access to unprecedented travel information technology and services. By punching in that number on their cellular and landline telephones, Americans can instantly tap into realtime highway information collected by ITS programs and make even better travel decisions. The timely information includes basic road and weather conditions, traffic updates, disruptions in public transportation, and route changes. That information can make travel a lot easier for individuals with their own unique set of goals and challenges when it comes to using the nation’s transportation netThinking Highways’ financial analyst MARGARET work: an anxious commuter who wants to find out PETTIT looks at the European Territorial whether local flooding conditions have temporarily shut down the route he normallyProgramme takes to his office; a conCooperation and finds that like with cerned mother driving her children to school and wishany other major programme, it’s a matter of ing to know if area road construction necessitates a priorities detour; and a vacationing family hoping to find out what Saturday-morning traffic will mean for their drive to the beach. The origins of the 511 service can be traced to the 1990s. During the course of that decade, approximately 300 different travel information telephone numbers popped up throughout the nation. The average motorist, dealing with all of these hotlines scattered throughout the nation might very well have needed to patiently dial close to a dozen of them for just one long-distance trip. The United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) ultimately sought to restructure this fragmented network of numbers and make it a lot easier for individuals to access travel information services. That is why, on March 8, 1999, USDOT petitioned the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to designate an exclusive and nationwide telephone number for traveler information. That petition was supported by numerous other stakeholders, including the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), 17 state departments of transportation, 32 transit operators, 23 Metropolitan Planning Organizations, and various local government agencies. On July 21, 2000, FCC officially designated 511 as the single telephone number for traffic information. FCC, in issuing this decision, left many of the implementation,

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Climate Change 511 JOHN HORSLEY, Executive Director of AASHTO, charts the promise and the progress of the United States’ 511 program

financing, and logistical issues for 511 to the states and other telecommunications carriers. That large-scale delegation of responsibilities has meant that states have the key role in coordinating 511 deployments. The overarching direction for the program, however, belongs to the 511 Deployment Coalition. That group is led by AASHTO, the Intelligent Transportation Society of America, American Public Transit Association, and US DOT, and includes other public agencies, industry groups, trade associations, and private companies. The goal of that public-private coalition, comprised of approximately 30 organizations altogether, is to work towards the timely establishment of a national 511 traveler information service that is sustainable and provides value to users.

Safe travels

The Coalition’s oversight role includes establishing voluntary guidelines for the program and ensuring that 511 services are available across the nation. All activities of the Coalition are focused on ensuring, in the words of SAFETEA-LU Section 5306. (b) (3),“that a national, interoperable 511 system, along with a national traffic information system that includes a user-friendly, comprehensive website, is fully implemented for use by travelers throughout the United States by September 30, 2010.” That Coalition’s efforts to encourage the widespread adoption of 511 services can be seen in the creation of a national logo. That federally registered logo, which is owned by AASHTO, is available for use by public sector agencies wishing to promote 511 technology within their respective jurisdictions. In this way and others, the 511 Deployment Coalition seeks to meaningfully expand and optimize the wide array of ITS services available through that telephone number. The benefits of 511 can be best appreciated when considering how its services differ from those offered through other sources. The traffic information available through 511, for example, is a lot more detailed and route-specific than what you customarily hear in a brief radio announcement. Equally important, you can obtain information through 511 on demand and whenever you need it most. Over the past few years, 511 has evolved into a key source for drivers wanting information on how to best reach their destinations. Usage statistics underscore the growth and reach of its services. At present, 511 is available to about 128m Americans (47 per cent of the population). A total of 41,511 services are available to the traveling public in 33 states as well as one Canadian province. (A list of 511 participants can be found at www.fhwa.dot.gov/trafficinfo/511.htm.) Since the program’s inception, there have been well over 100m calls made to 511. At least 1m calls per month were placed in the course of 41 consecutive months. 511 call volumes tend to increase significantly during times of inclement weather, in the course of major incidents, and due to holiday travel. As those numbers show, the 511 system has in many ways already lived up to expectations. The number of www.thinkinghighways.com

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511

Drivers in Utah( above) and California (below) can find out the latest trafffic information by calling 511

participating states, for example, has nearly doubled over the past several years. As further evidence of progress, a trucker can now use 511 for trips as wideranging as those between Miami, Florida, and Cincinnati, Ohio, or Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Seattle, Washington.

Tipping point

In addition, there are continued efforts to further refine state-by-state compatibility in 511 services. The Coalition, for example, has developed the “511 Interoperability Quick Tips” for 511 deployers to achieve national interoperability through the voice interface so that a caller used to saying “Turnpike” in Florida would get also traffic information by using this phrase in a turnpike-free state like North Carolina. The Coalition is testing these national interoperability phrases and will work with 511 service deployers to ensure that they are recognized across the nation. Overall, then, the 511 technology and services have started out strongly in the effort’s fledgling decade. That effort also effectively showcases a user-friendly means of taking ITS knowledge and converting it into helpful information for the public. “The two words ‘information’ and ‘communication’ are often used interchangeably, but they signify quite different things,” wrote journalist Sydney J. Harris. “Information is giving out; communication is getting through.” That helps summarize what 511 is all about: not just being able to give out information, but also getting it through to those people who need it most at a given time. Those wishing to learn more about 511 operations can visit the website at www.deploy511.org TH

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Infrastructure

Stunted growth

Ahead in the poles

Thinking Highways’ financial analyst MARGARET PETTIT looks at the European Territorial Cooperation Programme and finds that like with any other major programme, it’s a matter of priorities

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Climate Change Infrastructure

OFER RONEN looks at Israel’s “Cellular in Green” project. In a country where there are more cellphones than people, urban aesthetics is a far from trivial concern... The level of use of cellular devices in Israel is one of the highest in the world. There are approximately 9m cellphones serving a population of just 7m people. The cellular market is divided between four companies, with a very low level of cooperation between them and, as a result, each company has thousands of cellular sites. A person driving along the roads of Israel sees, every hundred meters or so, a cellular site or several cellular sites located in close proximity to each other. With each site being so conspicuous and abnormal in the standard landscape of the road, the feeling within the country is that there are far too many cellular sites and this feeling expresses itself in public pressure against every 2 new antenna that is erected. Several years ago, a National Outline Plan in the cellular field had come into effect following approval by the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. The main goal of the Plan was to emphasize the landscape aspect, whereby guidelines and restrictions were placed on the location of cellular sites and on distances between them, as well as provisions obliging cooperation between cellular companies, etc. One of the principles of this Plan was to prioritize and grant benefits to cellular companies that integrate their equipment in existing infrastructures, i.e. installing cellular sites on electricity poles, lighting poles, camera poles, etc. Consequently, the Israel National Road Company Ltd. decided to take action and had initiated the “Cellular in Green” Project.

structure poles with cellular-combined poles. Furthermore, there is a continuously open channel of communication with the cellular companies, by which they are given the possibility of integrating in future projects at their initial stage of planning: new roads, interchanges, plans for deploying traffic control cameras, etc. The main emphasis of the Project is the landscape aspect and several rules have been set to ensure that the mast and the accompanying equipment would optimally integrate into the environment. Several prototypes of poles have been designed, including a lighting combined cellular mast and a traffic-control camera combined cellular mast.The poles have been designed in such a way that their bottom part is allocated to the Israel National Road Company Ltd., i.e. for lighting or a camera, and a 6-8m extension is connected by bolts to the top part of the mast, to serve the cellular company. The pole was designed in this way to enable the Israel National Road Company to keep using its infrastructures in the event where the cellular company decides to terminate contractual relations, in which case it will be a simple procedure to dismantle the cellular segment of the pole, and thus keeping the standard infrastructure pole intact. Guidelines for maintenance were also prescribed, whereby responsibility for maintenance will be divided. For example, in a camera-combined pole, it has been decided that the cellular company shall be responsible for maintenance of the pole, while the Traffic Control Department shall be responsible for maintenance of the camera.

“One of the advantages of the [MG] lowering system is the ability to combine the system at any required height”

The hard cell

In the framework of the project, it had been decided to allow cellular companies to use the infrastructures of the Israel National Road Company as a basis for transmission sites. The infrastructures include the existing mission of the company; that is, replacing existing infrawww.thinkinghighways.com

Advantage USA

The lowering system of Alabama’s [MG]2 was chosen to serve as the mechanism for lowering the cameras in the camera-combined poles and in some of the lightingThinking Highways Vol 3 No 4

63

combined poles. The advantage of the [MG]2 lowering system is evident in several aspects, one of which is the ability to combine the system at any required height, without a prerequisite for the system to be positioned at the end of the pole. Another advantage of the [MG]2 lowering system is the fact that it takes up minimal space inside the pole (in this context, our readers should know that approximately 16 to 24 one-inch diameter cables run through the pole for cellular purposes. This is very dense in a pole at a height of 40m and base-diameter of 90cm, in which every centimeter counts). The [MG]2 system has the most convenient and flexible integration capacity. In the camera-combined poles, the lowering system is situated according to the height set by an expert on behalf of the Israel National Road Company Ltd. and, in the lighting-combined poles, the height and number of lighting fixtures is determined by a Photometry Engineer. Each pair of lighting fixtures is connected to one lowering system.

How it all works

The Project is managed by Sphera–Green Solutions Ltd whose function is to coordinate between the cellular companies and the Israel National Road Company. For illustration purposes, let us outline a certification process of a combined cellular site. The process begins with a tour in the location with the representatives of the cellular companies in order to locate a site. After locating the site, including location of the pole that is destined for replacement, an initial examination procedure is con-

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ducted by the Israel National Road Company Ltd. The examination encompasses all relevant fields – planning, electricity, safety, architecture and gardening, and maintenance divisions. Upon completion of the initial examination, a planning tour is conducted. The product of the planning tour is the Site Plan, which incorporates all the requirements and limitations that had been raised in the framework of the initial examination. This Plan undergoes a final certification procedure, at the end of which the respective cellular company is authorized to apply to the local authority for a building permit. After receiving the building permit, the construction of the site is coordinated with the Israel National Road Company; thus, another site is launched. One may say that the “Cellular in Green” project is an ideal “win win” project, as the cellular companies enjoy an excellent location for their transmit sites, and the site’s integration in the existing infrastructures is warmly welcomed both by the authorities and the public at large. By renting cellular sites, the Israel National Road Company both benefits from saving in new infrastructures and, most importantly, from the fact that the integration of the site in the landscape is in its hands. Don’t let anyone tell you that it’s not possible to establish green cellular sites. TH Ofer Ronen is co-owner of Sphera-Green Solutions and can be contacted at [email protected] or visit the website at www.sphera-green.com www.thinkinghighways.com

*Screen images are simulated

Data Collection

The results Stunted business growth Thinking Highways’ financial analyst MARGARET PETTIT looks at the European Territorial Cooperation Programme and finds that like with What would you do with billions and billions of trafany other major programme, it’s a matter of fic data points over a span of a few years across a verypriorities large country? Well, INRIX answered this question by developing the National Traffic Scorecard, the most comprehensive country-wide perspective and city-by-city analysis of one of the USA’s most frustrating and intractable issues: traffic congestion. How bad is traffic overall? Which cities have the most traffic congestion? Where are the worst bottlenecks across the country? The National Traffic Scorecard, available at http://scorecard.INRIX.com, answers these questions and more. The INRIX National Traffic Scorecard was created through extensive analysis of nearly 50,000 miles of primary roadways, using INRIX’s traffic data warehouse of the most recent, complete and accurate data available anywhere. The focus of the Scorecard is the calendar year 2007. Calendar year 2006 data is utilized to enable year over year comparisons. The INRIX National Traffic Scorecard is the first to measure the USA’s traffic congestion problems by evaluating real-time traffic on almost every major metropolitan highway nationwide from a traveler’s point of view. It leverages INRIX’s Smart Dust Network, which collects data from nearly one million anonymous, GPS-equipped commercial vehicles that report their speed and location continually to INRIX - over a billion data points every month. INRIX took a detailed look at traffic problems all across the USA - zooming in on the total hours spent in traffic,

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Climate Change Data Collection RICK SCHUMAN and PETE COSTELLO hold court with a look at the National Traffic Scorecard.You are probably not alone in wondering why no-one has thought of this before...

worst day of the week for commuting and average speeds for the top 100 cities in the US, along with hundreds of other details including the identification of the nation’s worst bottlenecks that Americans drive through every day. It’s no revelation that cities such as Los Angeles, New York and Chicago are at the top of the list for worst traffic in the nation accounting for over 50 per cent of the top 1,000 bottlenecks nationwide. But Honolulu? The Scorecard reveals that traffic in cities such as Honolulu keep drivers idling, burning fuel and raising their blood pressure on roadways choked with traffic. If you happen to be driving on a Thursday from 5 to 6pm on its main highways you’re no longer in the Aloha State: congestionwise you’re in the worst place and worst hour of any single roadway in the US, taking 88 per cent longer to get where you’re going than if there were no congestion. Who would have thought it (other than Honolulu residents, of course)?

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Methodology

The INRIX National Traffic Scorecard draws from several existing approaches to calculating traffic congestion and leverages new methods made possible by INRIX’s proprietary data. The raw data comes from the historical traffic data warehouse of the INRIX Smart Dust Network. Since 2006, INRIX has acquired billions of discrete “GPS-enabled probe vehicle” reports from commercial fleet vehicles (including taxis, airport shuttles, service delivery vans, long haul trucks, etc) and cellular probe data. Each data report from these GPS-equipped vehicles includes at a minimum the speed, location and heading of a particular vehicle at a reported date and time. INRIX has developed efficient methods for interpreting probe vehicle reports that are provided in real time to establish a current estimate of travel patterns in all major cities in the United States. These same methods can aggregate data over periods of time to provide reliable information on speeds and congestion levels for segments of roads. With the nation’s largest probe vehi-

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Data Collection Table 1: Top 10 Drive Time Congestion Compared to Los Angeles Rank

CBSA (Population Rank)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana CA(2) New York- Northern New Jersey-Long Island NY-NJ-PA (1) Chicago-Naperville-Joliet IL-IN-WI (3) Washington-Arlington-Alexandria DC-VA-MD-WV (8) Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington TX (4) San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont (12) Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown TX (6) Boston-Cambridge-Quincy MA-MH (10) Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue WA (15) Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta GA (9)

cle network, INRIX has the ability to generate the most comprehensive congestion analysis to date across the country; the Scorecard covers the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas according to the US Census Bureau’s definition of Core Based Statistical Areas for 2007.

Roads/segments analyzed

The National Traffic Scorecard focuses on the major limited access roads in the top metropolitan areas in the United States. In all of its products, INRIX utilizes an existing industry standard known as “TMC location codes”

% Compared to Worst Market 100 88 44 37 34 34 31 28 26 25

developed and maintained by the leading electronic map databases vendors, including Tele Atlas, to uniquely define road segments. The typical road segment is the interchange and the portion of linear road leading up to the interchange across all lanes in a single direction of travel. The length of a segment will depend upon the length of the distance between interchanges. For the National Traffic Scorecard, over 47,000 road miles in nearly 31,000 discrete road segments have been analyzed. Of note is the fact that over 8,000 of these segments experienced 1 hour or more of congestion per week as defined below.

Road segment data

There are two key building blocks for the different analyses included in the National Traffic Scorecard: • Reference speed (RS): For each road segment, all probe vehicle reports obtained in overnight hours (where congestion is usually unlikely) in 2007 are analyzed. The 85th percentile of those data points is identified as the “reference speed” for that particular road segment. This is typically the speed of “free flow” traffic if and when no congestion exists. Each segment has a single reference speed. • Hourly average speed (HS): All probe vehicle reports for each road segment are grouped by hour of day, day of week (e.g. Monday from 3-4pm) and an “average speed” for each time slot is established for each road segment. Thus, each TMC location code across the 800,000 miles of US roadway that INRIX covers has 168 corresponding hourly average speed values – representing 24 hours of each day times the seven days in a week. The Scorecard focuses on the 47,000 urban limited access miles in the 100 largest metropolitan areas.

Overall congestion by metropolitan area

To assess congestion over a metropolitan area, INRIX utilizes concepts that have been used in similar studies. • Travel Time Index (TTI): TTI is the ratio of actual travel time to free flow travel time. The TTI expresses the average amount of extra time it takes to travel relative to free-flow travel. A TTI of 1.3, for example, indicates that a 20-minute free-flow trip will take 26 minutes during the peak travel time periods, or a 6-minute (30 per cent) travel time penalty. For each road segment, a TTI is cal-

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Data Collection 1.30

1.25

Sunday

1.20

Monday Tuesday

1.15

Wednesday Thursday

1.10

Friday Saturday

1.05

1.00 12a 1a 2a 3a 4a 5a 6a 7a 8a 9a 10a11a12p 1p 2p 3p 4p 5p 6p 7p 8p 9p 10p11p

Figure 1: National Travel Time Index by Hour/Day

culated for each hour of the week, using the formula TTI = RS/HS. • Peak Hours: To assess and compare congestion levels year to year and between metropolitan areas, only “peak hours” are analyzed. Consistent with similar studies, peak hours are defined as the hours from 6 to 10am and 3 to 7pm, Monday through Friday – 40 of the 168 hours of a week. For each Metropolitan Area, an overall level of congestion is determined for each of the 40 peak hours by determining the extent and amount of average congestion on the analyzed road network. This is easy to compute once hourly TTI’s are calculated for each segment: • Step 1: For each of the 40 peak hours, all road segments analyzed in the CBSA are checked • Step 2: Each segment where the TTI > 1 is analyzed further • Step 3: With each segment contributing a congestion factor, the average congestion (the amount the TTI is greater than 1) is multiplied by the length of the segment • Step 4: For a given hour, overall metropolitan congestion is the sum of these congestion factors • Step 5: To establish a Metropolitan Travel Time Index, this metropolitan congestion factor is divided by the number of road miles Using 2007 as a baseline, INRIX computed a National Travel Time Index for the USA of 1.133 which will be used for comparison to future versions of the Scorecard. The 2007 National Travel Time Index represents a 1.9 per cent increase from 2006.

can compare locations across the country – that are consistently congested and labels them as “Bottlenecks.” Congestion – and how to measure it – can be in the eye of the beholder. Is congestion defined as how bad a road segment is at its worst or is it how often the segment gets “congested” (and what is the threshold for “congestion” anyways – tapping the brakes, stop and go conditions, etc.)? INRIX has developed a method that combines both the amount of time a road segment is congested with the intensity of congestion during those periods. The process used to analyze each road segment is as follows: • The same RS and HS values are utilized as in the overall congestion by metropolitan area portion of the study • All 168 hours of the week are considered, not just the 40 “peak hours.” As will be evident in the data, severe Bottlenecks aren’t just limited to peak hours • For each hour of the week that the average speed is less than 50 per cent of the reference speed, the hour is considered “congested” • For all “congested” hours, the average intensity of the congestion is determined by establishing an average travel time ratio • The total Bottleneck factor equals the number of hours of congested by the average travel time ratio Each road segment’s Bottleneck factor can be compared with others in a metropolitan area and against all Bottlenecks nationally. It can also be compared year-toyear, as INRIX will do going forward.

Bottlenecks

So, what are the results of all these billions of data points used to identify congestion and bottlenecks across the USA in 2007? INRIX summed up overall congestion in the 40 hours of peak drive time and Los Angeles had the

With the unique ability to examine in detail nearly 31,000 urban highway road segments, INRIX identifies the specific locations in each metropolitan area – and www.thinkinghighways.com

Findings

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Data Collection Table 2: Top 10 Congestion by Travel Time Index Rank

CBSA (Population Rank)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Honolulu HI (56) Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana CA (2) Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk CT (56) San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont CA (12) New York- Northern New Jersey-Long Island NY-NJ-PA (1) Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue WA (15) Austin-Round Rock TX (37) Washington-Arlington-Alexandria DC-VA-MD-WV (8) San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos CA (17) Chicago-Naperville-Joliet IL-IN-WI (3)

highest amount of overall congestion. Using Los Angeles as a baseline of 100 per cent, INRIX compared all other metropolitan areas’ congestion to Los Angeles: New York was second and Chicago was third. At number 10, Atlanta had 25 per cent of the overall congestion on its road network that Los Angeles experiences (see Table 1) By examining the Hourly Travel Time Index in metropolitan areas across the country, the INRIX National Traffic Scorecard also identified unique patterns evolving out of U.S. traffic congestion (Figure 1): • • • • • • • •

Worst Traffic Day: Friday Worst Week Day Commute: Friday pm Worst Commuting Hour: Friday 5-6pm Worst Morning Commute: Wednesday am Best Week Day for Traffic: Monday Best Week Day Commute: Friday am Best Week Day Commuting Hour: Friday 6-7am Best Week Day Afternoon: Monday pm

Figure 3 Map of bottlenecks across US (in Red)

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Travel Time Index 1.47 1.45 1.32 1.31 1.29 1.29 1.28 1.28 1.24 1.23

By determining a Travel Time Index, INRIX was able to make metropolitan area to metropolitan area comparisons to assess how much longer travelers took to travel as compared to free flow conditions. Surprisingly, INRIX identified Honolulu as having the worst peak drive time TTI in the nation and adding some fuel to an ongoing debate in Hawaii on appropriate measures to deal with their recurring traffic congestion situation (see Table 2) INRIX also identified the Nation’s worst bottlenecks and commuters on the Cross Bronx Expressway were not surprised that this area was worst in the nation with worst bottlenecks numbers 1 and 2 which are heavily congested at less than half the reference speed over 90 hours per week. The nation’s third worst bottleneck was in a construction zone on I-580 in the San Francisco Bay Area – it will be interesting to see where this stretch of roadway ranks in 2008 as construction activities are finished. The metropolitan areas of Los Angeles, New York and Chicago account for more than half of the nation’s worst bottlenecks reinforcing their top three finish in the congestion rankings. INRIX developed Metropolitan Summaries that reflect both congestion and bottlenecks for use by local offi-

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Data Collection cials to compare their situation to others across the nation and to identify areas where measures to mitigate congestion may be considered. . INRIX understands that there are a few factors that make the National Traffic Scorecard different from other studies to date. The coverage for the National Traffic Scorecard is mainline highways only – no ramps, arterials, etc. INRIX’s data is strictly focused on speeds – not including volume nor weighting for lane-miles. There is varying network coverage in regions based on CBSAs throughout the country and the INRIX TTI scores are likely lower than most studies as the Scorecard includes greater fringe metropolitan area coverage. INRIX used its reference speed vs. flat free flow speed (e.g. 60mph). The definition of metropolitan areas could be different amongst studies as INRIX used CBSAs and other reports do not and therefore include Baltimore with the Washington, DC metropolitan area region – if the National Traffic Scorecard did this as well, then that metropolitan area would be the third most congested in the USA.

Summary

The primary purpose of the National Traffic Scorecard is to show that “keeping score” of traffic can occur across the US (and other countries) in more markets, on more miles and for more discrete segments / time slices than previously thought possible. INRIX’s traffic data in the National Traffic Scorecard is open to much interpretation, but there are some quick, obvious conclusions: • Even in a slowing economy with high fuel prices, congestion is a pervasive problem; • Los Angeles and New York are far ahead of the pack in terms of scale of slowdowns which points more to how bad these cities are, not how good it is in other places; Other CA 3.0%

POR 1.4% ATL BOS 1.4% PHI 1.6% 1.9%

MSP 1.3%

MIA 1.2%

• Bottlenecks are everywhere – not just at big interchanges in the largest cities; • There is no margin for error in many cities and if there is an accident or bad weather, many of these roads become hopelessly congested very quickly.

Acknowledgements

INRIX historically works with data providers, technology partners, experts and our customers to address traffic issues in North America and Europe. Collaborating to create unique and important products has been key to INRIX’s success. This Scorecard is no different. INRIX would like to thank several organizations and individuals who have assisted in one way or another in creating the Scorecard. Tim Lomax and Shawn Turner of the Texas Transportation Institute, Rich Margiotta of Cambridge Systematics and Mark Hallenbeck of the University of Washington aided in development of the methodology used. Kevin Loftus of INRIX’s partner Clear Channel Total Traffic Network provided local market knowledge and assistance. Tele Atlas supplied digital maps and TMC location reference tables allowing for our detailed road segment based analysis. The extensive data powering the INRIX National Traffic Scorecard is immediately available under license for further analysis and review by government agencies and commercial organizations including transportation industry organizations. TH Rick Schuman ([email protected]), INRIX vice president of public sector, is the author of the INRIX National Traffic Scorecard and the driver behind the primary analysis of the metropolitan congestion and bottleneck data. Pete Costello ([email protected]) is INRIX’s Senior Manager, Public Sector.

% by CBSA Other CT 1.5% Other FL 1.3% Other 6.1%

HON 1.4%

LAX 25.8%

AUS 2.0% HOU 2.1%

NYC 17.7%

DET 2.2%

WDC 4.2%

RIV 2.5% DFW 2.6%

SFO 4.9%

SEA 3.1%

CHI 10.8%

Figure 4 Pie chart of the 1000 worst bottlenecks by CBSA

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Emergency Management

Stunted growth Thinking Highways’ financial analyst MARGARET PETTIT looks at the European Territorial Cooperation Programme and finds that like with any other major programme, it’s a matter of priorities

Hurricane Gustav severely tested the United States’ much-vaunted post-Katrina improvements in emergency management. But how noticeable were these improvements, wonders BRUCE ABERNETHY, and is there still work to be done? 74

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Climate Change Emergency Management

Winds of change? Hurricane Gustav hit the Gulf Coast of the USA on September 1, 2008 around 9:00am CDT as a Category 2 hurricane. It approached the coast with sustained winds of 135 mph which, once it reached the coast, with the eye hitting 22 miles west of Grand Isle, LA, reduced in intensity, with sustained winds of 115 mph. In comparison, Hurricane Katrina which approached the coast of Louisiana as a category 5 hurricane and whose eye hit the coast of Louisiana near Burqas, LA on August 29, 2005 with sustained winds of 125 mph, caused 1,577 deaths in Louisiana and damages of over US$81.2 billion. Much has been written about Katrina and the deficiencies in the existing emergency management and response system that perhaps added to the loss of life and property. Hurricane Rita followed Karina hitting the Texas coast east of Sabine Pass on September 24, 2005 with winds of 115 mph, having reduced from a maximum of 165 mph as it approached the coast. Rita contributed to 120 deaths in Texas and several billion dollars in property damage. Lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina and Rita were studied by FEMA and regional emergency operations center planners. Thus when Gustav hit Louisiana, only 10 deaths resulted and property damage is estimated to be between US$6m and US$10m. This article discusses what was fixed and what was not, related to the management of major emergencies.

What worked

The Emergency Operations Centers directed evacuation before Gustav hit the coast, with over 2m residents fleeing their homes. Evacuation planning had identified emergency shelters within Louisiana and in adjacent states. Evacuation models had established appropriate evacuation routes and lanes were reversed to assist in evacuation corridor capacity. Reports from evacuees indicate that travel time to distant shelters was considerably less than previously experienced with Katrina and Rita. Public transportation vehicles including public transit buses and school buses were mobilized and assigned to evacuee pick-up points. Buses from remote cities were dispatched considering the distances to travel to the coastal area. Evacuation of the sick from medical centers and nursing homes began earlier. For those that used private transportation, the planning process had included provisions for refueling and obtaining food and drink along evacuation routes. It took evacuees over 24 hours to reach shelters in the Dallas area, but this was considerable less time than experienced during Katrina. The evacuated area was responsively secured by police and National Guard to prevent looting, although there were a few reports of looting from evacuated areas. Provisions were made to care for pets of evacuees, something which was not considered during Katrina.

“Travel time to distant shelters was considerably less than previously experienced with Katrina and Rita”

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Emergency Management Emergency communications were significantly improved, which meant that some household pets were evacuated to other cities. The McKinney animal shelter in suburban Dallas, for example, received a number of evacuee pets from New Orleans. Attention to issues of evacuee’s pet care during the initial evacuation and subsequent shelter housing period is now being addressed during emergency planning within the USA. This would have helped enormously during Katrina the notion that pets provide comfort during crises is not without merit. One positive thing to note was that the levees held in New Orleans. The winds caused storm water to wash over some of the levees but they did not break, although it must be pointed out that they were not stressed to the extent that they were during Katrina.

What did not

There were major power outages and loss of public communications and some public utilities that did not have emergency power back up. Telephone, cellular service and even internet operations were lost in many of the coastal areas impacted by Gustav. Winds blowing down utility poles and wireless communications towers as well as flooding of associated communications cabinets and shelters were major contributors to failures and a significant percentage of deployed ITS devices, including traffic signal controllers, were damaged by Gustav. While it is certainly not possible to protect all infrastructures from hurricane-force winds and tornados created by the storm, it is possible to design critical infrastructure for survivability. Electronics can be placed in weatherproof cabinets and raised above expected flood levels. Back-up power can be provided for critical electronics, including possibility of small fuel cell power systems. Where possible, cabling infrastructure for communications should be buried rather than deployed on utility poles. Buried splice closures for fiber optic communications are typically designed to withstand 20ft of water for a few days, and thus should function with temporary flooding. Power cables can also be buried and power connections provided in weatherproof cabinets above flood level.The cost to correct electronic outages due to flooding and hurricane winds will be significant; however certainly any new infrastructure design should consider “design for survivability”. ATM machines were emptied in New Orleans and evacuees had problems obtaining cash to use during the evacuation process. A number reached their evacuation center in other states without funds to purchase fuel and food for the return trip. Some just did not have the resources to pay for long trips in their private vehicles and were not going to leave their vehicles in New Orleans or impacted coastal areas due to concern for loss. Planning must consider addressing these issues. There were a number of reports of insufficient food and fuel during evacuation. In the Dallas emergency shelter, they ran out of paper plates to serve food to evacuees and there were reports of food shortages. This

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Emergency Management

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Emergency Management is just a matter of planning and funding for emergency supply inventory. Evacuees with major medical problems found a shortage of medical supplies and devices required during evacuation. Finding suitable medical support services at the evacuation site continues to be a problem as it was with Katrina. The temporary transfer of evacuees’ medical records is still a problem. It certainly would be possible to provide a memory stick with each medical evacuee (perhaps with the information encrypted for privacy) that could be accessed by a remote medical center to properly care for the evacuee. Medical evacuation is a major challenge, not only from a transportation and en-route care standpoint but also from the standpoint of locating remote medical facilities with the capability to accommodate the evacuees. There are few public hospitals and many private hospitals; private hospitals are concerned about “who pays for the care of evacuees from other states”. The transfer of criminals continues to be a problem. This is perhaps caused by overcrowding in the majority of jails but special consideration must be given to the moving of criminals, including armed guards and appropriate security precautions. Perhaps an appropriate solution would be to have prisons located in survivable locations within a state. Perhaps use of electronic ankle bands that allow location and tracking of a convict would be useful. Perhaps encrypted criminal records associated with the individual should be available for transfer with the criminal stored in the electronic ankle band’s memory. While the National Guard was rapidly deployed, there were still reports of looting and theft within the evacuated area. It was substantially less than experienced during Katrina and perhaps difficult to totally eliminate. Even though there is mandatory evacuation orders issued, there are still those few per cent that “go underground” and do not leave. They look for a number of reasons including survival or just because they are hardened criminals.

Summary

Emergency management served the victims of Gustav in a much more satisfactory way than it did for those of Katrina and Rita. Major lessons had clearly been learned from those storms and the resultant knowledge executed. Now we must take the deficiencies identified by Gustav and endeavor to eliminate them. It is still a matter of cost and who pays for it. Jurisdictions in other states still worry about “who pays the cost of caring for evacuees from other states” and “if they will return and when or become a burden on the local welfare system?” Private charities can do only so much and they are not positioned for long-term support for evacuees that refuse to return home. This is a problem that many states will encounter including perhaps Arizona, Utah, and Oregon when (not if) a major earthquake hits California. TH Bruce Abernethy is Principal of Arcadis US and can be contacted via email at [email protected] www.thinkinghighways.com

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Surveillance

Statutes of liberty Stunted growth Thinking Highways’ financial analyst MARGARET PETTIT looks at the European Territorial Cooperation Programme and finds that like with any other major programme, it’s a matter of priorities

Just when we thought we had the answer, they changed the question. Earlier this year, on the heels of the Hon. Michael Bloomberg’s sojourn to London, we surmised that New York City had relinquished plans for a congestion charging scheme. But, a two-fold rationale behind the Mayor’s investigation of license plate recognition (LPR) technology also underpinned a counter-terrorism initiative. Today, that concept embraces re-locatable roadblocks, security cameras across the Southern end of the Borough of Manhattan and an underground bomb-screening hub through which all delivery vehicles would pass. A wider 50-mile (80.5-km) zone, spanning Long Island, Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, would be equipped with mobile detectors aboard police cruisers to intercept any radioactive devices. Along with several thousand video cameras and radi-

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ological scanners, the effort, dubbed Operation Sentinel, will incorporate a strategy to image every vehicle’s license plate at all points-of-entry into Manhattan, including the Brooklyn-Battery, Holland, Lincoln and Queens-Midtown tunnels as well as the George Washington, Henry Hudson, Triborough Bridges and others such the Willis Avenue and Macombs Dam Bridges which unite the Bronx and Upper Manhattan. Essentially, Operation Sentinel could integrate multiple technologies (photography, LPR, radiation detection and others yet to be perfected) into a single enterprise. The design would emplace mobile barriers on streets which authorities believe are key choke points. Those balustrades could be deployed automatically, effectively sealing off Lower Manhattan. The City Council already has approved a portion of the US$40m (€27.8m) needed to bootstrap the program. www.thinkinghighways.com

Climate Change Surveillance LEE J NELSON has been keeping his eye on developments in the video surveillance market ahead of the ITS World Congress’s stint in New York City

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Surveillance

Surveillance camera (detail, inset) on the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC

At Operation Sentinel’s core will be a coordination facility, located at the intersection of Broadway and Exchange Aly in Manhattan. Due to open shortly as part of the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative, it is intended to serve as a central monitoring point for all incoming data.Virtually anyone who walks or drives south of Canal Street would be under surveillance.

Sets in the city

Since early 2007, police have been using video-based LPR to read and check plates against databases, including one for stolen cars. According to Commissioner Ray W. Kelly, more than a hundred LPR systems are being introduced in Lower Manhattan - some mobile, others fixed in place - as part of an overall anti-terrorism movement. Plate readers are just the tip of the iceberg in the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative. Police also employ closedcircuit video and radiation-sensing equipment in various counter-terrorism processes. The latter, known as TRACS, the Tactical Radiation Acquisition and Characterization System, spots agents like radioactive cesium or cobalt and differentiates potentially dangerous ones from those used commonly in smoke detectors or medical appliances. Significant obstacles to widespread implementation remain, since feasibility and cost are yet to be fully defined. So far, the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative

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is a US$90m (€62.4m) project; the Securing the Cities program is funded with federal money, including US$40m (€28m) earmarked for this year and US$30m (€20.8m) expected for 2009. Furthermore, daily tracking of thousands of vehicles and people raises alarms with civil libertarians. Data on each vehicle - a time-stamped license plate image and radiological signature - will be acquired, indexed and stored for a finite period. If not linked to suspicious activity or to a current law enforcement investigation, they will be eliminated. That assurance, however, does little to appease the objectors.

Secure and private

Chief Security Technology Officer at British Telecommunications plc, Bruce Schneier, takes a refreshing view of privacy versus security. “We’ve been told we have to trade off security and privacy so often - in debates... polls, reasoned essays and political rhetoric - that most of us don’t even question the fundamental dichotomy. But it’s a false one. Security and privacy are not opposite ends of a seesaw; you don’t have to accept less of one to www.thinkinghighways.com

Surveillance

get more of the other.” Schneier urges us to consider burglar alarms, door locks or tall fences, as examples. “The debate isn’t security versus privacy. It’s liberty versus control. If you set up the false dichotomy, of course people will choose security over privacy...especially if you scare them first. But it’s still a false dichotomy. There is no security without privacy. And, liberty requires both security and privacy.” The controversy is not a recent one nor is it likely to be resolved in the near future. An anonymous English quotation from 1759 (sometimes wrongly attributed to Benjamin Franklin) reads: “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Schneier appends the belief that anyone relinquishing privacy in preference for security is likely to have neither one. New York City Police Department’s Deputy Commissioner of Public Information, Paul J. Browne, emphasizes a broader purpose: protecting the City’s financial district. “Our main objective would be to, through intelligence, find out about a plot before it ever got to a stage where a nuclear device or a dirty bomb was coming our way.” It’s one element of a larger security plan which focuses mainly on Ground Zero, the World Trade Center redevelopment site.

Securing your capital

While the Commissioner and his command staff have been advocating the financial district surveillance system, the Securing the Cities endeavor is going forward. Of late, the Department of Homeland Security (Washington, DC) appropriated an additional US$29m (€20m) to enhance regional detection and interdiction capabilities for illicit radioactive materials. The award entails participation by key stakeholders: Connecticut, New Jersey and New York; Nassau, Suffolk, Rockland and Westchester counties; New York City Departments of Environmental Protection, Fire and Health and Mental Hygiene; the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. As for the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative, Mr. Browne does not say when it might be accomplished, though some expect it could be in place by 2010. “This is just a planning document. It’s a vision of how it will work if all the components come together.” While he cannot predict what the City’s law enforcement leaders might do next year when the Bloomberg administration leaves, Mr. Kelly is concerned that a more robust security system be operational before the World Trade Center area again opens for business. Developers maintain that construction of Freedom Tower is on schedule for projected completion in 2012. Other portions of the

“The debate isn’t security versus privacy. It’s liberty versus control”

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Surveillance

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complex could be ready for occupancy sooner. Preparations also are being made to install about 200 LPR systems on police interceptors, at airports and alongside major thoroughfares in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. Like the New York City installations, these LPR systems will scan the license plate of every vehicle and check it against federal databases, terrorist watch-lists and local criminal databases. Whenever a query returns a ‘hit’, the machine instantly notifies law enforcement personnel. Otherwise, no record is maintained. In defense of LPR, Maryland’s chief Homeland Security Advisory, Andrew Lauland, points out there is nothing inherently intrusive about them. License plates clearly are visible to everyone, though he concedes “We’ll have to carefully weigh all... issues and make sure we do it the right way.” Police officers can run any plate at will and obtain the registered owner’s name and address. In some ways, automatic LPR might be less invasive, opines Captain Kevin M. Reardon of the Arlington County (Virginia) Police Department, since it pulls up that information only if the plate already is listed in a crime or terrorist database. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia are to spend US$4.5m (€3.1m) on the new units. Support comes from a US$59.8m (€41.8m) urban-area federal grant. Further, the municipalities are allocating US$4m (€2.8m) of those funds to outfit local police with radiation detectors; US$5.6m (€3.9m) for bomb squad training and equipment; and, about US$18m (€12.6m) for instrumentation, planning and education to enhance hospital and medical personnel’s readiness to cope with future disasters. The US$59.8m (€41.8m) is less than last year’s US$61.6m (€43.1m). But, the region also has a DHS award valued at US$11.5m (€8m to help prepare for catastrophes such as detonation of a nuclear bomb.With US$10m (€7m) from another DHS funding source, the District government intends to unify monitoring of the growing network of closed-circuit video cameras at schools, public buildings and other locations. Although aimed at improving emergency responsiveness, these efforts are stirring fierce opposition among City Council members, advanced by input from Washington, DC-based public interest groups: the American Civil Liberties Union of the National Capital Area, the Constitution Project and the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

In the picture

With the aim of interconnecting the more than 5,200 cameras already deployed across the District of Columbia (excepting those controlled by the Metropolitan Police Department), Mayor Adrian M. Fenty defends the Video Interoperability for Public Safety (VIPS) program. When fully in service, VIPS will consolidate closedcircuit video operations - directed from nine distinct agencies - within the Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency (HSEMA;Washington, DC). www.thinkinghighways.com

Surveillance HSEMA will develop the technical framework in partnership with the Office of the Chief Technology Officer (Washington, DC). According to Fenty, “...consolidation of the city’s closed-circuit video functions within HSEMA will provide the city with an advanced video monitoring system that will give us the ability to streamline our resources to better capture information. It will provide decisionmakers with a more efficient and effective source of video information, both for day-to-day monitoring as well as during emergencies.” Unlike closed-circuit video initiatives in some other cities which focus primarily on crime, Fenty notes, VIPS will enable realtime capture and storage of events impacting safety, security and incident response. VIPS guidelines are modeled on and no less stringent than the Metropolitan Police Department’s closed-circuit video regulations. They mandate compliance with all federal and District laws regarding video surveillance and have been reviewed by the Office of the Attorney General (Washington, DC). The rules explicitly prohibit infringing First Amendment rights, define the extent to which video content may be disclosed and the circumstances under which further public notification is required such as when additional cameras are deployed. Operators must be certified and there are means for criminal prosecution and/or administrative sanctions in event of proven professional misconduct. Those stipulations not withstanding, opposition to VIPS remains high. In the aftermath of September 11, the federal government persuaded Americans to surrender a large measure of their right to privacy in exchange for the promise of heightened national security and crime deterrence. Examples are omnipresent. They run the gamut from provisions contained in the USA Patriot Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 and The Reauthorizing Amendments Act of 2006, to domestic spying, airport frisking and video surveillance. Experience tells us that video cameras have limited demonstrable effect on crime. In most cases, surveillance merely lends a sense of safety rather than actually enhancing physical security. The Washington, DC-based Electronic Privacy Research Center’s Executive Director, Marc Rotenberg, maintains that images acquired by those cameras are used to manipulate public opinion and build support for new surveillance systems. While an occasional significant episode (à la Rodney King) may be captured, most imagery collected by the operating entities only helps to justify and expand the network. That dynamic already is apparent in London. TH Independent analyst and Thinking Highways Contributing Editor, Lee J. Nelson, is at the forefront of high-performance electronic imaging applications for the transportation industry. Contact him at: +1-703-893-0744, [email protected] or http://www.garlic.com/biz www.thinkinghighways.com

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GIS In the early stages of ITS, GIS often played a minimal role. Most often developed by the larger engineering companies (often with roots in the defense establishment), early systems frequently put a strong focus on installing a comprehensive hardware infrastructure with very simple mapping solutions for public display. As a result, early traffic control centers were often an assemblage of large banks of closed circuit television (CCTV) monitors and were characterized by a number of non-integrated technologies for traffic management. As these systems matured, integration of these disparate technologies became a primary goal. Another goal was inter-agency coordination that would facilitate better traffic management, incident management, and emergency response. These goals led agencies to evaluate technologies that would present a more effective “common operating picture” of their urban transportation systems. These factors would lead to wide-spread use of GIS. A number of the early adopters recognized that realtime traffic information could also be used for better coordination of public transport systems, emergency

response of the tow truck operators and the local medical and fire services (as required). A web interface was made available to the public (press) for incorporation into public traffic web sites and media broadcast. Similar systems have been built along the I-95 Corridor in the Eastern United States, particularly the multijurisdictional CAD system in Virginia implemented by Open Roads (http://openroadsconsulting.com/direct/ press/2006-01-vspcad ) and Maryland’s CHART System (www.chart.state.md.us/). GIS capabilities integrate these disparate data sources into a single, common operating picture using common data models. A number of vendors have taken this concept further, integrating CCTV cameras, dynamic message signs, road weather information systems (RWIS), incident management systems, real-time sensor information, and road closure data , all organized and controlled from a GIS interface. Not only do such systems allow traffic managers a more comprehensive way to monitor and control regional traffic patterns, but they provide the advantage of being able to present some of this same information to the public in the form of traveler information systems.

Intelligent Transportation Systems are now ubiquitous in most large cities and urban settings. With the growth of ITS systems, more agencies are also using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) as a fully integrated component of modern ITS deployments, as TERRY BILLS explains

response, rapid incident management, and parking guidance. In addition, the information could facilitate better planning systems for roadway management. Agencies created more complex data models and GISbased networks to supply more comprehensive interagency coordination. These GIS-based networks provided the common infrastructure for data sharing and coordination. They also provided richer graphical interfaces which allowed traffic managers to better monitor their real-time traffic management systems. Good examples include the Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s 511 site (www.511.org) for the San Francisco Bay area and Geneva, Switzerland’s InfoMobilite site (www.geneve.ch/infomobilite).

FIRST impressions

GIS provided real-time incident information from the highway policing agencies as the starting input into multi-jurisdictional incident management systems. An early example was the coordination between the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the California Highway Patrol (the FIRST System), which allowed rapid response and dispatch to over 3,000 highway incidents a day. This included coordinating the

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Other providers have taken many of these concepts and applied them to city level traffic management solutions, such as Siemen’s Comet System, which is widely used throughout the UK.

Better planning, better management

A second major advantage of integrating GIS with ITS systems is the ability to “re-use” much of the voluminous data collected by roadway sensors and other data collection methodologies for analysis and enrichment of transportation planning activities. ITS data has often been treated much like the historical ticker tape: “torn off and thrown away” at the end of the day. Because of the institutional separation of the traffic operations division from the core staff of the roadway administration, ITS data has often been greatly underutilized. Yet for those agencies that recognized the potential for effective mining of this data, the returns were substantial. Geneva uses traffic pattern data taken around major events to facilitate better event management. The City of Frankfurt in Germany analyses levels of service data (derived from real-time information) in 5 minute increments by roadway segment to understand how to better manage existing traffic flows. Highway www.thinkinghighways.com

Climate Change GIS

A question of

geography

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GIS

planners quickly recognized that real-time speed information could be used to better calibrate and validate their travel demand forecasting models. Much the same holds true for traffic incident data. The Los Angeles MTA’s FIRST System kept three years of accident data in a data warehouse for further analysis by planners and researchers. With the recent focus on safety management in the United States, more and more highway administrations recognize that incident data identified through traffic operations centers are valuable resources for analyzing regional highway accidents. The accident records collected from the roadway policing departments can be linked to detailed information collected through the highway ITS systems for more complex spatial and statistical analysis. This entails much more than the simple “dots on a map” approach. Instead, the sophisticated GIS analysis uses techniques drawn from the rapidly evolving field of spatial statistics: complex analyses that can only be accomplished with GIS.

technologies and data can be drawn into a single framework, Caltrans (the California Department of Transportation) integrated results from a regional travel demand forecasting model, a microsimulation operations model, real-time travel speed information, and GIS together for a local transportation planning effort. By defining a series of agreed upon performance indicators with local officials, Caltrans planners were able to effectively demonstrate and convince these officials of the effectiveness of operational improvements (ramp metering, parallel arterial signalization, etc) over the standard highway expansion generally preferred. The clear presentation of complex information through GIS helped convince officials to fund these improvements. These are just a few of myriad ways that GIS, tied to data drawn from real-time ITS systems, can help transportation planners more effectively plan and manage roadways.

“The clear presentation of complex information through GIS helped convince ofÞcials to fund these improvements”

Data Mass

The use of GIS and spatial data mining by the Massachusetts Highway Administration and the New York State Department of Transportation for crash records are good examples of this trend. Similarly, the City of Newcastle uses GIS with real-time speed data taken from cameras to determine where to target their enforcement activities. In a highly creative example of how multiple

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GIS and performance monitoring

The fundamental premise for deploying Intelligent Transportation Systems was the recognition that highway expansion was often not feasible and that existing resources needed to be maximized as efficiently as possible. How can effectiveness and returns on investment be measured in this area? The Pennsylvania Turnpike Authority (a public tollway) is currently monitoring over 100 performance metrics, with many of these continuously calculated from real-time information. The results www.thinkinghighways.com

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are presented in an Executive Dashboard for senior managers. Metrics such as operating cost per mile, net operating margins, and number of travelled miles, are visualized and analyzed for performance both systemwide, and segment by segment. Through the integration of GIS technology together with SAP and its Netweaver Business Intelligence Suite, managers at the Turnpike can determine operational performance on a day by day basis. The Dutch Transportation Ministry (Verkeer en Waterstaat) implemented a similar system that integrates SAP with SAS and GIS to help monitor system performance. The system allows for the computation and monitoring of more complex performance metrics. Integeo, a company specializing in the integration of GIS and business analytics, developed a compelling example of how business intelligence can be brought to bear on highway performance measures – in this case for safety analysis over time – for the Washington State Department of Transportation. And finally, the Virginia Department of Transportation has integrated their project management system, their financial system, and GIS to make their self performance assessment available to the public through their Dashboard project (http://dashboard.virginiadot.org/ default.aspx ).

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Adoption agencies

ITS systems have become ubiquitous worldwide, with GIS integration playing a prominent role in their adoption. It would be hard to imagine any system built today that did not have as part of its core architecture the use of GIS. These integrated systems deliver a fully comprehensive operational picture for traffic and transportation management. As we move into the new realm of the Vehicle Infrastructure Initiative (VII), valuable ITS and GIS deployments, and the lessons learned in deploying these systems, will provide a solid foundation to leverage for future success. TH [email protected] www.esri.com www.thinkinghighways.com

GIS

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91

Alternative Fuel

Elementary...

Stunted growth Will we ever see a hydrogen-based transportation system, asks AMY ZUCKERMAN

Thinking Highways’ financial analyst MARGARET PETTIT looks at the European Territorial TheCooperation dream of cars and trucks that run on Programme and finds that like with emission-free hydrogen fuel cells is often any other major programme, it’s a matter of dismissed as too long-term to solve today’s priorities problems. Based on today’s technology, institutions such as the National Research Council have determined that automakers would only sell about 2m electric vehicles powered by hydrogen fuel cells by 2020. However, that hasn’t stopped the United States Department of Transportation (US DOT) from promoting production of hydrogen-fuel-cell vehicles and the fueling infrastructure required to make the switch from gasoline. In turn, many automakers are working assiduously to move their hydrogen-fuel-cell-based prototypes to a place where commercialization would be possible. Consider these examples: • Last August the US DOT, hydrogen manufacturers and major automakers staged a crosscountry tour of hydrogen-based vehicles to advertise the need to expand hydrogen fueling stations beyond the approximately 60 to 70 stations available today, most of which are not public. Stops were made in 31 locations in 18 states from Portland, Maine to Los Angeles, California. • Japanese automaker Honda has recently announced it has five lease customers in southern California for its new FCX Clarity hydrogen-fuel-cell car. The Clarity is reportedly the first hydrogen-based car to achieve Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) certification and the first to be available for retail use,

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www.thinkinghighways.com

Climate Change Alternative Fuel

“The dream of cars and trucks that run on emission-free hydrogen fuel cells is often dismissed as too long-term to solve today’s problems”

according to press reports. Calling the Clarity “a huge step towards commercialization,” if not yet mass market penetration, Steve Ellis, manager of fuel cell marketing for Honda Motor Co. in Torrance, CA, says a limited number of the hydrogen-based cars will be available in three communities around the Los Angeles basin: Santa Monica, Torrance/Palos Verde and Irvine/ Newport Beach. Each community has, or will soon have, one hydrogen fueling station. Honda’s combined sales plan for the US and Japanese markets is a few dozen units this year, inching up to 200 units within three years. The cars will be available on a for-lease basis only. Customers will pay US$600 for a three-year agreement, he explains. • General Motors recently announced it was extending its Project Driveway program through 2010, placing more than 100 Chevrolet Equinox fuel cell electric vehicles with drivers in California, New York and Washington, DC. According to Diedra Wylie, a GM spokesman, nearly 10,000 people are on a waiting list seeking to participate. Business partners include The Walt Disney Company,Virgin Atlantic Airlines and the US Postal Service. • And in another development, Ford Motor Co. reported in August that it was extending its hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicle program for up to two years after its first generation Focus Fuel Cell vehicles performed better than expected, exceeding 865,000 real-world miles. Already, Ford researchers are developing a next generation fuel cell vehicle with the aim of www.thinkinghighways.com

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Alternative Fuels improving performance, reliability and efficiency for target deployment in 2010. “Electric vehicles keep coming and going because of the charge up issue. Hydrogen allows you to refill in three to five minutes and drive 200 miles, which is four times the electric distance,” says Scott Staley, chief engineer at Ford Fuel Cell Research in Dearborn, MI, offering one of many reasons Ford is working hard to create hydrogen-fuel-cell vehicles that can travel as far as 350 miles per one fuel-up. Plus, he says the technology to develop and store hydrogen is well-known and feasible.

Overcoming the technology issues

But for all these developments, experts like Staley agree that there are many issues to resolve for hydrogen to replace gasoline-fueled vehicles They range from the ability to produce affordable and reliable vehicles to the need to build out a fueling infrastructure across the US. Plus, manufacturers need to overcome the public perception that hydrogen-based vehicles may not be safe, which Staley calls “unfounded.” Having made “significant progress” in the ability to start hydrogen-based vehicles at freezing and below temperatures, Staley says a key issue today is the need to use precious metals like platinum as a catalyst for hydrogen combustion in the fuel cell stack.Without precious metals, he says the stack – which is stored in Ford prototypes under the front bench seat – would be too large. “This is still something all companies are struggling with. There won’t be commercialization until it’s resolved,” said Staley of the precious metals issue. Although Honda is moving ahead to commercialize the Clarity, Ellis said it would be “premature” to say the automaker has cracked the precious metal problem. But they have been able to make a “significant reduction in (use) of precious metals. At the same time we recognize the need to reduce the cost component so we can eventually achieve cars at a reasonable price,” he added. And Catherine Dunwoody, executive director of the Fuel Cell Partnership in Sacramento, CA, says there’s also a need to improve storage in the vehicle to achieve the 350-mile range Americans expect. Ford is addressing that need by doubling fuel storage pressure on select fleet vehicles allowing twice the fuel to be stored in the same volume. Honda has reportedly come close with a proprietary system that stores hydrogen at a lower pressure than American prototypes, say experts. Then there’s the issue of creating enough hydrogen to serve a mass market. Lawrence Burns, GM Vice President for Research and Development and Strategic Planning, believes the oil industry is already initiating the hydrogen economy. He points out that half of today’s hydrogen production is used at oil refineries.That means “an enormous amount of hydrogen is already being produced by energy companies as an affordable and necessary input into the production of gasoline.” Mark Schiller, vice president of business development for Proton Energy Systems in Wallingford, CT, a manufacturer of hydrogen fuel cell-related products, agrees

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Alternative Fuels

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Alternative Fuel with Burns that the oil industry can produce sufficient hydrogen. But that still leaves the issue of transporting the fuel to service stations. Another approach would be creating hydrogen on site. In this case the research and development is there, but technology would have to be developed to do the job, he said.

Creating a fueling infrastructure

From DOT officials to the automakers and groups like Dunwoody’s, all are in accord that probably the biggest impediment to a hydrogen future is creating the fueling infrastructure to serve millions of hydrogen-fuel-cell vehicles in every city and town across the US. Figures in the multi-billions are cited as a price tag. “This isn’t a technology issue, it’s a business issue,” says Staley. “The oil companies that own the stations won’t go hydrogen if they’re only fueling small numbers of cars per station.” And as part of a recent GM push to gain government and energy industry support for a hydrogen infrastructure, Burns cited a new study by General Motors and Shell Hydrogen, which concluded that a hydrogen infrastructure was economically viable and doable. “What is urgently needed is sufficient investment by energy providers to assure auto companies that the required hydrogen infrastructure will be in place when we deploy our next generation of fuel cell-electric vehicles,” he said. The 60 to 70 hydrogen fueling stations already established across the country are located in cities such as Washington, DC, New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. The numbers vary depending on the source. California leads the nation with 24 hydrogen stations. Dunwoody proposes an initial deployment of vehicles and build out of hydrogen stations in a few key regions, particularly the Los Angeles area and New York City where demand is already high and that represent huge markets for the auto companies. The next step is creating a cluster of hydrogen stations to serve the market. With the kinks worked out in these regions, a hydrogen infrastructure “could gradually spread nationwide,” she explained. Dunwoody expects there to be 30 to 40 stations in the Los Angeles area by 2014 and hundreds by 2023. Still, the cost to move 200-plus vehicles to hydrogen is at least US$55billion over a decade or more, says Dunwoody, who along with GM officials and many others is calling for government backing of hydrogen-based transport as the only real way to commercialization of hydrogen.“When you compare that to ethanol subsidies [roughly US$7 billion in 2006], that isn’t that much money. It’s in the ballpark of what we do to support other technologies,” she said. Despite all of these issues, Dunwoody doesn’t see hydrogen superseded by other technologies in the years to come. She says all alternatives to the gasolinepowered engine present challenges.“We need to invest in a number of technologies, not pit one technology against another,” she said, but added that “hydrogen is the only way to reach our goal for (mitigating) greenhouse gases.” TH

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Communications

Region speciß c Stunted growth

Thinking Highways’ financial analyst MARGARET PETTIT looks at the European Territorial Cooperation Programme and finds that like with any other major programme, it’s a matter of priorities

What elements need to be considered when planning to implement the optimum ITS Regional Communications Network? BRUCE ABERNETHY has some handy hints 98

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Climate Change Communications

The integration of ITS Centers within a region is important for many reasons including providing seamless management of contiguous corridors and coordinated management of freeways and associated “feeder” arterial corridors. Furthermore, congestion and incident management, as well as special event management, can be effectively coordinated via an ITS regional communications network (ITS-RCN). From an emergency management perspective an ITS-RCN supports coordination of mutual aid thus improving operational effectiveness of emergency resources facilitating rapid, coherent and coordinated response to an emergency involving several jurisdictions. From an emergency operations center perspective, an ITS-RCN supports effective planning and execution of emergency evacuation facilitating region-wide communications with travelers and coordinated control of traffic signals, dynamic message signs, dynamic routing signs, reversible lane signs, and other traffic control devices applicable to managing traffic flow. Figure 1 summarizes key functions of an RCN. This article addresses considerations related to ITS-RCN planning and deployment. www.thinkinghighways.com

RCN technology considerations

RCN should be a separately managed and controlled network as shown in Figure 2 overleaf. ITS-Regional Communications Networks need to be independent for reasons summarized in Figure 3. Ethernet technology is preferred for RCN for reasons summarized in Figure 4. The jurisdictional ITS Network is independent of the RCN linked via an RCN gateway to a jurisdictional firewall router as shown in Figure 2. The cost of upgrading an older, existing SONET or SONET/ATM to meet bandwidth needs of a modern RCN far exceed the cost of replacing old communications electronics with Ethernet Switch/Routers. Furthermore, with the advent of Ethernet Automated Protection Switching (EAPS) providing automated failure recovery is less than 50 msec (in addition to Rapid Spanning Tree) plus IEEE 802.1x security, layer 2 and 3 Quality of Service, uncast/multicast features, OSI layer 2 and 3 Quality of Service (QoS), end-to-end standards compatibility as well as hardened equipment compatible with roadside deployment, Ethernet is a clear choice for an ITS-RCN. Thinking Highways Vol 3 No 4

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Communications Other considerations

First it is important to understand the role of an RCN. The RCN is a service network linking jurisdictional ITS networks. Figure 5 illustrates a simplified view of a jurisdictional network with each ITS center having a jurisdictional Ethernet Switch/router. Some jurisdictions may also include a public transit management center as part of the jurisdictional network. Regional Emergency Operations Centers (EOCs) and regional public transit management systems would integrate with RCN in a similar manner to the jurisdictional network. The communications information transferred over the RCN should be that associated with multiple jurisdictions. RCN is not a support network for the jurisdictional traffic. RCN is an independent network with policies defining its function and communications traffic approved on the network. It is designed with controlled access and with an architecture controlling access via the public internet network protecting it from insertion of malware and ‘denial of service’ attacks. RCN should have its own network management, provisioning and servicing (with an effective service level agreement with third party maintenance). Figure 6 illustrates a situation where the RCN E-Switch becomes one and the same with the Jurisdictional EThe Purpose of RCN is to Support Coordinated, ITS Related Operations within the Region

Switch. Thus, jurisdictional traffic as well as all RCN traffic flows through the same switch and RCN loses control of its bandwidth management as well as possible security compromises. The architecture shown in Figure 4 is many times supported by jurisdictions in hope that RCN will pay for jurisdictional network components. Figure 7 is the recommended architecture where the RCN is independent from jurisdictional ITS networks and RCN provides a gateway for interconnecting jurisdictional ITS networks via a firewall router. Dual interconnect at two gateways can provide fault-tolerant interconnections between RCN and the jurisdictional ITS network. Note that the RCN has a DNS Server allowing Jurisdictional ITS operators to utilize a browser to find needed information available over RCN. RCN should support Protocol Independent Multicasting (PIM). Figure 8 illustrates several jurisdictional system approaches to accommodating public multicast addressing as well as providing security for both the jurisdictional network and RCN. The best architecture for jurisdictional network protection is using a firewall DMZ and an RCN web server. Access to jurisdictional information is via the web server. The jurisdiction may also use a DNS server, with RADIUS controlling authorized access. In any case attenCity and Regional Network Should be Separate Just like Internet

Communications • Regional Traveler Information • Regional Coordination and Execution of: • Congestion Management Strategy • Incident Management Strategy • Special Event Management Plan/Strategy • Road Construction Impacting Regional Traffic • Response to Major Emergency Including: • EMC-TMC-EOC Coordination • Emergency Evacuation Plan Execution • Emergency Communications to the Public • Adjacent Jurisdiction Traffic Signal Timing Plan and Traveler Messaging Coordination • Regional ITS Data Achieving

Figure 1

RCN • Regional Asset Supporting Regional Communications • Primarily a Service Network • Will Have Confidential/Secure Information During an Emergency • Provides Support for Locating Needed Information (DNS Server)

JCN • Owned, Managed and Provisioned

by the Jurisdiction • Performs all Necessary Communications Network Functions for the Jurisdiction • May Provide Attachment to Sensitive Jurisdictional Data • Controls who has Access to Jurisdictional Data

Figure 2

Ethernet Preferred Technology

Why ITS RCN Needs to Be Independent


Common User Account Management
Control Over Bandwidth, QoS, VLANS, and Failure Recovery
Control over Security including IEEE 802.1x and RADIUS
Network Address Management Per Network Engineering Task Force Standards
Ability to Manage, Provision and Maintain the Total RCN
Common Configuration Management and Interface Control Management
Control over Liability Related to Breeching Public Privacy or Inadequate Emergency Response within a Jurisdiction
Establishment of Common Network Policies

Figure 3

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Firewall Protected Gateway to Jurisdictional Network

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• Compatible with LAN, MAN and WAN Operational Needs • Significantly Lower Cost than other Network Technology Options • Options for Physical Layer (Optical, Copper/CAT -5/6, and Wireless) • Options for Architecture including Ring, Star and Mesh • Modular Bandwidth: 10/100/1000/10,000 with Emerging 40/100,000 mbps • Best Cyber Protection Solutions • Multiple Options Related to Automatic Fault Recovery including RST and Ethernet Automatic Protection Switching • Supportability by IT Staff • Most Jurisdictions have Deployed Ethernet or are in Process

Figure 4

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Communications Jurisdictional Networks Integrate Jurisdiction’s ITS Centers; RCN Services ITS Information Sharing on a Regional Basis

Common Use Ethernet Switches Results In Difficult Management of RCN Functions and Bandwidth City

ITS Field Devices

Traffic Management Center/System City Emergency Management Center/System

City Network Traffic

RCN/City E-Swt.

RCN/City E-Swt.

RCN/City E-Swt.

RCN Network Traffic

Public Works Management/ Dispatching Center/System

RCN/City E-Swt.

Regional Traffic

Not a Recommended Architecture!

City

Figure 5

City

Figure 6

RCN Should Include Integrated Network Management with Remote Monitoring

RCN Plan Should Include Solution to Public/Private Address and Multicast Address Best Jurisdictional Architecture

Jurisdictional ITS Network

RCN Network Management Terminal

RCN DNS Server

RADIUS Server

Jurisdictional ITS Network

Jurisdictional ITS Network

RCN Web Server

RCN • Network Management Jurisdictional Network Management

• Supports Provisioning and Updates • Monitors Performance and Failures • Supports Maintenance

Jurisdictional ITS Network

RCN DNS Server

RADIUS Server Jurisdictional ITS Network

RCN

• “Public” IP -Addressing

Layer 3 Network Services

• “Public” Multicast Addressing • Protocol Independent Multicasting (PIM )

Firewall DMZ Alternate Architecture

Jurisdictional ITS Network

Jurisdictional ITS Network

Jurisdictional ITS Network DNS Server

Jurisdictions Provision and Maintain Their Networks

Network Address Translation

Source Specific Multicast IGMP “Join”

Figure 7

Figure 8

tion must be given to both the jurisdictional and RCN architecture to assure security, accessibility of needed data and appropriate addressing for accessibility.

toll way corridors are reasonably close to jurisdictional ITS centers with average interconnect fiber linkage perhaps only several miles. Cost of fiber linkage may be considered as part of the cost of implementing RCN as well as providing firewalls routers for RCN interface. If properly planned, an RCN can be affordable.

Network topology

Generally state DOT freeways and/or toll ways provide a supporting fiber topology for the network. The reason is that major metropolitan areas generally have several freeway or toll way rings to provide access from suburban communities to the major CBD. Linking corridors provide connections between inner and outer rings. These freeways and toll ways generally have fiber deployed supporting ITS functions. In addition as light rail continues deployment, fiber is generally included along these corridors supporting control and ITS functions. Thus, when properly analyzed, fiber usually is available to support major segments of regional networks. Deployment of RCN does not take numerous fibers within a cable; only two single mode fiber and simple wave division multiplexing (1300/1550 nm) can be utilized if necessary. In addition, usually the freeway and

“RCN is an independent network with What must be done policies deÞning its First an RCN Communications Plan must be developed. This includes function and developing bandwidth load analysis communications based on projected growth of jurisdicand projected deployment of ITS trafÞc approved on tions within the jurisdiction. It is recommended that aggressive deployment the network”

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of ITS be considered because applications and needs continue to change. Similarly a margin for technology change should be considered because bandwidth demands seem to continue to grow with new technology. Video continues to be a major element of ITS-related sensors and demand for higher resolution video is in its infancy in support of homeland security and video license plate toll transaction systems. Typically bandwidth load of the jurisdicwww.thinkinghighways.com

Communications tional network is considered based on projected growth and then what part of this bandwidth would be applicable to sharing between jurisdictions. Peak load should be considered during a major emergency requiring major evacuation and associated coordination between jurisdictions.

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A design for life

The RCN should be designed to accommodate a major regional emergency. The plan should further include an analysis of available fiber and the development of the network topology and location of gateways Architecture can be finalized with engineer’s estimate of probable design and construction cost. Once this is identified, the more difficult part of identifying who is responsible for obtaining funding, and managing the deployment, operations and maintenance of the RCN must be determined. Policy of use, and standards for information exchange must be defined. ITS continues to develop applicable applications protocols; however there are many databases that are of interest to an Emergency Operations Center in time of crisis and accessibility to them must be defined. An interface control specification must also be developed and placed under configuration management. Third party network management and maintenance of the network is appropriate. The cost of this maintenance service is usually under US$200,000 per year (not including fiber repair). Since the general solution is to use State DOT fiber, fiber repair is logically assumed by the State DOT with location of the fiber break identified by the maintenance service provider. The regional council of governments may be the appropriate organization to be overall manager of the RCN managing policy, configuration, maintenance and supporting O&M funding. State DOT districts may also be a candidate; however a lead district may be necessary should multiple districts be associated with the region.

Summary

ITS RCNs are important to the future success of ITS. RCNs must be appropriately planned. Because modern networks include OSI layer 3+ management (unlike the old SONET Networks), planning is much more complex. Compatibility of RFCs must be considered as well as IP and multicast addressing. Data identification and what data is to be accessible and how it is to be accessed must be determined. Of course the basics of topology, bandwidth, access gateway locations, cost and schedule must be determined. Perhaps one of the more difficult decisions will be “who pays for what and when,” and who determines and manages “policy, maintenance and operations”: If not planned properly, the RCN will become a “sump” for money to correct continuing problems and to modify it to meet growing needs. TH Bruce Abernethy is Principal of Arcadis-US and can be contacted via email at [email protected]

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CARE, COMPASSION AND CONCERN ON THE FREEWAY

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