TH Ecosystem 7-11

NORTH AMERICAN EDITION Vol 6 • Issue 2June/July 2011

thinkinghighways.com

S E E I N G I S B E L I E V I N G

AVT cameras have passed the road test. Deployed in the most sophisticated ITS systems around the world, they feature up to 205 fps, remote lens control, and up to16 megapixels. They’ve outmaneuvered the competition with advanced triggering,strobe, and synchronization features, flexible programmability, and up to 240 MB/sof continuous image transfer. With long-range connectivity options and a robusthousing, you’ll never worry where to park them. To find a model for your next trafficcontrol system, make your first stop www.AlliedVisionTec.com/RoadTested.

Road tested

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Volume 6 • Issue 2 • June/July 2011

Advanced transportation management • policy • strategy • technology • finance innovation • implementation • integration • interoperability

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The INTELLIGENT choice3

CREATING AN ITS ECOSYSTEMDavid E Pickeral charts the evolution from academic thought to deployment... and back again

SIGN LANGUAGEPhil Tarnoff on how to make signal operations more efficient

IN TRANSITChanging consumer behaviour must start with meeting demand

GET WITH THE PROGRAMBern Grush’s 12-step parking plan

INTERVIEWS: WIDER HORIZONSBill Sowell charts the evolution of video detection and Ken Philmus looks beyond tolling

TH211_NA_Cover.indd 1 30/06/2011 14:59

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North America Vol 6 No 2 thinkinghighways.com 1

KEVIN BORRAS: FOREWORD THINKING

If your comments are anything to go by, our redesign has been something of a success. Well, it has been if you are

subscriber to the theory that “no news is good news.” Which I am, so that helps enormously.

As someone who probably wouldn’t even dream of emailing or calling the editor of Rolling Stone to tell them that I really liked their new look, I really shouldn’t have expected more than the seven positive messages I received in the wake of the publication of our March/April issue which featured our rather radical reworking of Thinking Highways’ appearance…but seeing as I didn’t receive any negative feedback I have taken it upon myself to declare our redesign successful.

Giving the magazine a feint whiff of sectionalisation has certainly helped, with one of the more positive comments being that the columns “have an air of importance about them.” The fact that the comment came from one of the columnists himself was neither here nor there - it was exactly

the kind of comment we were aiming for.

Five years after launching Thinking Highways in two regional editions we are starting to see signs that the two distinct markets are beginning to have their demarcation lines blurred a little. The reason we split the titles geographically was that for several years we had had been receiving correspondence from readers from all over the globe pleading with us to do so.

One email from New Zealand said “as much as I enjoy reading about developments in California, what happens in South Africa is of much greater relevance.” Another from a senior traffic engineer in the Midwestern US implored us to launch a North American edition as he just didn’t have the time to read articles about “Poland, Israel and China - countries where I’ll never do business, frankly.”

The fact that both of those correspondents are still readers of Thinking Highways may well suggest that we got our approach right. However, the phrase “international interoperability” has been

creeping into more and more conversations over the past six months. Take our interview with Ken Philmus on pages 32-37 as a prime example ...and look out for a comment from Ken’s dad that really puts things in perspective. But is international interoperability a pipedream? If a New York toll tag doesn’t work in Florida, how will we ever get to the stage where one day it might work in Spain?

YOUNG MINDSOn an entirely separate note, I urge you to visit our website and click on the icon of this issue’s eye-catching cover and scroll down the contents page until you find 15-year old Tom Hayward’s account of how his team competed in the 2011 Toyota Technology Challenge. The competition aims to find a new generation of intelligent vehicle designers and Tom’s superbly written account of how his team from a school in the UK designed and built an autonomous car that featured obstacle detection and avoidance capabilities makes for fascinating reading…and also should act as an

encouraging sign that a promising crop of young engineers are out there after all. The ITS & Education series we started in the Europe/Rest of the World edition earlier this year was done so in the hope that we’d unearth a new seam of talent but we didn’t think we’d come up trumps this quickly. I suppose the fact that Tom is the son of our colleague Mike Hayward might have turned his head a little but my dad was a radar technician in the Royal Air Force so the engineering gene isn’t always passed on

Suffice it to say, that feature will become a regular in the North American edition - David E Pickeral’s insightful cover story is as good a place as any to start..

Look out for the new SHORTLIST icon

appearing in the useful fyi boxes at the end of articles. This shows that there is more information to be found online in our unique SHORTLIST Directory of Advanced Traffic Management Suppliers and Services. SHORTLIST is at thinkinghighways.com/shortlist-directory.html

“If a New York toll tag doesn’t work in Florida, how will we ever get to the stage where it’ll work in Spain?”

International interoperability - is it actually possible?

Editor in Chief Kevin Borras ([email protected])

Art Editor Barbara Stanley ([email protected])

Contributing Editors Richard Bishop, Phil Tarnoff

Contributors to this issue Richard Bishop, Emily Fishkin, Bern Grush, Al Gullon, Mark Johnson, Jonathan J Nadler, David E Pickeral, Ken Philmus, Ann Reinhart, Randy Salzman, Rick Schuman, Bill Sowell, Sue Swenor, Phil Tarnoff, Clay Whitehead, Harold Worrall

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Thinking Highways USPS 023-899 is published 4 times per year – in March, June, September, December by H3B Media Ltd, 15 Onslow Gardens, Wallington, Surrey, SM6 9QL, United Kingdom. The 2011 US Institutional subscription price is US$60. Airfreight and mailing in the US by Agent named Air Business, C/O Worldnet Shipping NY Inc., 155–11 146th Street, Jamaica, New York, NY11434. Periodical postage paid at Jamaica NY 11434. US POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Air Business Ltd/Worldnet Shipping NY Inc., 155–11 146th Street, Jamaica, New York , NY11434. Periodical postage paid at Jamaica NY 11434.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.© 2011 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

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Vol 6 No 2 North Americathinkinghighways.com2

THINKING HIGHWAYS – NORTH AMERICAN EDITION

ContentsCOVER FEATURE: ITS & EDUCATION

David E Pickeral on how the academic community must make the ITS revolution a reality

COLUMNS04 Nadler & Johnson: Legal Brief08 Richard Bishop: Connected Vehicles10 The IRF: Better Roads. Better World12 Harold Worrall: The Future of

Tolling64 Rick Schuman: In Other Words

SIGNS & SIGNALLING20 Phil Tarnoff looks at how self-

assessment and a proactive approach to signal maintenance can improve overall operational performance

INNOVATION

26 Bern Grush’s 12 novel parking programs

THE TH INTERVIEW

32 Kevin Borras talks to Ken Philmus, one of the tolling world’s most popular figures

MOBILITY38 Cultural change in transportation,

assessed by Randy Salzman

COMMS & NETWORKS42 Clay Whitehead on the particular

broadband spectrum needs of the public transit sector

WEIGH-IN-MOTION46 Ann Reinhart on the benefits

of a remotely controlled weight enforcement station

THE TH Q&A48 Dr Bill Sowell answers Thinking

Highways’ questions

WEATHER MONITORING52 Sue Swenor assesses the sizable

benefits of Mini RWIS

OPINION PIECE55 Al Gullon examines the continuing

controversy surrounding CO2 emissions and the idea of global warming

EVENT PREVIEW60 Looking ahead

to the 18th ITS World Congress

bonus online contentExtra articles available in the digital edition of Thinking Highways – North America at thinkinghighways.comINDIA FOCUSKirit Mehta on how India is tackling its shocking accident statistics

INTELLIGENT VEHICLESTom Hayward led a group of British schoolboys on a mission to create an autonomous car

FINANCE & FUNDINGMargaret Pettit looks at Latin America and the Caribbean

ITS & EDUCATIONAndrew Huddart on how universities are challenging the conventional thinking of the ITS sectorAcademia+industry+user needs can equal first class results, says Martin Wylie

l Find the Europe/Rest of the World edition online at thinkinghighways.com

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4 Vol 6 No 2 North Americathinkinghighways.com

JONATHAN JACOB NADLER AND MARK JOHNSON: LEGAL BRIEF

The Washington State Supreme Court recently issued a highly favorable

decision regarding the taxation of fleet tracking and other ITS services. The Court reversed a lower court decision that allowed State revenue authorities to carve out the transmission component of such offerings, classify it as a “network telephone service,” and subject it to same retail sales and business taxes as conventional telephone services. Because the relevant Washington State tax laws are similar to those in many other jurisdictions, this decision could have nationwide implications for other ITS services.

The case concerned a Qualcomm offering, known as the OmniTRACS System, which provides trucking fleets with detailed information regarding the location and status of their vehicles and drivers. The OmniTRACS System consists of three components: • Computerand

communications hardware, installed on each truck, which collects vehicle and driver performance data, such as vehicle location and routes traveled.

• Wirelesstransmissionfunctionality, which typically is provided using satellite technology. This component is referred to as the “OmniTRACS Service.” While the majority of

messages transmitted over the OmniTRACS Service concern truck location, users can purchase an instant messaging capability that enables the driver to send both standardized and “free-form” text messages.

• Softwareinstalledonthetrucking company’s computers that enables the company to use the transmitted data for various purposes, such as to viewing a truck’s location on a map or creating invoices.

Each of the three components is

priced separately. Qualcomm paid sales tax on the hardware andsoftware,butnotontheOmniTRACS Service.

In 2002, the Washington State Revenue Department conducted an audit of the OmniTRACS Service, concluding that the Service should be classified as a “network telephone service” because it provides a “communications or transmission service for hire,” and, therefore is subject to the same retail sales tax and business and occupation (B&O)

tax paid by telephone companies. Based on this, the Department assessed Qualcomm $900,000 in uncollected retail sales and interest, a decision that Qualcomm contested.

Before the State Court of Appeals, Qualcomm argued that the Revenue Department should have classified the OmniTRACS Service as an “information service” which, under Washington State law, is not subject to sales tax and is

subject to a lower B&O tax rate. Washington State law defines an information service as a data processing service “by which a person transfers, transmits, or conveys data, facts, knowledge, procedures, and the like to any user of such information through any tangible or intangible medium.”

The Court of Appeals recognized that the OmniTRACS Service did provide some data processing functionalities, but concluded that the extent of this processing was not sufficient to make the

OmniTRACS Service an information service. The Court of Appeals therefore affirmed the Revenue Department’s decision that the OmniTRACS Service is a “network telephone service” and, therefore, is subject to the sales tax and to the higher B&O tax rate. Qualcomm appealed.

The Washington State Supreme Court, by a seven to one majority, reversed the decision of the Court of Appeals and ruled that the

OmniTRACS Service is an “information service” and, therefore, is not subject to sales tax and is subject to the lower B&O tax rate. The Court began by stating that it would apply the well-established “primary purpose” doctrine.

This doctrine provides that, when a user enters into a transaction that has elements that are potentially subject to two different tax rates – in this case, the higher “network telephone service” tax rate and the lower “information service” tax rate – the proper tax

Fleet tracking and other ITS services are primarily information services and therefore not subject to “telephone service” taxes

“The proper tax rate should be determined based on the ‘primary purpose’ for which the customer enters into the transaction”

“The Revenue Department concluded that the Service should be classified as a ‘network telephone service’ because it provides a ‘communications or transmission service for hire’”

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rate should be determined based on the “primary purpose” for which the customer enters into the transaction. The Court went on to observe that the OmniTRACS Service was “useless” without the other two components of the OmniTRACS System. The Court therefore determined that it should apply the “primary purpose” doctrine to the entire OmniTRACS System – not just to the OmniTRACS Service. The Court concluded that the primary purpose for which Qualcomm’s customers purchase the OmniTRACS System is to obtain an information service that allows them to locate their trucks on a real-time basis, ensure their drivers are following the most direct or efficient routes, and obtain additional information (such as information regarding

the conditions of the truck and generate bills).

The Court went even further, holding that, even if the OmniTRACS Service were considered as a stand-alone service, the primary purpose for which users would purchase the service would be to obtain an information service. While the Court recognized that the Service contains some functionality – such as the instant messaging capability – that could be classified as a telephone service, the Court concluded that this functionality is an adjunct to the primary function of the service – the provision of information – rather than a substitute for conventional telephone service.

Although the decision is limited to its particular facts, it could have national implications. The Washington

State law at issue is based on a model statute adopted by 44 states and the District of Columbia. Therefore, the Washington State decision could affect tax decisions in other states regarding similar ITS services. Because emerging technologies are particularly sensitive to taxing policies, subjecting ITS services to lower tax rates will create incentives to develop and deploy these services. This could be especially important for smaller,

start-upentities,whichareoftenan important source of innovation. More broadly, the Court’s decision represents an important recognition that ITS services should be subject to the “lighter touch” regulatory regime typically applied to information services, such as Internet Service Providers, rather than the traditional regime applied to conventional telecommunications services provided by operators such as AT&T and Verizon.

JONATHAN JACOB NADLER AND MARK JOHNSON: LEGAL BRIEF

“Because emerging technologies are particularly sensitive to taxing policies, subjecting ITS services to lower tax rates will create incentives to develop and deploy these services”

Mark Johnson is an attorney at law and Jonathan Jacob Nadler is a partner at the Washington, DC-based law firm Squire, Sanders & Dempsey, LLP

[email protected] [email protected]

For previous Kelly & Johnson columns in Thinking Highways North America, visit our home page at thinkinghighways.com and enter “Kelly” in the SEARCH box

fyi

What’s going on in your industry in Europe and the rest of the world?

Find out at thinkinghighways.com

EUROPE /REST OF THE WORLD EDITION

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Europe/Rest of the World Edition


ZEN AND THE ART OF ITSAdvanced traffic management the EasyWay

THE ROAD OPERATOR’S DILEMMAAndrew Pickford

unravels the political

complexities of EETS

STUDY AIDSAndrew Huddart and Martin Wylie

on connecting with academia

MEET THE NEW BOSS...

Kevin Borras talks to AustriaTech

Managing Director Martin Russ

GRAND DESIGNSJean Coldefy on meeting the

needs of the Greater Lyon region

EUROPE/REST OF THE WORLD EDITION Vol 6 • No 2

June/July 2011


3

ITS IN EUROPE

CONGRESS ISSUE

Advanced transportation management • policy • strategy • technology • finance

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Once upon a time, there was an act of Congress that told USDOT

to develop and demonstrate an automated highway system by 1997. So, hand in hand with the National Automated Highway System Consortium, we did it. I worked for the Federal Highway Administration at the time and had a hand in it all. Demo ’97 was by all accounts a success, intriguing the public with a concrete vision for a long-held dream, an object of fantasy for anyone dogged by long, monotonous drives.

The late nineties and the last decade saw driver assistance systems begin to tiptoe into the marketplace, starting with “convenience systems” and then to safety systems, which are now moving beyond luxury into mid-range cars – the new Ford Focus is a prime example.

The obvious conclusion, as driver assistance systems take over more and more of the steady-state driving duties, is that the active safety trajectory is arcing towards that long-envisioned end-state of automated vehicles.

What is surprising is how fast the car industry is moving along that trajectory. Automationhasshiftedfromsomething that will come “eventually” to having a discrete place on the roadmap for car-makers. This was vividly illustrated by a keynote speech given by Dr Ralf Herrtwich, Head of Driver Assistance and

Chassis Systems, Daimler AG, at the IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Conference in early June. Ralf describedanelegantlycraftedsequence from driver control towards automation: All On (driver fully in control), to Feet Off (already there with Adaptive Cruise Control), to Hands Off (getting there with Lane Keeping Assist), to Eyes Off, to Body Out (ability to drive empty). Eyes Off takes us to full automation. Body Out gets into the realm of cars parking themselves.

What about timing? Here’s where it really gets interesting. Ralf sees advanced assistance (hands/feet off) as one vehicle generation away. In two vehicle generations, he expects autonomous highway driving, and in one more generation, autonomy for commutes.

Now, notice what is missing – the highway side. Demo ’97 offered the public a “concrete” vision of “automated highways” – yet the future of autonomous driving is all about the cars. On-board intelligence has taken huge strides in the last twenty years, such that the future autonomous car will handle virtually any road, untouched by embedded electronics, albeit enhanced by V2I communications.

During the post-Demo ’97 doldrums, there was a hiatus in serious industry or USDOT-funded R&D. Then US DOD then took center stage with the Grand Challenges: amidst extensive press coverage, the public was again stimulated with this dream of self-driving

cars, although the images were of moon-rover type vehicles.

Then last summer came the car industry’s re-emergence, when Google unveiled their autonomous car, which had surreptitiously been driving California roads for months collecting data for the Google-base. The public and media, who could have reacted with horror, were instead fascinated.

MISSION CRITICALThe DARPA Challenges brought vehicle automation sufficient credibility, and the Google car brought sufficient corporate credibility, for the car-makers to start talking openly about automated vehicles again. The risk of putting this back into the public eye was taken by DARPA and Google, and reaction to their efforts showed a way forward for car companies. Now that automation is market-relevant, the auto companies are taking a stronger role.

What about the government role? Several European Commission funded projects in automation are underway now, and the EC Information Society Directorate has made it clear that vehicle automation is a high priority going forward. USDOT has not taken such a

position, although FHWA has a handful of automation-related research projects ongoing. EC INFSO is driven in part by enhancing Europe’s economic competitiveness. USDOT’s mission, however, is squarely focused on transportation objectives. For the most part, safety can be delivered by today’s technology. Tomorrow’s connected vehicles will improve mobility and safety. But full automation supports transportation objectives as an optimum end state – like the vehicle platoons in 1997, traveling safely at minimal headway, pointing to a future of vastly increased capacity and related benefits.

So, for the policy-makers, we’re back to the vision place. I am now more convinced than ever that the car industry, in the foreseeable future, will deliver autonomous vehicles to relieve drivers from the tedium of driving, thus delivering individual benefits. The opportunity is to harness this technology to enhance travel for everyone on the road. Some government bodies will aggressively pursue this vision, others may not. Handling ever-increasing traffic volumes in the next decade will largely depend on the result.

14 years after Demo ’97, the idea of autonomous vehicles catches on

RICHARD BISHOP: CONNECTED VEHICLES

“Automation has shifted from something that will come ‘eventually’ to having a discrete place on the roadmap for car-makers”

Richard Bishop is principal of Bishop Consulting and Associate Editor of Thinking Highways North American edition

[email protected]; [email protected]

Read more by this author in our archives at thinkinghighways.com/archives.aspx

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BETTER ROADS. BETTER WORLD.

Although I typically do not cast wagers, unless it is on the annual

Oklahoma/Texas or USC/UCLA college football games, I would be willing to bet that very few ITS professionals began their professional careers considering intelligent transport as their potential life’s work. I would certainly be included in that group.

While the enhancement of mobility and preservation of motorist and pedestrian safety are worthy life goals, they are rarely envisioned by the average 21–25 year old.

GAP IN THE SERVICEAftermorethan20yearsintheITS industry, I have seen several universities begin to offer short courses and graduate curricula in traffic engineering and professional traffic operations. While these may provide a good bridge from the classroom to being a traffic engineer or consultant, theyoftenleaveamajorgapinthe practicality of requisite communications engineering and networking background that is critical to the operational success and sustainability of the intelligent transportation system.

Most of the innovative ITS technologies introduced commercially over the past two decades have been hatched in the college environment by entrepreneurial university professors that licensed the technologies developed by

their hard-working undergraduate and graduate students. Working on such emerging technologies provided the students with invaluable experience in ‘thinking outside the detection zone’, and the enterprising professors with a nice reoccurring revenue stream.

While the university-based development of new ITS technologies, central traffic control strategies, and more robust detection systems and algorithms are critical to the

future of the industry, very few achieve commercial success due to the traffic control equipment manufacturer’s predominant belief that pure academics fail to fully understand the art of design for standards compliance and manufacturability.

FEW AND FAR BETWEENHow many of the new technologies and innovative ITS solutions presented each year at the Transportation Research Board meeting in Washington, DC actually see the commercial light of day in the hallowed halls of Siemens

ITS, Swarco, Econolite, Tyco, Peek Traffic or McCain? Too few.

It would be mutually beneficial to the ITS academic community and the leading traffic control equipment manufacturers, to create an ITS EIT (engineer-in-training) internship program, where as a required part of a new traffic engineer’s education, they are forced to learn what it takes in the private sector to design and productize new hardware, softwareandapplications.

Too few ITS professionals fully understand what ITS system or device form, fit and function is actually required to meet the needs of the transport management agency, and they oftenhavedifficultyindiscerning the practical from

impossible, delivered at a competitive price point. With this expanded view of the ITS industry, I believe it would impart greater appreciation in the new ITS engineer of the challenges faced in the private ITS manufacturing industry. Conversely, private industry would hopefully gather new and innovative ideas that were not subject to the historical “Not Invented Here” Syndrome.

Greater communication, cooperation and trust are badly

needed in the ITS industry worldwide between the ITS academic community and private industry. Those that are able to manage these three key principals will granted the sheepskin of success far ahead of their worthy competitors.

Pomp and unusual circumstance – universities and the ITS profession

Dr Bill Sowell is a member of the International Road Federation (Washington Program Office) Board of Directors

[email protected]

www.aldiscorp.com

Read more about this subject in our Archives at thinkinghighways.com/archives.aspx

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“It would be mutually beneficial to the ITS academic community and equipment manufacturers to create an ITS engineer-in-training internship program”

“Working on such emerging technologies provided the students with invaluable experience in ‘thinking outside the detection zone’”

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HAROLD WORRALL: THE FUTURE OF TOLLING

An expansion in toll facilities in both developed and developing countries has

occurred in the last couple of decades and is catalyzed by the fact that it is now much easier to do so using modern ETC technology. Tolling is the dominant transportation revenue generator and when one considers the vast expansion in China, India and other growing economies, it is perplexing why the US has been slow to adopt similar strategies.

While there is no single overriding factor, several have conspired to dampen the expansion of tolling. The recent financial crisis and the reduced accessibility to transportation capital is no doubt a contributing factor. Competition between regional public authorities, statewide transportation agencies and concessionaires has further dampened the trend. Finally, the policy agenda of the US is presently in a state of flux as Congress considers major reauthorization bills to fund transportation for the next six-year period.

There is little doubt in developed and developing countries, that greater transportation funding is necessary to ensure that national economies become and remain vibrant. The situation in the US is particularly amplified because of its dependence upon gasoline tax as the primary

funding mechanism, the perspective that transportation is a public good and the end of the capital construction of the interstate highway system that was largely funded by the federal government. The recent financial crisis changed the accessibility of funding for transportation infrastructure markedly. Not only was the municipal financial market impacted but the ability to attract private capital through concession arrangements was also affected. Before the financial crisis capital for toll

facilities was acquired through a time-tested underwriting process. Subsequently, most major investment banking operations that concentrated in municipal finance have been acquired by large commercial banks. Those acquired must become familiar with the more stringent banking regulations and devise a strategy adequate for the fast-moving municipal bond market.

Investment banking and commercial banking have come together in an uncomfortable forced marriage intheaftermathofthecrisisand the process of issuing municipal bonds has been modified as a result. Bond insurance has also been impacted. Previously bond

issuers were able to purchase bond insurance to increase the underlying rating of a bond issue and thereby reduce the cost of borrowing. The financial crisis caused many of the bond insurance providers to either severely restrict future bond insurance activity or in some cases exit the business area altogether. Many of the primary bond insurance providers are no longer in the bond insurance business.

The financial crisis resulted in lower toll revenues and increased risk of default on

outstanding bonds. A few of the more leveraged private toll operations have been forced into financial reorganization and the investment community now views the municipal finance market as having greater risk, increasing the reluctance to invest in municipal bonds. Coupled with a national monetary policy that results in record low

interest rates, municipal securities and other fixed income investments must compete with recovering equity investments to attract capital. Threeyearsafterthefinancialcrisis, the municipal market does not provide access to capital that previously existed. While it is much improved from the early stages, municipal finance is not showing signs of a complete recovery. Technological developments in ETC and the movement towards Multilane Free Flow tolling offers great

opportunities for expanded tolling. The timing is right to make a connection between price and use of transportation infrastructure and supporting economic development by providing enhanced revenue sources, but political resistance, changes in financial markets and competing organizational delivery have all had a negative effect.

Is expanded tolling the result of a new-found “needs-must” strategy?

Harold Worrall is CEO of Transportation Innovations

[email protected]

www.trans-innov.com

Read more about this subject in the TOLLING/ETC/CONGESTION CHARGING/RUC section section of our archives at thinkinghighways.com/archives.aspx

fyi

“The timing is right for making a connection between price and use of transportation infrastructure”

“In light of the vast expansion in China, India and other economies, it is perplexing as to why the US has been slow to adopt similar strategies”

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Anz_KTC_ThinkingHighways_210x297.indd 1 01.06.10 10:30

Making roads safer is one of the key challenges in transportation today. The tools we use to help us drive will make her future secure. Kapsch TrafficCom, a leader in innovative electronic toll collection systems, creates intelligent ITS applications to support road safety. Weigh in Motion, Incident Detection, e-Screening and traveler information systems all serve to promote a safer driving environment. Find out more. www.kapsch.net

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ITS & EDUCATION

As I have watched the ITS industry evolve around the world from little more than pure theory to operational reality over

nearly the past twenty years, academia has unquestionably played a key role in nearly every aspect of this development. Many leaders among major North American universities – Penn State, the University of Michigan at Dearborn, the University of Regina, UC Berkeley, the University

of Waterloo, Texas A&M, and of course my own alma mater, George Mason University (to name but a very few) provided the critical early-stage thought leadership and technology incubation to get ITS both onto and, then eventually off of the drawing board and continue to innovate and influence virtually every aspect of ITS development. From the early stages of hypothesis development, through system conceptualization and the initial research, to setup and operation

of many of the test beds and beta pilots scattered around the world, our academic institutions rolled up their sleeves with the rest of the ITS community and rightly deserve a place second to none among the true pioneers of our industry.

Now as the implementation of ITS by any name and segment—DSRC, V2V, V2I, Connected Vehicle, Smarter Transportation, CIVIS, CALM—is engaged in earnest, it is important that academic institutions continue to

The academic community deserves much of the credit for developing the concepts and technologies that now stand to revolutionize transport across all modes – now it faces still greater responsibilities in making the revolution a reality, according to David E Pickeral

How to create an ITS ecosystem


Innovation and implementation

push towards the horizon. It is equally important that they also remain pragmatic in their ability to support the enterprise of ITS as it moves from its incubation period into its deployment phase and beyond. The results of such foresight will provide long reaching benefits to our increasingly connected, mobile and global society through those who will become the next generation of ITS parishioners and teachers over the next several decades.

THE NEXT GENERATIONIn the last couple of generations in most countries around the world, transportation has not – as most reading these pages know – been the career of choice for many young people coming out of university. Most students, as they are looking to

begin their careers, have focused on more general education in business engineering, etc rather than the very specialized course for pursuing careers in wings, wheels and water. Courses at academic institutions have reflected this as well. Like many transportation professionals, and indeed I would say nearly all in the current ITS community, I largely developed my ITS skill set over an extremely varied path, working in transport service provision, in information and communication technology (ICT) network operation and analytics and policy development roles as a practicing attorney and management consultant. While this has been an exceedingly rewarding journey, I would like to think that as a legacy, future generations could have an easier and more

clearly definable pathway towards a career in ITS, beginning in their undergraduate years. Students could identify and set study goals towards their place in ITS and encourage them to develop the diverse set of skills required. Whether as a trade school graduate or a new PhD they will emerge into the workforce well prepared for either technical or management roles in ITS – and ideally for both as their careers progress.

Creating specialized courses and even entire curricula at the graduate, undergraduate and even secondary or supplementary school levels is necessary to ensure the continued success of ITS. Far beyond the students who will become practitioners in the industry, there is a far more broad and – easily >>>

“I would like to think that as a legacy, future generations could have an easier and more clearly definable pathway towards a career in ITS”


ITS & EDUCATION

“The ITS community is on the verge of being able to collect, analyze and provide insight on all of this data in real-time and prescriptively for the future...”

just as critical – role for our universities around the world to lay the technical and institutional foundations for the Smarter Transportation ecosystem. As will be discussed here, there is a definable pattern of development that has emerged to guide this evolution as a discipline of study that is both entirely new, as well as the result of a long and successful record of experience.

A SECOND CONVERGENCETransport, information and communication systems have always had something of a parallel – if not, indeed, shared – history. From the Royal Mail coach network established in England in the 18th century to the telegraph and then telephone lines built along railroad rights of way in the 19th century, to the establishment of national Post Transport and Telecom (PTT) authorities that still exist today in many countries around the world, there has always been a societal perception that the movement of people, goods and information together within the same space was an inherently natural activity.

Starting about a century ago when Ford had just begun mass producing cars, Marconi had fielded the first generation of operational wireless systems, and when TJ Watson first led the new Computing, Tabulating and Recording company – soon to be known as International Business Machines (IBM) – the institutionalized process of managing, compiling and using data that would ultimately pave the way for ITS began in earnest. In the latter half of the 20th century, information technology (IT) came into its own and increasingly began to affect both the transportation and telecommunications industries through automated call routing, reservation systems, air traffic control monitoring, and any number of both front-line and back-office support roles – from early email to the Sabre airline reservations system, now used throughout

the travel and transport industry. The 1990s saw the widespread transition

of analog to digital equipment within the infrastructure of established regions, and in developing areas the deployment of end-to-end digital networks where none had previously existed. This began a 20-year convergence of telecom and IT into the nearly seamless information and communications technology (ICT) enterprise of today. Transportation technology likewise continued to evolve along a largely separate, but parallel track with safety systems, signaling, vehicle and aircraft movement tracking. The primary skill set for this domain resided in such disciplines as mechanical, civil and control systems engineering, typically focused on one mode or subset within a mode such as fleet management, rail signaling, Land Mobile Radio (LMR) communications, or avionics.

With the ??????? IIT/Telecom-to-ICT transformation nearly complete, we are now on the verge of a second convergence. Now, these digitized/digital ICT networks are becoming interconnected with the physical infrastructure of transportation assets and equipment to form an intermodal, interlinked and interoperable ‘system of systems’ with the ability to concurrently monitor, control, optimize and deliver transportation services across each level of the network. This movement will demand specialized training to ensure that those who design, build and operate these connected networks have the diversified knowledge necessary to manage these increasingly complex systems concurrently. Whether preparing for a career as a bridge builder, rail car designer, IT architect or software developer, there will be some essential concepts, skills and terminology that will allow for collaboration and understanding across ITS fields. Establishing this common ground in the classroom – with the appropriate academic rigor – will

ensure that students are prepared from the moment they begin their careers.

This need for synthesis is not limited to engineering and technical curricula. Just as ICT and transport evolved on separate operational and technical paths, so too have policy and doctrine governing their operation developed to serve what were, at the time, very different entitlement expectations and socioeconomic objectives. Whilst transport ecosystems, for example, demand strict liability by common carriers to ensure safety with individual privacy being far less of a concern, ICT network operators almost by contrast are charged with ensuring the integrity of personal information as one of their primary mandates. Clearly the binding together of these two sets of objectives within the ITS environment will require a studied balancing and even reshaping of policy (and thereby accompanying legislation and regulatory oversight) to ensure that the efficacy and above all safety of these systems are maintained as they must be.

Having been a fundamental player in nearly all aspects of the transformation discussed previously – from civil engineering advances to software development to economic modeling and forecasting – it is now necessary for our

The use of academic institutions to interpret the mountains of data they helped to make obtainable will allow them to innovate further


Innovation and implementation

academic institutions to drive this second convergence through targeted research programs, management curricula, and public policy forums to name but a few possibilities.

The results from this synthesis will manifest – including, but not limited to, the following key post-convergence activities:• Clearbusinessprocessrulesforthe

handling of ‘big data’;• Definedresponsibilitiesasbetweenthe

participants in public-private partnerships (PPP);

• Anestablishedprocessforprocuringinteracted ICT-transport systems that assigns appropriate liabilities as between operational and back-office functions to appropriately apportion risk;

• Understandingofhowvariouslevelsof government – and the international community – interact and approach ITS to balance local/regional responsibilities with global standards and best practices.

FROM ROADSIDE BACK TO RESEARCHThe business of transport is all intensive, 24/7 and highly unforgiving – whether monitoring a highway or airport, serving as a common carrier of passengers or goods. One must deal with situations as they arise, all while anticipating and responding in an appropriate and timely fashion to ensure flow of operations and safety. Few operational practitioners in

transport have the ability to fully interpret the trends of their own systems’ operation, let alone analyze the trends across the industry. And it is difficult to spend on these types of resources, when there are many priorities to balance.

It is here that academic institutions must be directly engaged in interpreting the probe data streams and other volumes of data that now flow back from the operational systems they helped put by the roadside in recent years. What can be learned from the terabytes of probe data streaming in from millions of passenger vehicles, buses, commuter trains and subways, and the innumerable tolling transactions, AFC payments, TIS requests, or operations-center decision points that make up the operation of any city transport operations network at any time of day anywhere in the world?

In essence, the ITS community is on the verge of being able to collect, analyze and provide insight on all of this data in real-time and prescriptively for the future... This provides an opportunity for academic institutes to capture, examine, study and respond with business practices, design criteria, and the basis for making the most of this wave of data while avoiding crush of information that both systems – and people – continue to raise as a concern as the 21st century blasts into its second decade. The same discipline of objective, careful, reflective research by academics that got roadside equipment installed in

the first place will ensure a careful and logical succession of new systems.

MAPPING THE JOURNEYLastly, much as the case with all other modes in the now hundred year history of information technology, the nearly two-hundred-year history of telecommunications, and the several-thousand-year history of transport, our academic institutions will be critical in documenting the story of ITS implementation. As I have said in these pages before, the implementation of ITS in the 21st century will be as fully important from a socio-economic standpoint as the steam engine in the 19th century or the airplane in the 20th century and will have easily as many important stories to be told and studied, not just about bits and bytes, but also inclusive of the pioneering spirit and excitement which has characterized the emergence, validation and deployment of ITS.

David E Pickeral is Global Development Executive for Smarter Transportation at IBM, based in Washington, DC

[email protected]

www.linkedin.com/in/pickeral

Read more about this subject in the ????? section of our Archives at thinkinghighways.com/archives.aspx

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SIGNS AND SIGNALLING

The evidence is indisputable. During the past thirty years (at least) the traffic community has been besieged with articles

describing the benefits of efficient traffic signal system operation. These articles have repeatedly documented reduced delays, vehicle operating costs, emissions and fuel consumption resulting from good signal timing practices. The Executive Summary of the 2007 National Traffic Signal Report Card stated that the Nation would receive the following benefits if its signals were operated with maximum effectiveness (an “A” letter grade in Report Card terminology)1:• Reductionsintrafficdelayrangingfrom

15–40 per cent• Reductionsintraveltimeupto25percent• Reductionsinfuelconsumptionofupto

10 per cent• Nationalsavingsof17billiongallonsof

motor fuel per year• Reductionsinharmfulemissions(carbon

monoxide, nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds) up to 22 per cent

While these conclusions are rarely disputed, little has been done by the majority of public sector transportation agencies to achieve these goals.

The National Transportation Operations Coalition (NTOC) is an organization made up of leading US transportation organizations. Under the auspices of the Federal Highway Administration, it conducted two surveys of US traffic signal operations and maintenance (O&M) practices, with the objective of both assessing the adequacy of these practices and encouraging nationwide

improvements. Designated the National Traffic Signal Report Card, these two surveys were conducted in 2005 and 2007. More than 300 agencies participated in each of these surveys, whose results are presented in the figure below.

These results are disappointing, both because they demonstrate the inadequacies of existing traffic signal O&M and because they show little improvement during the two year interval between the surveys. Yet a few agencies

(very few) tried to improve their 2005 results. Those that did realized significant benefits from their efforts. Austin, Texas is a case in point. Their experience which resulted in an improvement from a self evaluation grade of “C” in 2005 to a grade of “A” in 2007 is described in the following quote from the referenced text:

“As a result of the 2005 Traffic Signal Operation Self Assessment, the City of Austin, TX, USA, has emphasized a proactive approach to signal timing

Phil Tarnoff looks at how self-assessment and a proactive approach to signal maintenance can improve overall operational performance

Thinking outside the cabinet

1 “National Traffic Signal Report Card 2007 – Executive Summary”, prepared by the National Transportation Operations Coalition (NTOC), 2007

TABLE 1National Traffic Signal Report Card – Self-assessment results

SURVEY CATEGORY SURVEY RESULTS 2005 2007Proactive Management F D-Signal Ops at Individual Intersections C- CSignal Ops in Coordinated Intersections D- DSignal Timing Practices * C-Specialized Operations F *Detection Systems/Traffic Monitoring F FMaintenance D+ C-Overall D- D*These categories were not included in their respective surveys

“[Austin] has successfully made improvements to its overall signal operation with no additional funding”

maintenance. Instead of spending money responding to problems calls or complaints, the City spends money up front by proactively checking every traffic signal on a regular preventive maintenance schedule. This program was shown to reduce maintenance calls from 5,000 to 2,500 in one year. The City has successfully made improvements to its overall signal operation with no additional funding; instead it focuses on reallocating existing budgets.”

Why was Austin one of the few cities

to recognize that the survey results represented an opportunity rather than a threat? While no one is certain, it is possible to speculate that some of the reasons might include:• Inertia–ourbosseshavealwaysbeen

satisfied with the status quo, so why change?

• Inadequateresources–everyoneistoo busy fighting fires to think about restructuring the existing organization or changing its procedures


Operation and Maintenance

>>>

• Lackofincentives–nopersonalor organizational benefits are anticipated from improved performance in terms of higher salaries, increased budgets or other favorable treatments

• Lackofknowledge–someareill-equipped to identify the actions needed for improved performance. Many assume (incorrectly) that the only solution is increased funding.

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) and many others have attempted to address the lack of progress through training courses and publications. Unfortunately, this material only addresses the lack of knowledge, but fails to consider some of the other reasons for inadequate O&M. Clearly it is time to explore more creative solutions to the problem.

In all fairness, it must be recognized that several agencies scored extremely well on the NTOC self assessment. The creative solutions discussed here are certainly not applicable to these high performing agencies.

A SOLUTION WORTH CONSIDERINGSeveral years ago, while working on a signal system upgrade project for a Midwestern city, a major electrical contractor approached the city manager with a proposal to privatize their signal system.

The proposed privatization included the complete transfer of responsibility to the contractor for system replacements, upgrades, maintenance and signal timing. In short, the contractor would assume total control over the operations and maintenance of the entire system. The city manager’s response was that it would be the “happiest day of his life” if the system were to be taken off his hands.

The city manager’s response was not unique.Manynon-technicalmanagersandelected officials are frustrated by criticism of their signal system because they do not know how to correct the problem. In fact, they are not even certain that the criticism is legitimate. Their staffs assure them that the system is being operated as effectively as possible within the available resources. Yet the public remains dissatisfied and the national organizations such as the FHWA and ITE are continually telling them that they could be doing better.

Privatization is appealing because

agencies can define desired levels of performance, while blaming someone else for any real or perceived problems that might occur. In short, management and elected officials can define their expectations in layman’s terms. At the same time, the privatization contractor has the flexibility to upgrade the system, replace aging equipment, and provide specialtyskillsonanas-neededbasisrather than being saddled with permanent staff members within a constrained civil service system and artificial investment constraints built around an outmoded planning process. Perhaps most important, the contractor can apply appropriate techniques available for managing complex technical enterprises such as maintenance management systems, performance metrics and staff incentives.

Take maintenance management for example. How many agencies have a preventive maintenance program similar to the one described for the City

CAUTION!IMPROVEMENT IN PROGRESS


of Austin? How many agencies track the failure rates of their signal controllers by manufacturer, model number and age, so that they can replace unreliable equipment that costs more to repair than to replace? How many agencies optimize the assignments of their maintenance staff to minimize travel and to ensure that their activities are appropriately prioritized? How many agencies have formalized spares policies based on equipment failure and repair rates? How many agencies track staff performance to identify underperformers who need additional training or other remedial actions? The list is endless. Yet all of these items reflect effective management policies that should be routinely utilized by an agency responsible for enormous investments in equipment as well as the public welfare.

The operations side of O&M is similarly deficient. In a report on the signal timing state of the practice, it was reported that 35 per cent of the agencies surveyed had failed to systematically retime their signal systems for the past ten years.2 Although this report was prepared in 2004, it is unlikely that anything has changed during the intervening time. It is likely that the great majority of these jurisdictions have seen changes in their traffic flow during the past ten years, with the result that their signal timing is badly out of date. Inadequate signal timing is not the only operations deficiency. As demonstrated bothbytheNTOCworkandthestate-of-the-practicereview,themajorityof agencies fail to routinely monitor traffic flow, implement signal timing for emergency conditions, and appropriately time their signals for congested conditions.

Privatization offers one approach to overcoming these shortcomings. Agencies would select an appropriate private sector organization to assume

full responsibility for the operations and maintenance of their systems. The contract requirements would be defined at a high level. They would specify minimum levels of availability (acceptable percentages of time that an intersection is operating appropriately), and acceptable levels of travel time and delays.

Another positive feature of this approach might be the requirement for the contractor to establish a call center and website that can be used for citizen reports of signal outages, burned out bulbs, and operational deficiencies. This is a feature that has been successfully implemented by many agencies, but here again the majority of agencies accept calls from the public onanad-hocbasis,withoutprovidingappropriate feedback to the caller.

The traffic signal O&M contract would include incentives and disincentives (penalties) needed to enforce the contract requirements and encourage superior performance. For example, periods of time for which outages exceed the specified levels of availability would result in a penalty, while periods during which

outages exceed some maximum level of availability would result in an incentive payment. By its nature, the need to enforce contract requirements for performance (travel time and delays) would lead to a requirement for continuous monitoring of traffic flow, a feature that should have been included in all signal systems anyway.

PRIVATIZATION IS NOT A PANACEAIt would be naïve to assume that the privatization is a smooth straightforward process. Many issues must be considered before proceeding. Public sector personnel who have been involved with the process offer a litany of complaints, not the least of which is the contractor’s lack of familiarity with all of the issues that must be addressed to effectively operate an important element of the transportation infrastructure. These issues can sometimes be traced to the sometimes incompatible motives of the public sector (to serve the public) and the private sector (to make a profit). On other occasions, they can be attributed to the lack of understanding on the part of public sector personnel of private sector cost structures. On yet other occasions, the dissatisfaction with

Vol 6 No 1 North Americathinkinghighways.com222 Tarnoff, Philip J., “State of the Practice in Signal Timing Practices and Procedures”, prepared for the Institute of Transportation Engineers, March 2004. >>>

“The contract would include incentives and disincentives to enforce requirements and encourage superior performance”

With some authorities failing to retime their signals for long periods, despite changes in traffic flow, opportunities for improved operational efficiency are missed



the privatization process can explained in terms of potential impacts on job security.

Yet many of the difficulties encountered during the privatization process are legitimate and must receive serious consideration while this process is being developed. Funding: Within existing funding structures, it is often necessary to differentiate between capital improvements and the recurring costs of O&M. In order to realize the maximum benefits from the privatization process, it is desirable to provide the contractor with the maximum flexibility to replace equipment as necessary to optimize the maintenance costs. This flexibility can only be accomplished through a unified budget. It may be difficult to blend these two activities into a single contract vehicle. Performance Incentives: Performance contracts have been successfully used for many different types of projects throughout the world. Performance incentives can be readily applied to measure the quality of the contractor’s maintenance activities in terms of equipment availability and maintenance personnel response times. However, the application of performance incentives to operations can be more difficult. Even an experienced traffic engineer with an adequate budget has difficulty maintaining or improving travel times in areas with traffic growth and changing travel patterns. Thus performance incentives must be locations and time periods during which conditions are relatively stable. In addition, the imposition of performance incentives requires that provision be made for the extra cost associated with the automated measurement of travel times in locations where the incentives are to be applied.Local Knowledge: It will be difficult for a contractor arriving on the scene with a staff of engineers and technicians unfamiliar with local conditions, to

provide traffic signal operations of equivalent effectiveness to that which had been provided by public agency personnel with many years of local knowledge. A transition period of three to six months will be required before the contractor’s performance can be accurately evaluated. The impacts of the transition period can be minimized if the contractor employs existing agency staff for the project, either temporarily or as full time employees. Liabilities: Intersection crashes can be severe, and in their search for legal redress, attorneys frequently identify deficient traffic signal operation as the cause of the crash. The potential cost of litigation can be a serious obstacle to attracting qualified contractors to offer their services for signal privatization. Those contractors who do offer privatization services may increase their costs to provide financial protection against possible lawsuits. Agencies considering privatization should whenever possible, offer legal protection against such lawsuits provided any settlements that occur were not the result of a contractor’s deficient actions.

A privatization relationship that clearly defines performance requirements, offers an effective mix of incentives and disincentives, allows for development of local knowledge and offers legal protection can result in significant improvements in the operation of the nation’s signalized roadways.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTSPrivatization may appear to be an extreme solution to the problem of deficient traffic signal O&M, but we are running out of alternatives. After more than twenty years of trumpeting the benefits good O&M, with no apparent impact on the actions of

the agencies providing these services, there do not seem to be any other solutions. The public and their elected officials exhibit a mild dissatisfaction with the operation of the signals in many jurisdictions, but their understanding is so limited that they are readily persuaded by the technical staff that this is “the best we can do”. In fact, quite the opposite is true. In the majority of American communities there are numerous opportunities to repeat the Austin experience. Yet few have responded to this challenge.

Privatization offers an opportunity for a fresh start. It provides a basis for communication between the elected officials and their technical staff; communication that can be expressed in terms they understand (travel times and availability), rather than the cycles, splits and offsets, actuated controllers, and levels of service. It also offers the opportunity to establish new lines of communication with the public through call centers and websites. Finally, it offers the assurance that scarce tax dollars are being used wisely through the application of modern management techniques.

“Privatization offers an opportunity for a fresh start”

A preventative maintenance program, such as is in operation in Austin, Texas, can reduce maintenance calls by half

Phil Tarnoff is Chairman of the Board of Traffax, Inc

[email protected]

Read more about this subject in the SIGNS AND SIGNALLING section of our Archives at thinkinghighways.com/archives.aspx

Find out more in the SIGNS AND SIGNALLING section of the SHORTLIST directory online at thinkinghighways.com/shortlist-directory.html

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MOBILITY THROUGH TECHNOLOGYMott MacDonald’s transport technology team is adding value on a host of projects worldwide through intelligent, sustainable solutions and innovative ideas. Our global experience and professional excellence save time and money for our customers and help make their investments work harder. We bring best practice, cutting edge solutions and holistic thinking to each project and its development, to promote improved transport networks and informed travellers.

Visit us at the European ITS Congress, Lyon, 6-9 June – ITS UK stand C30 and C40

For more information, please contact Ken Cowan:t +44 (0)141 222 4577e [email protected]

www.transporttech.mottmac.com

Intelligent transportManaged motorways

Systems deliveryData analysis

Traveller informationNetwork management

Traffic controlProject management


INNOVATION

Bern Grush shares with us 12 novel parking programs to delight drivers, reduce enforcement costs, produce revenue or reduce congestion and emissions—and usually all five!

Cheaper by the dozen


Intelligent Parking

I live on the east side of Toronto, about 2 kilometers from a subway entrance. Recently, I wanted to lunch with a friend at the far western end of the line about

20 km away. Taking my car would have cost about $15 in gas, lease expense and wear. So it made sense to park my car near the station and take the train. It would be faster than fighting traffic, less than half the price, give me a couple blocks of exercise, and let me read a book on the train – four superb and utterly selfish reasons to leave my car parked.

Pleased with my plan, I drove off to the nearest the station. As I started looking to park, the first street was marked one-hour free parking – with no way to hire more. Made sense – can’t have tons of folks like me crowding out residential parking by leaving my car there all day while working downtown. So I went to

the next street. One-hour parking. And the next one, too. So I went up one more and finally ended up parking about 0.5 km away from the next station over – in the wrong direction! Because I had cruised back and forth looking for free parking I had essentially driven an extra 1.5 km while passing well over a hundred, empty, one-hour-free spaces. I figured I needed to park about three hours and did not wish to risk a $30 citation. But, I got my free spot!

My city has several thousand one-hour-free spaces, mostly on residential streets and many three or four blocks on either side of our transit lines – and around other major facilities generally under-served by parking lots (a local hospital provides another example). These form a buffer of parking spaces constrained to one-hour parking to prevent parking abuse unfair to the local residents. Makes

sense. Or does it? The majority of these one-hour spaces remain empty after local residents leave for work and until they return home. If left unmanaged, they would be filled by freeloaders like me who leave their car in front of a stranger’s house and take public transportation (or carpool) to save $10 or $20 in downtown parking fees. One can see some green wisdom in having people who live some distance from a subway station park in one of these residential areas and take the train rather than drive downtown. I know several people who do this.

I would have been happy to pay 50 or 75 cents an hour for a spot 100 meters from the station – more if the weather was bad. The city has an opportunity to manage those spaces for the benefit of the residents living there, as well as for the benefit of drivers who live less close to the subway. >>>

1

2

TRANSIT-ORIENTED STREET PARKINGIn the opening story I described the problem I had trying to ditch my car near a transit station. If that were managed by way of an hourly payment that would be set low while local residents were at work, but higher otherwise, I could have paid to park there without worrying about when I would return. Had I been held up and stayed six or eight hours instead of only three, I would’ve paid fairly in that case, as well. The only enforcement cost for transit-oriented street parking would be to drive by in a vehicle or on a bike looking only for cars without an operational meter or residential parking decal. Such vehicles would be handled as before. As meters become ubiquitous, the proportion of cars that need manual payment enforcement drops saving the city even more money while better managing street parking for the affected residents.

GRADUATED PARKINGProbably the most powerful single value for self-enforced time and place-based parking meters is the management innovation of Winnipeg’s Dave Hill (Chief Operating Officer, Winnipeg Parking Authority, 2005–2010). Calling it graduated parking, he set up a pilot that permitted the use of on-street parking to extend arbitrarily past the then-current two-hour limit of participating parkers who were willing to pay a gradually increasing fee for each 15-minute parking time slice. This even permits the first time segment to be free, if a city wished to offer the “one hour free parking” privilege. With appropriate pricemaps, parkers who stay beyond a normal limit would pay a slightly higher fee for each extra time slice, but being self-compliant would require no manual citation. This permits enforcement staff to manage more square miles of on-street parking with the same staff contingent while reducing city court costs and increasing revenues – revenues that could be used for local streets and sidewalks, reducing the upward pressure on property taxes.

BEST PRACTICEUnfortunately, many city managers that see cars in motion as a problem do not recognize that half of the problem they grapple with can be attributed to how we think about cars that are parked or could be parked differently or elsewhere. The interchange link between driving and transit modes is often weak at best. Parking management, handled very poorly on the urban streets of many of our cities, could instead include schemes that:• Reduce‘circlingtheblock’forcheapor

free parking• Reducevehiclemilestraveled(VMT)• Encouragetransituse• Generaterevenueforlocalstreet

maintenance and amenities• Reducecongestion• Reduceemissions• Provideeasy,quickandconvenient

parking• Assureresidentscanparkneartheir

homes• Assureretailoperatorsreasonableparking

availability for their customers• Savemoneyfordriverswillingtotake

transit for part of their trip• Reducepropertytaxforresidentsnear

streets that are better managedHere I will show 12 new ways to address this management issue.

SAME OLD, SAME OLDThere has been no real innovation in parking programs since the invention of the parking meter in 1935. Before that itwastheparkinggaragein1918.Andbefore that, the covered carport for the upscale homeowner in 1909 – a centenary that just went by uncelebrated.Everythingelsehasbeenincremental

improvement on the parking meter – a way to have you plug something into a machine and buy some time before you go about your business, for which you are

already late because of traffic congestion. The something you plug in has changed fromnickelstoquarters(lotsmorelately),then to credit cards and now to 10 digits on your cell phone.

The reason there is nothing remarkable about all of the interim inventions such as pay-and-display, pay-on-foot, pay-by-spot, and cell phones is that none of these inventions change the business rules.Thoserulesaresimple:(1)circletheblockuntilyoufindaspot,(2)parkandarrangeapayment,(3)dosomethingawayfromyourcar,(4)return,(5)driveoff.Of course there are a lot of variants. You could get a ticket. You could get clamped. You could get towed. You could be late for your meeting trying to find a spot. I knew someone who circled so long she ran out of gas and never managed to find a spot, which is, I seem to recall, how one of my marriages ended up.Asabusiness,parkinghasgrownbutit

has not grown up. Looking for a parking spot still consumes time and fuel – and this is getting worse. Paying for parking remains a colossal nuisance. Citation-anxietyspoilsyourmeetings,yourlunch,your shopping, and your indiscretions. Parkingenforcementisanexpensiveand tedious activity. Finding, paying, and enforcing parking is easily the most absurd and wasteful business activity still tolerated under 21st-century capitalism.Theuseofcurbsideequipmentand

parking officers on enforcement beats isveryexpensiveinhigh-trafficareas.It is prohibitively so elsewhere. In many cities,youcanexpectanexpensebetween40–60percentofrevenuesdependingona number of factors. Worse is the case of one-hour-free parking in low-demand areas.Asitisnow,one-hourparkingareasmust be visited twice to apply tire-marking enforcementmethods–anexpensive,pre-technology ritual – leading to a strategy ofoccasionalspot-enforcement(Iget


INNOVATION

New parking programs may not feasible even with the newest incarnations of the 76-year-old curbside parking meter

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SELF-ENFORCED PARKINGThis is easiest to understand: park in all the places that have posted prices and the usual parking meters, but simply ignore the curbside meters. The city can demand the same parking fees as before, and could add a lump-sum penalty for overstaying a fixed time limit. Alternatively, the city could ask for overtime to be paid on a prearranged schedule, such as two or three times the usual per-minute rate, with a ceiling. This is less harassing for the driver, always collected by the city, and has no additional costs to ensure compliance. But why get complicated? This is an excellent way to introduce graduated parking.

VENDOR-PAID PARKINGRetail vendors often dislike paid street parking especially if competitors who offer free parking could take their business. Appropriately configured in-car metering systems can include methods to allow vendor-paid parking to credit a shopper’s parking account.

LOYALTY DISCOUNT PARKINGSome public garages offer monthly parking at a significant discount. Such monthly passes encourage automobile use even on days that transit, bicycle or carpool might be more suitable. Switching to loyalty discount parking for frequent users would remove this problem while still giving garage operators a method to attract frequent users. This also removes the need to maintain sufficient empty spaces for monthly parkers who may not show up on any particular day.

FREE PARKINGSometimes free parking is appropriate. It would be possible to operate the ‘one hour free’ parking rule and give participants the first hour free. The same idea can be used to give customers 30 or 60 mins of free parking and then to charge thereafter. Non-customers could then use private retail lots and would pay after the grace period expires. This eases the spillover management problem, reduces pressure on the common shortage of street spaces, and adds more taxable revenue to the retailer’s top line.

ECO-PARKINGBy setting the on-board pricemap to reflect the size of vehicle or type of power train, participants who drive smaller or alternative vehicles could be given an eco-parking discount. Some financial grade road-use meters measure driving style (speed, braking, and acceleration) and this can be used to compute an eco-driving index which can be used to calculate parking discounts on city streets. While we’re at it, we could add a bonus parking credit for vehicles that remain parked during peak traffic hours.

“Citation-anxiety spoils your meetings, your lunch, your shopping, and your indiscretions”

ticketed maybe once in ten for violating thehourconstraint).

HOW THE NEW METERS WORKSInordertoexecutethenewschemesdescribed here, participating vehicles must be self-metered, self-enforced and self-paying with privacy-shielding, hands-free, road-use meters. This will allow the same contingent of parking officers to manage three to ten times more spots than now.Suchself-managedmetersarealready

commercially available. Using a new technologycalled“financial-grade”GPS,they provide a completely private method of determining the correct parking fee basedonaninternalpricemap.Eachmeterisuniquetoaparticipatingvehicle,paysparking monthly either on a debit or credit basis, and does not reveal the location of a vehicle to any party other than its driver. There is a 100 per cent driver-private way for the parking operator to audit the system—no person or machine can find out where a spouse is parked since location data does not leave the vehicle.Adriverwhowishedtouseanyofthe

parking schemes described in the sidebars wouldaffixameter,whichisthesizeofsmartphone, to her windscreen behind the rearview mirror. The meter may be prepaid or post-paid, as the city chooses. In fact both could be offered.Asmallindicatorlampshowsthat

the meter is working so that a parking enforcement officer can safely ignore any legallyparkedvehicle(blockingdrivewaysandfire-hydrantsremaincitableoffenses).The absence of a lit indicator lamp that shows a device that is tampered or nonoperational, and such vehicles would receivecitationsexactlyasthoughtheyhad no meter—no need to get Draconian over tampering a device you volunteered to put in your own vehicle!

Parking officers who enforce parking woulddoexactlywhattheyalwaysdo,while simply ignoring any correctly >>>


Intelligent Parking

RESIDENTIAL PARKINGMany cities control street parking in older residential areas (without driveways) by using flat-rate parking decals or tags that permit parking in a certain residential zone. Residential parking using a financial grade road-use meter applies very low hourly rates (pro-rated to the current annual pass costs) within the localized zone relative to the resident’s address and more normal rates outside of that zone. Then residents who may park fewer hours on their own street because they travel or put their car in a driveway could pay less. Also, if they visit late or overnight on another residential street or have a guest who agrees to pay for street parking, they pay for fair use rather than risk a citation. A similar pricemap could be used to manage visitor parking for apartments, condominiums and hotels.

RESERVED PARKINGGiven a suitable number of participants, it is possible to offer reserved parking. In-car parking meters permit real-time inventory management so that sections of surface lots and street spots may be reserved for participants only. This permits a driver to use a smart phone to reserve a spot and be guided directly to it. It reduces driver circling and climate-change anxiety – as well as potentially increasing municipal revenues.

NOSEBLEED PARKINGSimilar to seats in a sports stadium that are farthest from the action, ‘nosebleed parking’ refers to setting prices on a declining scale depending on how far one parks from the entrance to a transit station, a stadium, a hospital, a school, etc. One often sees drivers circling or hovering close to an entrance while there are spaces at the edges or on upper floors of a large facility. Differential pricing can be used to better distribute spatial demand and reduce circling and hovering.

LOTTERY PARKINGUse lottery parking to spread peak travel times. Each day that a driver parks within the central business district (CBD) but does not travel during peak hours enters his license plate into a daily lottery. Support the lottery from parking revenues and give away several significant prizes every day. This rewards drivers who enter and leave the CBD during off peak hours thereby reducing congestion and idling.

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“As a business, parking has grown but it has not grown up”


INNOVATION


Bern Grush is CEO of Bern Grush Associates

[email protected]

www.berngrush.com

Read more from this author in our Archives at thinkinghighways.com/archives.aspx

fyi

parked vehicle with a correctly operating meter. Lest the indicator lamp be spoofed, these meters also emit a “health signal” declaring whether they have been tampered, jammed or shielded.

In the sidebars on the these last three pages are 12 new parking programs that are not feasible with the 76-year-old curbsideparkingmeter(regardlessofhow incrementally sophisticated it has become).Theserepresentonlyafractionof the programs possible with this new technology.

SOLUTIONS FROM THIN AIRParking management by satellite can improve mobility, municipal finance andthedriverexperience.Whilemanaging only parking, this technology can simultaneously address road and parking congestion, transit ridership, and peak-travel. What is most powerful is that it handles any kind of parking circumstancewithincredibleflexibility,while dramatically reducing the cost of ensuring compliance. Not only does it handle street, lot and garage parking, it is even possible for an individual to hire out their driveway to a stranger while they are atwork.Sincethesystemcancountwhereitsparticipantsareconcentrated(withoutknowingwhoanyoneis)theuseofvariable message signage, permits a city or private operator to vary pricing – by event or demand. The only downside is that the gradual attrition of unsightly curbside parkingmetersoverthenextseveralyearsmeans fewer places to chain a bike.


THE THINKING HIGHWAYS INTERVIEW

I’d better explain that before we go any further. Ken Philmus, senior vice president of transportation systems and services at ACS – A Xerox Company, would

no doubt be very pleased that I’ve described him as popular. What he wishes to change is his remit, or more accurately, the remit of his company.

Ask anyone in the advanced traffic management field what it is that ACS does and I’d bet you anything you like that the answer would contain either “tolling”, “back office” or a combination of the two. It’s not that the assumption is wrong, it just doesn’t cover all the bases. After all, the company has a distinct history (and an impressive track record) in the field, designing, building and integrating some of the first electronic toll systems, such as the innovative E-ZPass® system first used in ETC projects in New York and subsequently in New Jersey. ACS was also part of some of the very first US electronic tolling projects in Georgia and California. ACS has equipped over 1800 tolling lanes and hosts some of the largest ETC Back Office Systems and Customer Service Centers in the world, processing upwards of US$4 billion in ETC transactions per year on average, including over 50 per cent of all ETC transactions in the US.

With statistics like those, one would be forgiven for thinking that the idea of pushing hard to become known for other traffic-related activities could spectacularly backfire. In addition, there are divisions of ACS that also develop and implement parking systems, red light and speed camera programs and technology for public transit fare systems.

However, throw the rarely underestimated powers of Philmus into the mix and you can see that the company hasn’t just added a number of extemporaneous strings to its bow on the

toss of a coin. With nearly four decades of tolling experience behind him, Philmus is more determined than ever to put it to good use.

“I’ve been at the in the transportation and tolling business for almost 40 years, with 34 on the public side with the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey. In my early years with the agency I was involved in a lot of different things – human resources, vehicle fleet management and airport management among them. In the last 10-15 years at the agency I was focused on the tolling side of the business. Mostly notably in the late 1980s I was manager of the George Washington Bridge in New York, the busiest in the world, used by over 300,000 vehicles a day, and from there I moved onto manage the Port Authority bus terminal in Times Square, which is one of the busiest if not the busiest in the world. That was a pretty tough place back then and I was charged with

cleaning it up and getting it functioning safely for our customers. From there I became Deputy General Manager of JFK Airport. A lot of people think of me as a tolling guy but I have quite a varied background! It was after these assignments that I became responsible for all of the Port Authority’s surface transportation and tolling as the Director of Tunnels, Bridges and Bus Terminals.”

But how do these varied experiences manifest themselves in the tolling and traffic arenas?

“I was brought to JFK as Deputy General Manager to integrate the Air Train. It links the terminals with the

parking facilities and a rail station about 7 miles away. I was also in charge of the day-to-day operation of the airport from an infrastructure perspective including snow removal, maintenance…all that kind of thing. That was a wonderful job but I only stayed for a year as the chance came up to become Director of Tunnels, Bridges and Bus Terminals for the Port Authority of NY & NJ. That’s where I got more heavily involved in tolling. I was responsible for all the Port Authority’s tolling activities, which included the George Washington Bridge, the Holland Tunnel, Lincoln Tunnel, and three bridges that link Staten Island with the State of New Jersey. I got very involved with tolling policy at that point and as director I was able to make a direct impact on the business I loved. I wanted to make a difference for the travelling public. Those six facilities now bring in over US$1billion of revenue per year.”

Which, it can hardly be argued, is no

small impact. It was around that time that Philmus detected the growing national trend towards electronic tolling was going to have a fairly sizeable impact of its own.

“As Director I was involved with expanding and further integrating and expanding electronic tolling. We were not yet where we wanted to be, as was the case with most authorities. As director, up to 2006, it was my job to oversee the expansion of the electronic market share to something like 75 per cent but I also had to deal with labor issues as we had 400 or so manual toll collectors. It was some task to increase the level of electronic tolling AND work with the collectors

Kevin Borras talks to one of the tolling sector’s most well-known and well-liked characters… not that Ken Philmus wants it to remain that way

“I love this business...”

“Electronic toll collection was the future back then as all-electronic is the future now”


Ken Philmus, ACS

and the unions. But we never had to lay anybody off, I’m proud to say. The timing was perfect. As electronic tolling’s market share in the US, and of course New York/New Jersey grew, it happened to coincide with the impending retirement age of a lot of our toll collectors, so there was natural attrition. Electronic toll collection was the future back then…as all-electronic is the future now. Furthermore, in 2001 we had to deal with all the negative effects of 9/11 since the World Trade Center had been the Port Authority headquarters and, of course, security concerns very significantly impacted travel throughout the New York metropolitan region for an extended period of time.”

Then, Philmus had his “Damascus” moment and surprised a lot of people with a move away from his beloved public sector and into what was for him the uncharted waters of the private world.

“I left the Port Authority in 2006 and moved to the private sector as a consultant with what was then DMJM Harris, now AECOM, as national tolls director. I got to work on some very interesting projects.”

“After a couple of years there I was about to hang up my spikes, as they say, when I got a call from ACS and Michael Huerta made me an offer he said that I wouldn’t be able to refuse – it was the chance to get back into operations and he was right, I couldn’t say no.”

Philmus was appointed managing director of the group that handles ACS’s

tolling operations and development, a division that handles over US$4 billion in electronic tolls across the US from some of the biggest tolling facilities, such as the New Jersey Turnpike, the New York State Thruway, and the facilities he used to manage for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

“We also manage San Francisco and Northern California’s tolling back office operations as well as New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s.”

Philmus admits that it’s no surprise that the company is widely regarded as a back office operator, given its track record.

“We are known as a back office company outside the tolling arena as well but we’re not just a back office company, we’re a technology company too. The technology behind Maryland’s Inter County Connector is ACS’s All-Electronic Toll Collection technology and we recently won the North Carolina Turnpike and Los Angeles HOT Lanes contract, for not just the back office but also the tolling technology.”

The 2009 merger with electronics giant Xerox is proving to be even more beneficial to ACS than perhaps even Philmus envisaged. Far from being swallowed up and spat out by the far larger organisation (as is often the case with big-fish, small-fish “mergers”), ACS is positively thriving and benefiting from the technology expertise of its bigger brother (and that’s saying something of a company that manages 37 billion transit

fare transactions annually). “ACS does the work that authorities

and countries don’t want to do but need to have done, and that can be anything from call centre operation to healthcare. Transportation is a fairly big part of the company, more than US$800m out of US$6.5billion turnover and in turn tolling is a part of ACS’s transportation business. The merger with Xerox has been wonderful for us as it’s given us an instantly recognisable brand. At the moment we’re ACS – A Xerox Company but slowly but surely we’re moving towards becoming branded fully with Xerox. This has meant for us that we went from being a US$6.5 billion company to being a US$22 billion company, one of the largest in the US. As well as the brand it’s also given us incredible capability and reach that we never had before, particularly overseas. We are trying to take Xerox’s tolling market and expand it internationally, outside of the US and this is enabling me to do just that.”

Philmus points to another aspect of Xerox’s capabilities that he’s been able to call upon as another benefit of what at the time seemed quite an unlikely merger.

“Xerox has always spent a lot of money on R&D, but at ACS, being a tolling systems developer, we did a lot of the D but not all that much R as that’s just not what we were about. Now with Xerox we have the capability of putting their research centers in Grenoble, >>>

“A lot of people think of me as a tolling guy but I have quite a varied background!”



France, Toronto, Palo Alto, CA and another in Rochester, NY, to work on some of the knottier problems that we face in the tolling arena. Helping us do a better job of image capture is a prime example, looking at how many passengers are in a car for HOT/HOV projects is another we are working on that we wouldn’t have been able to do without Xerox,” he enthuses.

“Often what happens with mergers is you have two companies who do more or less the same thing, you smash them together and fire half the people. That’s not what happened here – we are two very different companies and that’s been the strength as we’ve been able to market Xerox capabilities, such as their image processing systems, to some of our clients and they’ve marketed us to some of theirs so it’s worked very successfully so far.”

EVERYTHING’S CHANGEDAs someone who spent the first five years of the 21st Century on the public side of the fence and the second five years of it on the private side, I was interested in how Ken Philmus thought that the industry had changed over the last 10 years.

“It’s changed remarkably,” he says without pause. “Cash collection, from the public side, gave the public agencies direct contact with their customers. As ETC started to come in, most agencies realised that it was the business to be in. All of a sudden the agency no longer had contact with its clients. When I took over as Director of Tunnels, Bridges & Bus Terminals for the Port Authority in 1998, ACS was our provider as we started to expand into ETC in an urban environment. What we suddenly had was a third party managing our customers for us. I visited the E-ZPass office that was dealing with our customers and I found that people didn’t mind paying a toll, what they minded was stopping to pay a toll. As we moved further into ETC, in terms of efficiency, tolling had become a tool to

manage the traffic, to manage congestion. That was a watershed moment – tolling wasn’t just a way of paying for what needed to be done, build the roads and so on, but it was a hugely effective tool to handle transportation policy.

“We’re also starting to see more discussion and more internationalisation of tolling than ever before,” he continues (for an interviewer, Ken Philmus is nothing short of a godsend). “US tolling developed on its own, Asian tolling developed on its own. European tolling developed on its own. But now we are seeing companies and organisations interact and look at the different geographies and geographical requirements. What Europe was doing with EETS (European Electronic Toll Service) was way ahead of anything we were doing in terms of interoperability, but I think we might be edging ahead now. Europe developed on 5.8GHz and we developed on 900MHz bandwidth and as a result we had all manner of different technologies such as SunPass and E-ZPass…but with the advent of the Alliance for Toll Interoperability, what we came to realise is that in the future lies interoperability. It has to. The future is moving towards video tolling and ALPR and we seem to be closer to that than ever before. Interoperability is the key to the next generation of tolling in the US. If someone told me this 15 years ago I would have thought they were crazy! It’s remarkable.”

Where in the past companies such as ACS were tasked with providing the agencies with technology, they now find themselves talking about policy.

“That’s not our business but what they want us to do is not just collect tolls but to do innovative things with the tolls we’ve collected for them.Agencies have come to

realize that tolls and pricing can be about traffic and congestion management.”

A MARKED DIFFERENCE What does Philmus see as the fundamental difference between the North American and European tolling markets?

“It comes down to methodology. In Europe and Asia it’s always been about Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) and for the most part, the North American market has not. Here it’s been about public agencies owning the roads and managing the tolling as owners, directly contracting for that service. What we see in Europe and Asia is totally different – we just did not go down the concession route, if you excuse the pun.” Pun duly excused.

“But then five or six years ago there was suddenly a real belief that PPPs in the US were about to explode but they never really took off in quite the way that some people, myself included, thought they would. That’s where the policy side comes in – as a former public guy I thought PPPs were the best thing since sliced bread because I knew that agencies didn’t have the money to do the maintenance on their 80 or 90 year old bridges and tunnels. They needed an injection of private capital to finance new builds and to me, PPPs were the perfect way of facilitating that but it just didn’t take off. I think there was a fear from the politicians and public agencies of a PPP in that even though they still owned the road and they were implementing a lease, the public wouldn’t see it that way. The fear is that PPPs would be viewed as giving away control of an important public resource to the private sector and that tolls would be uncontrolled and maintenance would suffer. The existing facilities needed the

Working for the Port Authority of NY & NJ Philmus gained experience in many areas that included managing some of the busiest facilities in the world such as the George Washington Bridge

>>>

“Tolling... was a hugely effective tool to handle transportation policy”

Helios Family of Products


cash injections offered by the PPP but they were ones that weren’t interested in pursuing them. I thought it was a great idea but the political perception here was that it was giving something away that was publicly owned and that’s never going to be a popular move!”

Our columnist Harold Worrall has said in his articles that the advent of AETC has completely reshaped not just the tolling industry, but how the tolling industry sees itself. Philmus, a long time associate of Worrall, concurs.

“You could also say that the advent of ETC has completely reshaped how the public thinks of it as well, as they don’t have to stop to pay their tolls any more. It’s a matter of linking ITS capabilities to tolling requirements – nobody likes to pay for something if they don’t have to, so when you do have to you want to pay for it easily and seamlessly. We did that in the 1990s on the George Washington Bridge. The bridge has two levels and people liked to use the upper level, especially visitors, as you got a much better view of Manhattan. Consequently the traffic on the top level was much worse than it was on the lower level. We eventually put up variable message signs about 5 miles out and said if you use the upper level it’ll take you half an hour to get to New York, if you use the lower deck it’ll take you 15 minutes…it was as if I’d reached into their cars and steered them to the lower deck as within a few short weeks the traffic levels had almost completely balanced out! The entire commute was better for everybody.”

As with anything, information is of paramount importance. Actually, make that timely, relevant information.

“You can’t manage a HOT Lane with variable pricing if you can’t tell what the traffic levels are. Unless you have ITS capabilities to tell you what the traffic is doing, that it is starting to slow down and you need to raise the price to deter more people from joining the traffic, you can’t

manage it properly and it defeats the object. ITS and tolling software are now linked as they never were before. That’s been a really significant change over the last 10 years. The biggest congestion pricing project of those 10 years would have been New York City but of course it got killed – politically it just wouldn’t have worked. Had it done, and had AECOM won it, I’d have been the project manager. That would have been some way to bow out!”

MOVING AHEADSo, as someone who is so closely identified with tolling sector, has the industry moved on as Philmus expected, in terms of pace and direction?

“Generally, yes. Other than the PPP thing not taking off of course, but I think the other disappointment would have to be a lack of progress in interoperability. I have a place in Florida and I was down there recently visiting my parents and my dad saw that I had a SunPass, because E-ZPass isn’t compatible in Florida. My dad said ‘Ken, how come in 2011 you can use your cell phone anywhere in the world, but you can’t use your E-ZPass in Florida?’

“There are a lot of New Yorkers with places in Florida but they can’t use their toll tag, they have to get a SunPass and they just don’t see why they should. The general public just don’t understand that all of the technologies involved in the different toll tag schemes have been invested in independently and separately. In NY/NJ, agencies own all those millions of tags. If the US was to make a change to an interoperable tag, what would happen to that investment? But that’s where the ATI jumped in and said: ‘OK, enough is enough.’ Also, the Federal Government is looking to require interoperability further down the road and this helped ATI get started as they’d rather the industry make that decision than have the Feds make it for them! That’s probably my biggest disappointment, that that took longer to

implement. It’s not the technology – it’s the policy. We’re finally starting to get there. Finally there’s a far higher level of public acceptance. There’ll always be people who don’t get a tag, for privacy issues or otherwise but that argument doesn’t make sense to me. I’ve been on both sides of that fence. When I was on the public side I’d have sooner slit my wrists than given away licence plate or travel information unless I had a court order! If you have a credit card, you have no privacy. I believe it is a bogus argument. We’re trying to find ways to reload accounts on a cash basis, that’s one of Harold Worrall’s bugbears, and I didn’t expect we’d have to do that.”

As Ken Philmus turns to leave, there’s been one more thought that’s been on the tip of his tongue from the start.

“Inevitably, there has to be a linkage between transit and tolling. It’s 2011 and we can’t have one account from which I can pay a toll and for a subway trip? It’s insane. Why do they have to be separate? If I used the subway Monday–Thursday every week, why could I not earn a free toll that I can use every Friday? It’s all in the back office, it’s what we do! Transit and the highways are inextricably linked. That’s a good sentence to end on…”

Indeed it is. The man who has seen ETC life from both angles clearly doesn’t consider the private grass to be any greener than the public grass. It’s just different grass.


Ken Philmus is senior vice president of transportation systems and services at ACS – A Xerox Company

[email protected]

www.acs-inc.com

Read more about electronic toll collection in the TOLLING/ETC/CONGESTION CHARGING/RUC section of our archives at thinkinghighways.com/archives.aspx

fyi

“It’s a matter of linking ITS capabilities to tolling requirements – nobody likes to pay for something if they don’t have to, so when you do have to you want to pay for it easily and seamlessly”


MOBILITY

At February’s “Good Jobs, Green Jobs” second plenary session, the panelists are talking about the need for American cultural

change as I flip through “sustainability employment” web sites on my laptop.

“We have children, American children, dying around the world so that we can suck oil up from the ground,” the head of the Amalgamated Transit Union tells several hundred of us at the BlueGreen Alliance conference plenary. “There’s an unlimited budget for armaments, for war, for bombs but when it comes to sustaining American mobility, there is not only no will, there’s no money.”

As I’ve already been to numerous sessions related specifically to job creation at the Good Jobs, Green Jobs conference, I type “transportation demand management”(TDM) into web sites while the speakers continue discussing transportation.

“We have a culture of convenience and we don’t like being inconvenienced,” moderator Kojo Nnamdi says, “and it seems to me when you talk about building a sustainable culture, you’re telling people you have to take more responsibility for your environment, you have to grow used to living in a different kind of culture. How do you sell that?”

Three separate websites come up empty in the search for TDM jobs.

“Can we please take off the rose-colored glasses and admit that this is part of the equation,” panel member Congressman Keith Ellison adds before concluding. “We’ve got to build a movement to help the majority of the people drive policy that is in the (nation’s) best interest because it is true that in the long run all of us are better off by saving money but we’ve got to recognize the short-term realities.”

Later at the BlueGreen conference, I will attend a half dozen more workshops on green jobs. Like the previous

Is enough being done to promote smarter consumer behavior and the cultural change needed in transportation, wonders Randy Salzman

Not automatic for the people


Transportation Demand Management

Is enough being done to promote smarter consumer behavior and the cultural change needed in transportation, wonders Randy Salzman

Not automatic for the people“There are no federal or state funding streams for encouraging and educating citizens towards minimizing automobile usage”

sessions, they will primarily concern big-ticket public projects, like high-speed rail or re-building American roads and highway bridges.

“This is a change, I would agree, that is in the people’s attitudes,” the head of the American Institute of Architects weighs in on cultural change at the plenary. “As a society moves forward, this is one of those incremental things.”

A young man, wandering the plenary’s press section, hands me a card: “Ezra Drissman,” it says, “CEO of Green Careers.”

“What kind of job opportunities are there in cultural change?” I whisper under the speakers. He looks blank. “You know, education and encouragement for individual Americans? Like transportation demand management?”

“What’s that?” Drissman wonders. Three months later, he will still have no jobs in TDM and only a tad more information about jobs which promote smarter consumer behavior around transportation.

In what may be the largest disconnect of the sustainability movement, while Americans talk the talk of sustainability, we’re still driving 2.9 trillion miles annually. Even Al Gore takes three Lincoln Town Cars to his >>>


MOBILITY

REALITY CHECK

While gasoline prices and building high-speed rail dominates national transportation discussions, a crisis has been developing in American transit operations. Over the past two years, according to the Amalgamated Transit Union, at least 5,000 transit drivers have been laid off due to declines in state and local budgets. According to Stranded at the Station, a report from Transportation for America, nearly 90 per cent of America’s transit systems raised fares or cut service in 2009 – and half did both. Ridership, however, is at post-Second World War highs and projected $5-a-gallon gasoline is expected to add 1.5 billion additional transit passenger trips annually. Congress and the administration shot down former House Transportation Chair Jim Oberstar’s expensive bill to re-prioritize transportation funding in late 2010. Besides eliminating the decree that federal money must be spent for transit capital improvements and, therefore, freeing federal dollars for local operating costs, Oberstar would have leveled the playing field between transit and roads. Today, a transit system still must match federal spending dollar for dollar while a local government must only provide a quarter of road building costs in order to get federal money. The National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study determined that roads in 2004 were subsidized through all sources to the tune of $145.3 billion while transit got $39.5 billion. Still today, 82 per cent of federal transportation dollars go to highways although President Obama, in his latest proposal for reauthorizing the six-year federal transportation bill, wants to test per-mile taxing while adding a new “National Infrastructure Innovation and Finance Fund.” Most political analysts say the administration’s proposals are dead on arrival in congress which is determined to minimize deficit spending without new taxes. Part of the issue is that transit riders are the least likely voters. Generally low-income (at least two-thirds make less than $50,000 annually) and heavily minority (blacks are six times as likely as whites to use transit, Hispanics three times), transit riders are also heavily immigrant (in California, immigrants are over half of all riders), making transit operating funds an easier place to cut during recessions than roads where almost every driver is also a voter. American funding is, indeed, awash in perverse incentives. Albany, NY, for example, bought 20 new buses with federal stimulus funds and, having no money for drivers, garaged them. Meanwhile, the administration is backing high-speed, intercity rail over transit although transit produces more, and longer lasting, jobs while diminishing more global warming and congestion.. “With both the demand and the pay-off (decreased pollution, congestion, global warming, oil importation and increased health) so high, now would seem to be the time to expand transit options, yet the opposite is happening,” as Stranded at the Station puts it. “The cuts to this essential service underscore a basic truth: The funding base for building and operating public transportation is insufficient and vulnerable.”

funding

Caltrain and BART trains at the Millbrae intermodal Bay Area Rapid Transit Station (BART), San Francisco, USA. In recessions, public transport funding is more vulnerable to cost-cutting measures than roads because transit users are weak voters while almost every car owner is a voter

“We need to have a kind of adult conversation with the American people”

speeches as the vast majority of American development dollars still construct auto-dependent suburbs and the president laments the cost of gasoline to the American driver who enjoys the second lowest gasoline prices amongst Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development states.

Everyone who studies sustainability recognizes that American driving lifestyles are environmentally destructive but few actually propose or supply any method of producing the necessary cultural change.

Americans use twice the carbon as Europeans per capita, but asking Americans to carpool to work isn’t polite conversation in most Middle Class households or corporate offices. American colleges reimburse driving costs for four or five professors to attend the same conference in separate vehicles and corporations give their executives cost-free company cars. Even “progressive” San Francisco with its famous BART light rail recently made driving easier by providing a cell phone app to help drivers locate empty parking spots.

With gasoline prices spiking for the fourth time since the turn of the century, The USS Titantic, in short, is still aimed squarely at that iceberg made of black gold. The writing on the wall couldn’t be clearer but we don’t lift our eyes to read it. Indeed, due to budget cuts forced by the lingering recession, American communities have been laying off transit drivers, often compelling brand new buses to sit unused.

Under present law – up for renewal today – the US federal government cannot fund operating costs for local transit systems but can provide grants for capital equipment. Seemingly expecting that inadequate transit and a mythical market in electric vehicles will lure drivers from behind


Transportation Demand Management

gasoline steering wheels, there are no federal or state funding streams for encouraging and educating citizens towards minimizing automobile usage and the vast majority of cities can’t find money in tight budgets for such “new” concepts.

Hence, the Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn’t classify “transportation demand management” in its Occupational Outlook Handbook and neither Philip Winters, director of the Center for Urban Transportation Research, nor Caryn Souza, executive director of the Association for Commuter Transportation, has anything close to a hard figure on attempts to help Americans change driving behavior. Winter’s best guestimate: “the FTE (full time equivalent) number of TDM professionals is well under 5,000.”

“Some people who work in TDM do so on a part-time basis as part of their ‘real’ job and may not even know the term, TDM,” he notes in calling TDM the “dumping ground” of planning. Most American practitioners in his 1,650-member listserve, he says, fall in the last hired, first fired category and are handed the RideShare portfolio as an afterthought.

The rideshare concept, which came into being in the wake of the 1970s oil embargos, attempts to match drivers with riders strictly for commute trips. Practitioners pass out promotional literature on the value of transit and carpooling to corporate human resource offices in hopes that they’ll hand it out on company benefits days.

In the North American car culture, this passive approach has little effect as auto makers aggressively advertise their wares, sponsor sports events and provide cars for charity raffles. Montreal’s award-winning rideshare concept, for example, claims success affecting less than three percent of employees arriving in that

island city. Not only does North America need substitutions for personal vehicle usage, citizens need to be reminded to use them. And, in many cases today, taught how.

Yet TDM jobs make no appearance at the Good Jobs, Green Jobs conference and can hardly be found elsewhere?

At one of the last workshops I attend at the BlueGreen Conference, Don Kaniewski, consultant for the Laborers’ International Union of North America, returns to the concept of cultural change:

“We need to have a kind of adult conversation with the American people,” he tells the transportation and global warming session. “The Democrats have failed. The Republicans have failed. I think the president has failed. There’s plenty of blame to go around and I don’t

mean to blame the administration but no one has led the conversation.

“I think one way we overcome this is local projects,” he continues. “Local projects will drive a national discussion and drive the politics out of it. We’ve got to stop the magical thinking and come down to earth.

“We need leadership.”

“Not only does North America need substitutions for personal vehicle usage, citizens need to be reminded to use them. And, in many cases today, taught how”

Transportation demand management should be seen as a vital tool in the campaign to change Americans’ travel habits, but is often overlooked or undervalued

Randy Salzman is a regular contributor to Thinking Highways

[email protected]

http://www.bluegreenalliance.org

Read more about this subject in the SUSTAINABILITY section of our Archives at thinkinghighways.com

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COMMUNICATIONS AND NETWORKS

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has before it a request to make a declaratory ruling on the scope of activities that

are permitted to be conducted by state and local entities authorized to operate on 700 MHz broadband public safety spectrum1. At the core of this matter is whether government agencies considered as “secondary responders” should be permitted access to the proposed 700 MHz nationwide Public Safety Broadband Network (PSBN), under the provisions of Section 337 of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended. In addition, the overall discussion at the FCC extends to whether other functions such as water, gas or electric utilities should have access as well.

Public transit often has been a key interoperability partner to local public safety and plays a vital role in many emergency scenario plans across the United States.

Most of our large transit agencies have their own certified law-enforcement departments. Section 337’s requirement that the use of the 700 MHz public safety spectrum must be “to protect the safety of life, health, or property” would appear to appropriately embrace secondary responders associated with city- or government-related organizations who serve the needs of the public. However, eligibility to use the proposed broadband network by users other than police, fire and EMS personnel is under considerable discussion at the FCC.

HOW DO YOU DEFINE PUBLIC SAFETY? Traditionally, we have defined public safety as law enforcement, fire services and emergency medical services, but it’s more than simply categorizing personnel by their job function. Public safety encompasses the protection of all citizens, personal property and the critical infrastructure that houses services for the general population. These government-provided protective services enable us to feel safer in our homes, at work and on the go. When we travel by car, we have laws and enforcement officials on our roadways to help promote safe travel while in our private vehicles. However, what happens when we leave the safety of our homes or cars and join with larger numbers of those

Clay Whitehead on the particular broadband spectrum needs of the public transit sector

A transitional phase

The use of the 700 MHz broadband public safety spectrum could allow public transit to better serve the interests of public safety


Public Safety

who utilize public transportation? We leave the comfort and safety of our known sanctuary and enter an environment that makes us somewhat vulnerable. Transit bears the responsibility to mitigate that vulnerability and provide safe passage in collaboration with local public safety.

Stating the case for public transit access to the 700 MHz PSBN goes beyond the need to provide broadband access to the law enforcement arm of each transit property. A city’s public transit system is its lifeblood. It truly emulates a vascular system, bringing commuters into the city and back to their place of residence. Just as health-conscious individuals focus on the well-being of their cardio-vascular systems, safe and reliable transit is a necessary public service that requires vigilance regarding safety and security. Wireless technologies provide enumerable tools that help transit properties maintain that vigilance. Fourth-generation wireless technologies such as Long-Term Evolution (LTE) will enable a faster response and better information sharing between local public safety and transit personnel.

WHY NOT USE COMMERCIAL CELLULAR SERVICES? Many transit agencies do use commercial services for voice and data to and from their fixed route bus and paratransit fleets. Like us, they also struggle with bandwidth-restricted performance when commercial networks experience heavy demand. Government agencies at any level compete with consumers to access bandwidth on commercial networks.

Consumer demand for multimedia content in a mobile environment is at an all-time high and growing. Our appetite for multimedia content is outpacing the carrier’s ability to deliver the bandwidth to meet that demand for mobile users in high-density population centers. In the fourth quarter of 2010, the Smartphone surpassed the personal computer in number of units shipped for the first time2. Today, more than 250 million users access Facebook through mobile devices. While commercial networks experience unprecedented usage statistics, access to the 700 MHz Public Safety Spectrum Trust (PSST) block would provide guaranteed delivery of critical multimedia content to transit personnel without compromise and when they need it most.

Imagine an articulated bus on a major city thoroughfare with 20 of its current riders using Smartphones to access streaming video, music, Yahoo, Facebook and a host of other media-rich content sites and services. On this particular bus, the driver has been keeping an eye on a belligerent passenger and now decides there is imminent danger to her and the passengers. She hits the emergency button

on her on-board data terminal to alert the bus operations center. Initiating the emergency event activates an upload of the on-board video, bus location information and associated voice transmissions to the bus operations center and the local transit police precinct. At this time of day, demand on the commercial network is very heavy. Neither buffering nor poor video resolution can be tolerated. In this critical moment, access to private mobile 700 MHz LTE service and true network Quality of Service algorithms assure the video upload is allocated the appropriate bandwidth. Escalating the priority on the network for this event delivers the performance and interoperability necessary for transit operations and law enforcement to assess and respond to the situation in real time.

ENHANCING EMERGENCY RESPONSE WITH 700 MHZ LTEThe responsibilities of protecting transit employees, riders and the assets of the transit property itself are logistically daunting. No other local government agency has so many assets and facilities spread out over such a large geographical area. The safety and security challenges are numerous, requiring a comprehensive approach to securing transit lines including personnel, policy and appropriate use of technology. Wireless broadband technologies such as LTE enhance the security measures needed to >>>

“Transit bears the responsibility to mitigate travellers’ vulnerability and provide safe passage to its patrons in collaboration with local public safety”

Patrons put their trust in the transit operators’ hands that their safety is both considered, monitored and actively enhanced

1 Request for Declaratory Ruling submitted to the FCC on March 7, 2011 by The City of Charlotte, North Carolina, PS Docket No. 06-229.

2 With an estimated 101 million Smartphones shipped against 92 million PCs, the Smartphone market is outdoing full-sized computers both in absolute terms and yearly growth, up 87.2 per cent from 2009 where the more mature PC market grew a mere 5.5 per cent. The mobile phone market as a whole grew 17.9 per cent. Source: International Data Corporation Report, February 2011.


protect the unique environment and events associated with transit properties. • Driver Assaults: Major city transit

agencies are seeing increasing incidents of assaults on bus operators and other employees. The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) has seen driver attacks rise from 18 in all of 2010 to 27 by the end of May 2011. MBTA has seen similar high rates of assaults on their bus fleets. LTE enables mobile high-bandwidth connectivity for the on-board video surveillance system throughout the service area. Video surveillance is a proven deterrent to crime. Real-time video streaming from buses can be shared across this interoperable network, allowing transit operations and law enforcement to respond quickly and effectively to crimes in process.

• Bus and Rail Station Security: Protecting waiting patrons has always been a challenge for transit agencies. The moment riders step onto the platform they become a potential target of criminal activity. In some neighborhoods, egress to and from the nearest station is risky. Some cities have seen notable escalation of violence on rail systems. In Linthicum, Maryland a violent robbery at a local rail station in broad daylight last February provided a sobering reminder of the risks to which some transit patrons can be exposed. Fixed video surveillance system feeds from transit properties can easily be pushed to local law enforcement patrol by transit operations, or local patrols can access cameras on the network to pull feeds directly. Video applications available on a shared private 700 MHz LTE network provide both transit and law enforcement with strong pre-emptive intelligence prior to and during a collaborative response, potentially preventing crime before it occurs or quickly apprehending suspects.

• Emergency Evacuation: This may be the strongest case for recognizing transit’s role as an emergency responder. In 2008, the Transportation Research Board conducted a study3 to define transit’s


Clay Whitehead is Market Development Manager, Motorola Solutions

[email protected]

www.motorolasolutions.com

Read more about this subject in the COMMUNICATIONS AND NETWORKS section of our Archives at thinkinghighways.com/archives.aspx

Find out more in the COMMUNICATIONS AND NETWORKS section of the SHORTLIST directory online at thinkinghighways.com/shortlist-directory.html

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A common shared network, such as the PSBN could enable better planning and response in case of extraordinary events on the transit system

role in emergency evacuation planning and response. In many hurricane-prone areas, transit agencies already take an active role in evacuation planning and exercises, especially where it concerns “special needs” populations such as the elderly and disabled. This study cites how transit can strengthen its role in emergency evacuations and provides examples of transit’s key role in emergency evacuations to date. Evacuation plans and routes can cover extensive geography, creating wireless communications gaps and technology incompatibilities across a region. Access to the PSBN would provide seamless priority communications and ubiquitous GPS location tracking for

to coordinate with local public safety authorities as a secondary responder. Without access to the 700 MHz Public Safety Broadband Network, transit properties will be unable to share or access critical information quickly and efficiently with first responders and others.

The decision to permit local transit operations and other secondary users on the PSBN should be handled by local public safety governance as each area has unique requirements, but transit should have a participating role in that governance process. Given the history of unfortunate events associated with public transit over the past decade, it is absolutely

in the public’s best interest for local public safety agencies and transit personnel to be able to plan and respond to emergency events using a common shared network such as the PSBN.

“Access to private mobile 700 MHz LTE service and true network Quality of Service algorithms assure the video upload is allocated the appropriate bandwidth”

mobile transit assets in an evacuation.• Terror threats: We now know that

Osama Bin Laden had targeted bus and rail transportation in the USA. Public transit continues to be a “high risk” terrorist target. While the 2005 London Underground bombings and the Sarin gas attacks in the Tokyo subway in 1995 demonstrate the devastation possible, these events also highlight how critical communications between local public safety and transit are during a response to limit further injury, loss of life and loss of property during events of this magnitude.

Public transit’s role as an emergency responder and a provider of protective services to its patrons is very clear. The operator has a responsibility to its patrons and employees to provide secure facilities and safe passage during commutes. When emergencies do occur on transit properties, they must have the tools

3 Special Report 294, “The Role of Transit in Emergency Evacuation”, Transportation Research Board

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WEIGH-IN-MOTION

“Why would I want to implement this technology?” “What benefits

does this facility provide?” These types of questions always seem to cross one’s mind prior to investing in any type of Intelligent Transportation System (ITS). Although ITS solutions come at a price, protecting road infrastructure from overweight loads is essential to limiting road maintenance expenses. One way to do this is through a Remotely Controlled Weight Enforcement Station (RCWS). RCWSs can be utilized by transportation agencies where weight and compliance enforcement is required on low volume roadways and where full time facility operation is not feasible as a result of staffing and funding limitations. An RCWS is a cost effective way to monitor commercial vehicles and enforce weight limits.

RCWS’s are made up of sensors and network devices such as Weigh-in-Motion (WIM) scales, cameras, license plate readers, signs, and a communications link. An RCWS can incorporate many different kinds of ITS equipment.

HOW DOES AN RCWS WORK?Each RCWS is made up of one or more monitoring sites, an inspection station and a central station.

As a commercial vehicle approaches an inspection station, it will first pass through a monitoring site. The monitoring site collects commercial vehicle data and advises the driver to either report or bypass the inspection station. At the monitoring site there are vehicle sensors, cameras, signs and a controller. The vehicle sensors may be loops, axle detectors or WIM scales. Side-fire cameras and license plate readers are used to record images of every vehicle that passes through the monitoring site.

If the commercial vehicle is found to be overweight or otherwise non-compliant, an image of the vehicle will be captured along with the license plate, and the driver will be signalled by a sign to report to the inspection station. Otherwise, the driver is advised to bypass the inspection station.

At the inspection station, commercial vehicles are weighed on a static scale. Axle positioning sensors are used to notify the central station operator whether or not the commercial vehicle is positioning its axles correctly. Cameras provide the station operator with images of the vehicles at the inspection station that can be matched with those from the monitoring sites to check that all signaled vehicles have reported. The driver may be asked to present his log book and other credential information to the operator who is operating the site remotely. This is done in the inspection booth through the use of a Pan/Tilt/Zoom camera. If the central station operator needs to talk to the driver, this may be done through the communication link.

From the central station, vehicle data

is viewed through an internet connection to an RCWS site. Multiple web browser windows allow the operator to view the monitoring sites, live video camera display, and static scale interface.

HOW DO THE CENTRAL STATION OPERATORS RECEIVE THE DATA?Each monitoring site communicates to the inspection station through a wireless network connection. All data retrieved at each monitoring site is transferred to the inspection station. From the inspection station either a private or public network is set up to the central station. This allows the operator to view all data and information from the monitoring sites and inspection station.

Ann Reinhart on the benefits of a remotely controlled weight enforcement station

From a distance

Remotely controlled stations can prove a cost-effective way to monitor and enforce weight limits


Remote Enforcement

HOW ARE CITATIONS ISSUED?There are two ways that commercial vehicle enforcement is performed at an RCWS. Citations may be issued either directly to the driver at the remote site or via mail from the transportation agency.

A citation can be printed and provided to the driver directly at the time of the infraction. A citation can also be mailed from the central office directly to the commercial vehicle’s business address.

WHEN SHOULD AN RCWS BE IMPLEMENTED?Road systems with relatively low traffic volume are sometimes viewed as roadways where continuous enforcement is not economically feasible. However, no matter what type of roadway, overweight commercial vehicles will result in road deterioration. An RCWS provides transportation agencies with the ability to enforce commercial vehicle weights on low volume roads with less infrastructure than required by a traditional weight enforcement facility.

An RCWS is also beneficial in locations where full-time monitoring is not required. The inspection station can be opened and operated from an alternate location rather than having personnel travel to the site.

When there is a haul route that has

one road constantly being used for operations, that roadway is susceptible to accelerated damage due to heavy hauling. These roadways greatly benefit from an RCWS, which ensures that the commercial carriers are following the weight limits of those roadways.

When a jurisdiction is in control of a large network of roadways, the amount of enforcement that is required very often outstrips the resources available. By implementing a system utilizing multiple RCWSs, the available resources have greatly expanded capability to monitor and enforce commercial vehicle weights over a large area.

Additionally an RCWS gives agencies the ability to utilize an existing weigh station that has been closed due to a shortage in resources. By adding a communication link and video camera, the site can be monitored from another fully operational weight enforcement facility. Therefore, as traffic patterns shift and/or staffing priorities change, agencies can implement an RCWS to ensure that enforcement is still occurring at an existing location.

CONCLUSIONAn RCWS is a key solution when commercial vehicle enforcement is desired by any roadway agency. By deploying

WIM and vehicle classification sensors, cameras and license plate readers, vehicle data may be collected from multiple monitoring sites and relayed to the inspection station to enforce commercial vehicle weights and compliance. An officer at at central station is able to retrieve the data from the site through an Internet connection. An RCWS is a practical solution for low volume roads, remote hauling roadways, widespread road networks, and existing weight enforcement facilities. Remotely Controlled Weight Enforcement Stations utilize ITS technologies and should be considered in order to maximize returns from weight enforcement operational funding.

Ann Reinhart is a Transportation Engineer-in-Training at International Road Dynamics Inc

www.irdinc.com

Read more about this subject in the June/July issue of Thinking Highways Europe/Rest of the World edition and in the WEIGH-IN-MOTION section of our Archives at thinkinghighways.com/archives.aspx

Find out more in the WEIGH-IN-MOTION section of the SHORTLIST directory online at thinkinghighways.com/shortlist-directory.html

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“An RCWS gives agencies the ability to utilize an existing weigh station that has been closed due to a shortage in resources”

The facility to operate weigh stations remotely allows agencies to carry out monitoring and enforcement on low-volume roads, widespread road networks or at locations where full-time monitoring is not required


Q&A

A veritable veteran of the ITS scene, Dr Bill Sowell was perhaps more synonymous with a single product than almost anyone else in the

industry. However, times (and affiliations) change, as Thinking Highways discovers.

KEVIN BORRAS: Bill, you and I first met at the 1998 ITS America Annual Meeting in Detroit and you weren’t new to the business then… you were very closely associated with Autoscope back then, of course. Did you foresee the possibility of a similar association with Aldis’ product range? And what is it about Knoxville, Tennessee? PIPS were based there, there’s an Federal Signal Technologies office nearby and Perceptics would have been virtually next door...

BILL SOWELL: You are correct, I have been involved in the ITS market globally since 1990 and I played a key role in the market launch of two of the very first commercially available video detection systems. As a veteran in the industry, I follow many companies and technologies very closely worldwide, and Aldis was one that caught and retained my attention. As an “ITS Globetrotter” looking in, it was obvious that Aldis had something exciting and new for the industry, not just another me-too product.

I began looking “under the hood” and was very impressed with what I saw. The GridSmart product attracted me to Aldis because of its very unique value proposition. One camera for fully actuated intersection detection and traffic data collection, three dimensional vehicle modeling/tracking, digital software pan/tilt/zoom for a CCTV-like functionality…there are so many unique benefits to the system. I instantly knew that this product, along with my experience and global ITS market knowledge, could be a game-changer. I’ve always enjoyed new technologies and

new challenges, so I find myself in East Tennessee, a far shout from the sand storms of Riyadh and the Dubai metroplex.

Success breeds success and there are many successful companies here in Knoxville. As you know, this industry is somewhat incestuous when it comes to the talent pool – therefore many companies are drawn to this area because of the predominance of talented individuals with ITS and/or machine vision experience. Knoxville also is a beautiful area with a low crime rate and friendly people – it’s a great place to be.

KB: You sold the very first commercial video vehicle detection system in the 1990s – how do you think the market has evolved over the past 15 or so years?

BS: Surprisingly, the market has not evolved a great deal and that is one of the reasons I am with Aldis. I believe GridSmart is the evolution that everyone has been waiting for. While GridSmart is a solid product with an impressive feature set and performance, Aldis faces an uphill battle in some respects due to the perceptions held around traditional

multi-camera video detection as it is seen as costly and has historically had issues with shadows and other changes to the background such as snow or fog. GridSmart’s 3D Omni-directional vehicle tracking technology overcomes these issues, and does so at a significantly lower total cost of ownership. One of our customers, Andy Winga of Wisconsin Department of Transportation, said it best when discussing his skepticism of video detection, “GridSmart has certainly changed my perception…video can work.” Market perception that a single camera system covering four or more intersection approaches cannot adequately perform due to cross-lane or same-lane occlusion is simply incorrect.

KB: How could the industry have evolved faster… or further? What stopped it?

BS: Almost all existing video vehicle detection providers are limited by the technology path they have chosen. To draw an analogy, it’s like expecting a car to fly when what you really need is an aeroplane. Aldis has certainly created a new paradigm for video detection and tracking with its GridSmart solution. In addition, existing traffic controllers and ITS central systems do not take full advantage of the real-time traffic data that video vehicle tracking can provide, such as accurate queue length and turning movement counts. Fully adaptive traffic management systems could very much benefit from the 3D vehicle tracking information that Aldis GridSmart is able to provide. Traffic controller and ITS central system providers need to “think outside the detection zone” and develop new traffic control methodologies that will increase vehicular throughput and enhance motorist and pedestrian safety.

KB: The promotional material for GridSmart boldly declares that it’s

Kevin Borras talks to Aldis’ executive vice president Dr Bill Sowell

Highly evolved

Dr Bill Sowell is confident of Aldis’s ability to make a mark in the video detection sector


Bill Sowell, Aldis

the “perfect solution for ITS data applications” and says that its “single ultra-wide-angle sensor and 3D Omni-directional tracking capabilities provide versatility and data unmatched by any other technology.” That’s quite a statement – and you aren’t known for aligning yourself with companies that make unsubstantiated statements! You must be extremely confident of the product’s ability to do what it says on the tin...

BS: Well, yes, these are rather bold claims, but they are well founded! GridSmart is in a class of product all to itself. Our unique 3D Omni-directional vehicle tracking technology really enables some powerful capabilities. When no-one else is doing what you are doing it makes you an easy target for your worthy competitors, as they have done little to enhance their core video image processing algorithms for 20 years.

KB: Too often we come across products that are, essentially, answers in need

of questions. How does GridSmart address the needs of the worldwide traffic engineering community?

BS: It doesn’t matter where you are in the world, traffic professionals are being asked to do more with less. GridSmart is a “more with less” solution. More functionality, less hardware, less installation and maintenance costs, and a lower total cost of ownership. It’s a very simple decision for anyone that takes the time to weigh up the alternatives. I see the Aldis value proposition being proven every day around the world. Our competitors are working hard, however the team at Aldis is working harder to deliver better accuracy and functionality at a very competitive price compared to inductive loops or legacy/tripline video image processing solutions.

KB: I was really drawn to the language used on the Aldis website as it is quite colloquial and chatty and it serves to give the visitor an idea of what the company

may be like to deal with. The Blog and Twitter pages particularly give you the impression of a friendly, fun place to work. Is this intentional or am I reading too much into it?

BS: This is intentional, but it is also a very honest portrayal of the company. You have a small group of people that work well together and care deeply about our customers and our product. Aldis is a fun place to work and a friendly company with which to do business. As I am building our global Aldis distribution network, I seek true long-term business partners and not just resellers. Our distributors are our partners and we take care of them and their customers as if they were family members. Think globally, but act locally.

KB: Can you explain how the GridSmart system works? The bit that interested me most was the video that showed how it takes shadows into account. It seemed like a really simple idea but they are usually the most difficult to execute...

BS: Very true – it is the simple ideas that are often the most difficult to execute. Dr Jeff Price, our Vice President of Software Engineering, recently said “We make our jobs very difficult so that our customer’s jobs don’t have to be.”

GridSmart starts by modeling the background of the intersection. It models the entire intersection, rather than just a spot in the road. With that model in place, it then subtracts the modeled background from the current image to identify moving objects. It is important to note that the background model is always adapting to the current conditions to accommodate for changing ambient illumination, or weather conditions such as snow or fog. With the background removed and the moving objects identified, the GridSmart tracking algorithms then begin to establish tracking points on the >>>

“Fully adaptive traffic management systems could very much benefit from 3D vehicle tracking information”

GridSmart models an entire intersection, subtracts the background and then the tracking algorithms allow creation of a 3D vehicle model


Q&A

edges of the objects. Based on how these tracking points move in relation to one another, a vehicle model is assigned. The vehicle model is three-dimensional and can also adapt as we get better information as the vehicle approaches. Keep in mind we begin tracking as soon as we see the vehicle near the horizon – not just in the detection zones. We then track the vehicles through the camera’s field of view until it exits the horizon. By tracking the vehicles independently of the actual detection zones, we are able to see true turning movements, collect data anywhere in the intersection, and much more. This is why we often refer to ourselves as the next generation of detection: GridSmart is truly unique and in a class of its own.

Responding to your comment on shadow mitigation, this is an issue that has historically plagued legacy video detection providers – how does the system know what is a car and what is a shadow? Most systems are looking at changes in pixels, which makes this very difficult. Based on our Aldis GridSmart method of vehicle tracking, coupled with the location of the camera and providing the software with a definition of true north, GridSmart is able to anticipate (and ignore) shadows much more effectively. It’s quite impressive.

KB: The 3D element of GridSmart is clearly its USP. Is it in this area in particular that you see the product’s strength?

BS: There are so many unique selling points it’s really hard to focus on one as ‘the’ product’s strength, but I have to say the technology itself, which we are terming “3D Omni-directional vehicle tracking” is what enables all of the unique selling points of GridSmart. 3D Omni-directional vehicle tracking describes how GridSmart works. As no one else is using this technology yet, and probably will not due to the immense R&D effort required and the intellectual property at play, we were able to coin this new technology term. Others claim to use “pixel-based tracking” but this is nothing in comparison to the three-dimensional full tracking that we provide.

KB: The case studies on your site make for interesting reading – Aldis seems to work very closely with its clients and address their needs on an individual, almost bespoke basis. Is this the key (or one of the keys) to the company’s success?

BS: As I mentioned, Aldis has a small team of very strong people that care deeply about our customers and our product. We strive to deliver a world-class product with superior support. Like any growing company, we are working through the challenges of managing our growth to achieve this. I think one of the important elements of our strategy is that we are not developing on a bespoke

50

“GridSmart’s vehicle tracking enables many capabilities that simply would not be possible with a traditional multi-camera legacy video detection solution”

Integration with traffic management sys-

tems. On-the-fly pattern matching. Strat-

egy management. Parallel simulations.

Constant validation and learning. Real-

time ranking of response strategies.

Intelligence for traffic management

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Aimsun Online standard 90x275.pdf 1 20/01/10 15:30

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Bill Sowell, Aldis

basis. GridSmart is a system, with much research and thought implemented into the execution of that product’s vision. We could likely see more immediate growth seeking out one-off projects, but then we would be faced with supporting many customers with many different solutions. We are working to make GridSmart a product that serves the majority of the needs, and does so in a very practical and effective way. We accomplish this by listening to our customers and working closely with them to define their needs.

The fact that you are seeing GridSmart used in different ways and appealing to different needs is a testament to this strategy. We are listening to the needs of our customers, and we are productizing these needs into solutions that appeal to the market that we serve. It is also a testament to the technology itself – GridSmart’s vehicle tracking enables many capabilities that simply would not be possible with a traditional multi-camera legacy video detection solution.

KB: How do you think the video detection market is going to further evolve over the next decade?

BS: While I could speculate, as the Chairman of the International Road Federation’s (WPC) ITS Committee, we are actively working on answering that question. What I can say is that there are many new and interesting technologies entering the market…some will work, some will not. At Aldis, we will continue to advance our product and expand our offering through the introduction of new software modules with additional functionality and new applications for the Aldis technology. Our hardware platform is stable, and we are working – right now – on some new and exciting ideas of how we can bring additional value to the market via our vehicle tracking capabilities. We will also keep our eyes on the new technologies (the ones that work) and integrate new technologies into our offering as we see an opportunity to build a better mousetrap. Aldis is on a great path, and you will see much more of us as we shake up the detection market as we know it today.

Read Dr Bill Sowell’s column on page 10.

Dr WH (Bill) Sowell, MBA, PhD, is Executive Vice President of Aldis Corporation

[email protected]

www.aldiscorp.com

Read more about this subject in the DETECTION section of our Archives at thinkinghighways.com/archives.aspx

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WEATHER MONITORING

The City of Overland Park is a well-known city in the US that encompasses 73.33 square miles of Johnson County in suburban Kansas

City, KS. The city traces its roots back to 1905 with the arrival of its founder William B. Strang, Jr., who envisioned a self-sustaining, well-planned “park like” community. Today there are more than 170,000 residents, making it the second most populous city in Kansas.

In terms of climate, Overland Park experiences a wide range of weather, which can severely impact their roads and traffic safety. Extreme lows are not uncommon with frequent sleet and ice storms occurring in the winter months. During the summer, temperatures around 90°F (32°C) and higher are often reported with high humidity and late evening thunderstorms. In other words, monitoring the weather and road pavement conditions is a necessity for the City’s Department of Public Works.

For Michael Ross, Public Works/RWIS Manager, it is an ongoing challenge to deploy Environmental Sensor Stations (ESS) in such a heavily concentrated urban area. Full RWIS (road weather information system) stations typically require new right-of-way space with a dedicated pad, tower, cabinet, fence and utilities work which all contribute to a high priced, complex installation. While these weather stations provide valuable information, the City sought an alternative.

“A way to fill in the blanks” says Michael Ross for their winter road weather monitoring. Preferably a system suited for trouble spots such as an intersection or bridge deck where real-time road surface status information is critical.

OPEN SOURCEIn evaluating their needs, the City also determined that they prefer an open architecture, non-propriety design – a

system that will support weather sensors from any number of vendors while remaining fully NTCIP compliant. Ross liked the idea of selecting a sensor to match their exact needs, and in this case, a non-intrusive surface condition sensor. Overland Park has deployed several in-pavement sensors over the years, but they found the evolution of optical sensors and the concept of no road surface cutting appealing. Further, the City insists on customer-owned data, so they can modify and/or redistribute the data without additional costs.

“When one of our engineers mentioned

a new, up and coming RWIS from High Sierra Electronics, I was very interested” admits Ross. “We know the folks at High Sierra because they’ve been supplying our flood warning equipment for years. We like their gear and they’ve got a great reputation for system design.”

Earlier in 2010, Eric Gibbons, High Sierra Electronics’ RWIS Product/Project Manager noted that many road weather-related decisions need to be made in urban areas.

He recognized that many of these locations have Advance Traffic Controller (ATC) cabinets with power

Sue Swenor assesses the sizable benefits of Mini RWIS, a new road

Small, but perfectly formed

High Sierra’s Model 5470 Mini RWIS can be fitted into existing roadside traffic cabinets, providing valuable information without the need for costly and complex installation


Road Weather Information Systems

and communications already in place. An informal survey also revealed that agencies preferred non-proprietary, open architecture design that is NTCIP compliant. Shortly afterwards HSE announced the release of its Model 5470 “Mini RWIS” – a remote processing unit (RPU) designed for primary deployment within existing or new ATC cabinets and Dynamic Message Sign cabinets. The unique design allows it to easily fit in the tight quarters of a traffic cabinet. The entire Mini RWIS, including NTCIP controller, sensor surge protection, power converter and weather status outputs is packaged to fit in a one rack unit enclosure.

ALL PLUS, NO MINUSTogether Overland Park and HSE discussed the benefits and advantages of deploying a Mini RWIS. Ross agreed that the Mini RWIS not only offers an economical alternative to traditional RWIS, but provides an innovative, “outside of the box” approach to weather responsive traffic management. The unit activates and deactivates isolated outputs based on user settable high and low thresholds, enabling use of locally resolved weather status information to activate preemptions within the ATC2070 or to activate other public warning devices for improved traffic safety.

A road-widening project involving the intersection of College Boulevard and Quivira Road on the city’s North South Loop made for a good first location. An installation date for the Mini RWIS was scheduled in October 2010 with the deployment of an IceSight 2020EW on one of the traffic poles at the intersection, Ross having selected the IceSight, a non-intrusive road surface sensor, for its ingenuity and affordability. The sensor is packaged in an industry standard camera-type housing for easy mounting on traffic poles using Astro-Brac or

similar hardware. The flat, round sensor window makes lens cleaning simple, especially since the unit reports when it needs cleaning. Ross also liked the sensor’s set-up feature: aim with laser and connect a laptop PC via WAP (or direct) and run an auto-calibration routine. The sensor’s standard data output includes air temperature, surface temperature, dry, trace moisture, wet, standing water, snow, non-compacted snow, ice, black ice and surface friction coefficient.

On the day of installation, Ross commented “We were thinking that it would take weeks to integrate this into our system – instead it took hours and we really like that. A big advantage of RWIS in conjunction with traffic signals is the fact that we have direct communication in our cabinets. We were feeding data to our server within minutes of installing the sensor.” The one-rack Mini RWIS fit smoothly into their existing ATC2070 cabinet and plugged directly into the Ethernet Switch.

A HAPPY ENDINGSince then, Overland Park has added 10 Mini RWIS. The RPU integrates so easily with existing infrastructure that they’ve deployed more weather stations. Whether Michael Ross needs to initiate alarms, mobilize emergency personnel, activate weather-related closures, or feed their public website, the Mini RWIS provides the data to help his staff take action. HSE’s satisfaction comes from knowing that their technology helps others to measure the weather and protect the public.

weather management strategy

“The City of Overland Park insists on customer-owned data, so they can modify and/or redistribute the data without additional costs”

Sue Swenor is Marketing Manager, High Sierra Electronics, Inc

[email protected]

www.highsierraelectronics.com

Read more about this subject in the our Archives. Go to thinkinghighways.com/archives.aspx and click on DETECTION/CCTV/SECURITY/WIM/WEATHER MONITORING

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Climate Change

Although I have kept abreast of developments in the global warming story, and I thank IPCC for making monthly data on

global temperature and atmospheric CO2 publicly available (in stark contrast, by the way, with the situation in the traffic safety field), this follow-on article to that in Thinking Highways – North America and Rest of the World Edition Volume 2 Issue 1 is subtitled ‘Continuing’ rather than ‘Concluded’ because of the extreme complexity of the global warming conundrum. As we can see in Figure 1 our Sun benignly (bemusedly?) beams down on the tremendous temperature turmoil on Mother Earth created by his life-sustaining radiations.

Al Gullon examines the continuing controversy surrounding CO2 emissions and the idea of global warming

Staring at the sun

>>>


OPINION PIECE

“The all-enveloping enigma is the thermal energy transferred to the earth in the a/m radiations”

FIGURE 1

“IT IS A RIDDLE WRAPPED IN A MYSTERY INSIDE AN ENIGMA”There is a good visual correlation, covering the full century, between the Total Solar Irradiation and IPCC’s Global Temperature lines including, especially, the three decade long decline in mid-century. However, when I tried to calculate a causative correlation showing a direct link from the Sun to the measured temperature (perhaps with a thermal lag of 3 or 4 years) I was reminded of the above quote by Winston Churchill (in a radio speech in 1939 while discussing Russia’s possible actions as the impending war became reality).

The all-enveloping enigma is the thermal energy transferred to the earth in the a/m radiations. In order to even approach the truth one must continually bear in mind that the nominal radiation level reported for a specific calendar year by ACRIM affects not only that year but for many years thereafter (through thermal storage in the stratosphere and, primarily, the oceans). Moreover, the effect of a particular year of radiation is not even declining uniformly over the next five to ten years. A large parcel of energy may hide somewhere in the south Pacific and burst out over only several months in an El Nino event a few years later. (Google ‘landscheidt el nino’ for some remarkably accurate predictions of such events)

The mystery is the temperature fluctuations in the ocean currents in the south Pacific (ENSO in climatology jargon) which are strong enough to measurably affect global temperature and which move erratically through hot (El Nino) and cold (La Nina) events. Finally, the unsolvable riddle is the unpredictable nature, both occurrence and strength, of volcanic eruptions around this old globe. For example, although the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in the northwestern US was a major (VEI 5) event it blew sideways and had a comparatively minor effect on global temperatures.


Climate Change

IF A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS……this adage makes Figure 1 worth 666,000 words! It presents a ‘picture’ for each of the five parameters, plus the year in consideration, for each of the 111 years. That picture shows its value for a particular year in relation to the other five parameters, and to itself, in former and future years. (Sorry. Having spent around a hundred hours making the graph as clear, complete and useful as possible I couldn’t resist.)

Unfortunately many of those 666 individual pictures are distorted (‘confounded’ is the scientific term) by the enigmas, mysteries and riddles discussed above. Thus, even the visual, same year correlations may be deceiving without a knowledge of those ‘confounders’. Perhaps the best and most pertinent examples are those indicated on the graph in 1951, 1983 and the mid-1990s for volcanic activity and in 1999–2000 for a strong La Nina where, in all four, an unexpected confounder has completely wiped out the expected effect of a solar maximum …and those four happen to be the four highest maximums for the past 100 years!

Having been thus denied the direct route I noted that, after that mid-century, three-decade-long decline in global temperature, the temperature line seems to rise inexorably in tempo with the atmospheric CO2 readings from Mauna Loa. The IPCC and their acolytes view this as confirming that the CO2 is driving the global temperature, apparently without investigating the converse.

Such an investigation is, in fact, quite easy to do. Noting that cooling water can absorb more CO2 but that warming water releases CO2, we can focus on the IPCC reported ocean temperature rather than the combined land+ocean or the land alone. (Note that in all cases they are actually measuring the air temperature immediately above the land or the ocean.) We then note that whether the increasing

CO2 is causing the ocean temperature to rise (the IPCC’s position), or an increasing ocean temperature (driven by the increasing radiation from the Sun over the past 30 years) is causing a net release of CO2 to the atmosphere from the oceans, neither process produces an instantaneous change in the global average. There will be a lag of several months to a year or two.

Thus the test of which of the two is ‘driving’ the other is to run three mathematical correlations: the first is a same year correlation, in the next two correlations each parameter is ‘lagged one year’ (ie its value for each year is correlated with the value for the other in the following year). The parameter which is ‘driving’ the other will show a better correlation when it is ‘lagged one year’. In our case the ‘same year’ correlation produced an Rsquared of 0.813. Lagging CO2 produced 0.804 (worse) and lagging Ocean temperature produced 0.817. To the lay person those differences are very small but to a scientist, taking all three together, the result is unequivocal: in total contradiction to the IPCC’s position the increasing ocean temperature is ‘driving’ the increasing CO2.

…AND SEEING IS BELIEVINGFor those who, like myself, have to ‘see it to believe it’ (even after having done the correct mathematical test!) I have prepared Figure 2. Starting with the regression lines shown in Figure 1 (which are nothing more nor less than the average per year increase for the 47 years being examined) one calculates the distance each data point is above (+) or below (–) its regression line value for that year. The result is called the ‘residual’ for that year. When these residuals for both parameters are plotted in Figure 2 they show up as

points above and below a common zero line making comparison much easier.

While it is possible to visually ‘look for a 1-year lag’ without actually lagging one of the parameters, it is much easier when the lagged parameter is plotted as a third line as we see here for ocean temperature.

The test for correlation then becomes, “Is the line joining successive annual points moving in the same direction for both parameters?” Note that only the up or down direction counts. The amount of increase or decrease is largely irrelevant for the correlation. A careful examination will show that, in the vast majority of cases, an increase or decrease in the ocean temperature residual produces a corresponding change for the CO2 residual in the following year. The three distinct deviations happen (?) to correspond to volcanic activity: the mid 1960s to the Mt. Agung volcano in Indonesia; 1982–83 to El Chichon in Mexico; and 1990–91 to Mt. Pinatubo in the Phillipines.

PUTTING A CONFOUNDER TO GOOD USE!The mystery of the ENSO created some problems in the above analysis. However, the (relatively) large and temporary changes in global temperatures (particularly actual water temperature rather than the IPCC’s ‘air over ocean’ numbers) produced by El Nino (warmer) and La Nina (colder) events in the south Pacific provides a further opportunity to confirm that the Sun – not CO2 – is responsible for the increase in observed global temperatures over the past three decades.

In Table 1 we can see the Mauna-Loa-recorded annual average atmospheric CO2 levels since the monitoring began in the late 1950s. The third column has been added to calculate the percentage change in >>>

FIGURE 2Comparison of yearly changes in IPCC reported ocean temperature and atmospheric CO2 (using residuals from regression with calendar year)

OPINION PIECE


recorded ppm from the previous year and, for easier visualization, the fourth column shows how far that percentage change is from the average percentage change over the 51 years of measurement from 1960 to 2010, e.g. minus values show how much less than that average.

The El Nino years are in red and the La Nina years in blue (data from http://ggweather.com/enso/oni.htm ) with, in both cases, the percentage increase in the following year in the corresponding colour.

Of the 32 ENSO events only one, the 1991 El Nino, failed to produce the expected change (larger for El Ninos, smaller for La Ninas) in the following year and it produced a small change in the correct direction in the same year – because it was both stronger and longer than usual starting in May and running for 15 months.

Moreover, because the scientists monitoring the temperature changes have subdivided the El Nino and La Nina events according to intensity as Weak, Moderate or Strong (see the Note in the table for the colour coding used), the table enables us to see an important corroborating point. Not only does the percentage increase in CO2 directionally follow the ENSO (larger for El Nino, smaller for La Nina) that percentage increase is also generally proportional* to the intensity of the ENSO event! (*with due regard to the influence of closely following obverse events)

Thus, here again is more evidence that the atmospheric CO2 is not driving the small increase in global temperature (1.03°C over a century). Rather, on the century scale clearly seen in Figure 1 and over and above the annual tumult caused by Churchill’s riddles, mysteries and enigmas, the CO2 itself is going up because, the oceans have been warming in almost perfect synchronicity with the rise in the radiation from our Sun.

CONCLUSIONSThe ten years added to the trend data

A C Gullon, BSc, PEng is a consultant on safety and the environment

[email protected]

www.alsaces.ca

Read more in our Archives at thinkinghighways.com/archives.aspx

fyi

since the 2007 article show a couple of interesting items.

The first is that the global recession beginning in 2008 has produced a three year flat-lining of the global anthropogenic emissions of CO2. In stark negation of the IPCC’s position the atmospheric CO2 measurements at Mauna Loa, driven by the continuing effects of the highest bi-decadal radiation from our Sun since before the industrial revolution, have continued steadily upward.

Nonetheless, the relative dearth of sunspots since 2008 indicates that the next solar maximum will be much lower than the previous three. This suggests that the flat-lining of global temperature observed since the turn of the century is coming to an end and the global temperature will

soon head down again while mankind’s emissions of CO2 will continue to climb after the recovery. (There will be a recovery won’t there?) This will be the final proof that the 30 years of increasing temperature had nothing to do with the people and everything to do with their Sun.

“Here again is more evidence that the atmospheric CO2 is not driving the small increase in global temperature”

TABLE 1Atmospheric CO2 at Mauna Loa Follows ENSO (El Nino Southern Oscillation) changes

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EVENT PREVIEW: ITS WORLD CONGRESS 2011

No matter where the World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) is held, it is always characterized

by a program that reflects a global spectrum of ITS interests featuring the

top thought leaders in the industry. While the conversation this October in Orlando, Florida will no doubt focus on how investment in ITS can drive the economy, attendees can expect a high level of exchange and discussion around some of the hottest topics in transportation:

connected vehicles, performance measurement, financing and the high ROI of ITS, and incident management, just to name a few. As the United States Congress debates a long awaited federal transportation reauthorization bill and communities across the globe strategize on how to do more with less, plans are coming together for what promises to be the most comprehensive and critical World Congress to date.

RAPID DEPLOYMENTSeveral finance and tolling sessions featuring top speakers from the investor community are being planned to complement the World Congress Plenaries and the road pricing demonstrations taking place in the Technology Showcase. Plenaries will explore public policies that can accelerate the deployment of ITS to promote economic growth and job creation, improve the condition and performance of our existing infrastructure and make better use of private sector investment and innovation. What new technologies and business practices are on the horizon that will revolutionize transportation while spurring economic growth? What more can governments do to encourage private sector innovators to invest in the research, development and deployment of ITS? With invited speakers like Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, and Alcatel-Lucent CEO Ben Verwayaan (confirmed), the plenaries will definitely prepare attendees for the important work of the World Congress by discussing the latest challenges and opportunities facing ITS.

In addition:• TheExecutiveSession“ITSandEconomic

Growth” will explore real-world examples of ITS applications that have led to demonstrable economic improvements and growth.

• “ITSandPrivateFinance”willtakealookat how ITS can attract private investment

The 18th World Congress will show how investment in ITS can drive

Bright future ahead

Orlando, Florida will host the ITS industry as it looks to foster economic improvement



and what enablers are required from political leaders to make this happen. In addition, the session will highlight the financial metrics used to analyze potential investment opportunities.

• ThomasStephens,ViceChairman,General Motors Global HQ and Bill Ford, Executive Chairman of Ford Motor Company will open and close the 18th World Congress with exciting keynote addresses that will challenge current thinking and explore new opportunities.

Set up in the large parking lot adjacent to the convention center, the Technology Showcase is sure to be a popular component of this year’s event. Cutting-

edge ITS technology solutions will come to life as leading transportation agencies, including the US Department of Transportation (USDOT), and private sector companies host live technology demonstrations in real time. ThePricingVillagefeaturestechnologies

used for managing demand and financing transportationimprovements.Thesesystems utilize user fees to provide more predictable, reliable and less-congested commutes while supporting alternative commuter options like public transit and carpooling. Companies like TransCore, ACS/Xerox and Kapsch will demonstrate

solutions ranging from congestion management through pricing to dynamic pricing, integrated corridor operations, mileage-based user fees and 915 MHz interoperability. And Battelle, in partnership with the Minnesota Department of Transportation, will demonstrate safety, mobility and user fee implementation using an aftermarket device.Theseapplicationshavebeenproven and are popular in Europe, Asia and South America – and are starting to gain popularity in the United States.

Another highlight in the Technology Showcase is the USDOT Safety Pilot >>>

“What new technologies and business practices are on the horizon that will revolutionize transportation while spurring economic growth?”

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EVENT PREVIEW: ITS WORLD CONGRESS 2011

andCAMPDemonstration.TheUSDOThas partnered with the Crash Avoidance Metrics Partnership (CAMP) to research and develop Cooperative Vehicle Safety Systems that use 5.9 GHz Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC) to provide active safety systems that help drivers avoid crashes.TheCAMPConsortiumconsistsof the Ford Motor Company, General Motors LLC, Honda R&D Americas, Inc, Hyundai-Kia, Mercedes-Benz Research and Development North America, Inc, and Nissan and Toyota Motor Engineering and Manufacturing North America, Inc.

Vehicles from each manufacturer and one heavy vehicle will demonstrate the following safety applications: Emergency Electronic Brake Lights (EEBL); Forward Collision Warning (FCW); Intersection Movement Assist (IMA); Blind Spot Warning/Lane Change Warning (BSW/LCW); and Control Loss Warning (CLW). Participants will ride along in the vehicles as they demonstrate the effectiveness of the safety applications in actual crash situations. Vehicles in this demonstration

will be part of the actual test fleet that will participate in the Safety Pilot Driver Clinics thatarebeginninglaterthissummer.Theobjective of this demonstration is to show that regardless of the make, model or type of vehicles V2V Safety systems work together to help drivers avoid crashes.

Each year, ITS America’s Forums (the volunteer driven technical committees that tackle the role of ITS in safety, mobility, and sustainability) coordinate a meeting to showcase their activities over the past year, identify their objectives for the year to come, and tackle topics that are central to the interests of Forum members. For the 18th World Congress, ITS America’s member-driven technical committees invite you to join them to discuss an emerging topic in the field: performance measures.“IntelligentTransportationSystems and the Changing World of Performance Measures” is an in-depth look at how intelligent transportation systems play a critical role in measuring the performance of our transportation network.Thisspecialshowcasesessionfeatures expert speakers from every corner of the industry with unique perspectives. Thisisamustattendsessionforthoseinterested in performance measures and data management.

EMERGENCY MEASURESIn a signal that the ITS world is ever expanding, the World Congress on ITS will hold its first ever Incident and Emergency Responder Day on Wednesday, 19 October, 2011 to emphasize the importance of incident and emergency management in the world’s transportation system. By holding this daylong event, the World Congress hopes to encourage networking and information sharing among Incident and Emergency Responders and transportation professionals to enhance the contribution all make to public safety and congestion management and to highlight the invaluable role that technology plays.

Sponsored by the I-95 Corridor Coalition, Incident and Emergency Responder Day offers the opportunity for I/ER professionals to share both their successful use of technology as well as their unmet needs so that the ITS community might be better informed and responsive to the field. Thedaywillconsistoftargetedsessionsjustfor the Incident and Emergency Responder community – as well as technology demonstrations and training opportunities.

With sights now set on Orlando, Florida this October, we continue to face a tough economy as transportation agencies across the globe work to maintain and modernize their transportation systems with limited budgets.Thesessions,demonstrationsandspecial days planned for the 18th World Congress have been carefully developed by ITS leaders from around the world to showcase the latest in advanced technologies, address emerging needs in the industry and provoke needed dialogue about the latest trends in transportation. The18thWorldCongress,“KeepingtheEconomy Moving,” promises to provide unique opportunities for attendees to see, hear and learn more about how investment in ITS can create and sustain jobs and drive the global economy while helping agencies do more with less.


EVENT18th ITS World Congress and ITS America Annual Meeting & Expo

DATE16–20 October 2011

VENUEOrange County Convention Center, Orlando, Florida, USA

SUBJECTIntelligent Transportation Systems

WHO SHOULD ATTENDTransportation policy makers, technology and business professionals

FURTHER INFORMATIONRegister at www.itsworldcongress.org

need to know

The World Congress and Annual Meeting will provide valuable information for today’s international and domestic leaders and ITS experts in all modes of the transport industry. Here are just a few of the industry leaders confirmed to present at this year’s World Congress:

Thomas Stephens, Vice Chairman, General Motors Global HQ, USA Opening CeremonySunday, 16 October, 5 pm

Deborah Hersman, Chairman, National Transportation Safety Board, USA ITS Annual Meeting: Safety Plenary Monday, 17 October, 3:30 pm

Ben Verwaayen, CEO, Alcatel-Lucent, USAPlenary II: Ingredients for Implementing ITS Policies to Keep the Economy Moving Wednesday, 18 October, 10:30 am

Bill Ford, Executive Chairman, Ford Motor Company, USA Closing Ceremony Thursday, 20 October, 3:30 pm

Program

The event provides a showcase for the ITS industry to demonstrate how ITS deployment is an effective way to promote safety, mobility and sustainability as well as economic improvement


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Europe/Rest of the World Edition


ZEN AND THE ART OF ITSAdvanced traffic management the EasyWay

THE ROAD OPERATOR’S DILEMMAAndrew Pickford unravels the political complexities of EETS

STUDY AIDSAndrew Huddart and Martin Wylie on connecting with academia

MEET THE NEW BOSS...Kevin Borras talks to AustriaTech Managing Director Martin Russ

GRAND DESIGNSJean Coldefy on meeting the needs of the Greater Lyon region

EUROPE/REST OF THE WORLD EDITION Vol 6 • No 2 June/July 2011


3

ITS IN EUROPE CONGRESS ISSUE


The INTELLIGENT choice

TH211_EU_Cover.indd 1 20/05/2011 12:12

Bern Grush Associates

Toronto, Canada [email protected] +1 647 218 8600 www.berngrush.com

ROAD USE CHARGING: ACCEPTANCE-BY-DESIGN™Road use charging, critical for some and anathema to others, is likely unavoidable. Bern Grush Associates helps government and industry find ways to make a road pricing acceptable by addressing privacy, costs, fairness, equity, convenience, services, and value-to-drivers.

Unique among road pricing thought leaders, Bern Grush is both pro-car and pro-road pricing. He has been influencing the technology and thinking about road pricing in Europe, Asia and North America since 2004.

“If sustainability is the key, road-use charging programs should be designed to keep the road under our cars rather than our cars off the road.”

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Thinking Highways North American edition

Thinking HighwaysEurope/Rest of the World edition

ETC, etc The International Tolling Review

SHORTLIST Directory of Advanced Traffic Management Supplers and Services

THE INTELLIGENT CHOICEAdvanced transportation management

policy • strategy • technology finance • innovation • implementation

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HYBRID THEORYNorbert Schindler on sustainable road user charging’s role in Europe ABSOLUTE ZEROBern Grush on how to toll a country for free

LOOK TO THE SKIESHow not to rely on genius or luck

INTELLIGENTchoice

The international tolling review

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Volume 5 Issue 4Nov/Dec 2010

THINKING HIGHWAYS

POLE POSITIONMichael Gschnitzer explains how Kapsch plans to toll Poland in just eight months

INDEX TO ADVERTISERSACS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14Allied Vision Tech . . . . . . . . outside back coverAlpha . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61Barco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59Bern Grush Associates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63Cohu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35ComNet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23Esri . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11High Sierra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37Image Sensing Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5IRD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59Iteris . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7ITS World Congress . . . . . . . inside back coverJAI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51Jupiter Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9Kapsch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13MGSquared . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35Mott McDonald . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25Neavia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31Point Grey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54Redflex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3Skymeter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45TH Shortlist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54TSS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50Wavetronix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . inside front cover

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IN OTHER WORDS: RICK SCHUMAN

As an original staff member of ITS America, I had the pleasure of not

just seeing the US ITS industry grow and evolve, but those in other regions of the world as well. I was first able to sample European transport technology when helping to organize and then attend the first ITS World Congress, in Paris, France in 1994. Terms like EUREKA, PROMETHEUS, DRIVE and Framework programs were tossed around with the abandon we afforded the likes of E-Z Pass, 511 and SunGuide in the US.

The difference that has become apparent over time is that those terms in Europe were associated with projects, not sustainable deployments and services. Not that in the US we were/are a model of efficiency, but it has seemed that more of our efforts have resulted in tangible, if often unexciting, deployments.

CHANGE IS COMINGI now head up the public sector division of INRIX as we are rolling out European traffic data services, I am spending increasingly more time in Europe to raise awareness of government authorities and road operators to the new tools available to them – tools that have been available in the US since 2007. It is in this role that I found myself in France in early June at the 8th ITS European Congress in Lyon. Hosted by ERTICO, with

significant participation of the European Commission and its member states (read: countries), the conference was not dissimilar to an ITS America Annual Meeting.

My big takeaway? The times they are a changin’, with apologies to Bob Dylan. It all starts with politics, and something called the “Treaty of Lisbon.” In late 2007, the Lisbon Treaty provided more empowerment to the European Union. Effective late 2009, collective actions require a super-majority of Member States as opposed to unanimity, and the European

Commission, nominally equivalent to our executive branch (think USDOT, FHWA, etc), was given more authority to lead the Member States in many areas – transport included – rather than follow/coerce/goad States into action. In short, the Lisbon treaty seems to adopt more federal principles like we have here in the US. It’s a big change. The EC is now able to facilitate coordinated action – in fact “require” it in some cases – if it will advance the collective interests of united Europe, even if not all Member States agree to the action.

The timelines overlap, and it may just be coincidence, but “if the glove fits....” In December

2008, the European Union completed its ITS Action Plan (think strategic plan) that was followed in July 2010 by enactment of the “ITS Directive.” The Directive lays out several priority areas and actions for the member states and the EC to focus their energies on harmonized deployment. Priority areas they MUST focus on and MUST harmonize. This is new stuff.

COMMITMENTIn Lyon there was a visible session focused on a project (in actuality for more than just a project) called EasyWay (the

subject of the Europe/Rest of the World edition’s cover story, no less). This looks like the mechanism for national road authorities and operators to create and implement pan-European consistency of services across the Trans European Road Network (think Interstates). EasyWay’s focus isn’t on science fiction stuff or areas that require Soviet-style

planning; it is on deploying traffic management, travel information and freight and logistics services completely and consistently on the TERN. The EU and member states have already committed US$1 billion in funding to EasyWay deployments – with more funding surely on its way as implementation of the ITS Directive continues. My thought was this is the I-95 Corridor Coalition on steroids – both in terms of scale and scope.

In America we are idling in the water, waiting for federal policies, funding and leadership. The last time congress really weighed in on policy was 1991; the last time they weighed in on funding in 1988, it cost the president an election. In an era of reduced funding, operations – exactly the things the ITS Directive and EasyWay are focused on – are clearly high value, low-cost investments. Yet, on the whole, we are seemingly stalled. Europe is getting its mojo: I really hope we can get ours back soon.

Would you like to be a guest columnist? Email the editor at [email protected]

What a 20-year ITS veteran made of 8th European Congress in Lyon

Rick Schuman is Vice President, Public Sector, at INRIX

[email protected]

www.inrix.com

Read more about EasyWay in the June/July issue of Thinking Highways Europe/Rest of the World edition at thinkinghighways.com

fyi

“The EC is now able to facilitate coordinated action if it will advance the collective interests of a united Europe…”

“I really hope we can get our mojo back soon”

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FOCUS: INDIA

Vol 6 No 2 ONLINEthinkinghighways.com

American actress Katharine Hepburn was once quoted as saying, “If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.” Ask any

teenager and they’ll tell you that “rules are meant to be broken.”

It’s true that the thrill of bending rules can be exhilarating, whatever your age. Breaching a curfew, watching a film with an inappropriate certificate or overstaying on a parking meter are some rules that many of us have bent and, more often than not, found amusement in doing so. Bending these rules may affect our way of living but they do not adversely affect or endanger our lives, or those of others. So, the big question is: where should one draw the line?

A wise man once said, “Don’t learn safety rules by accident.” These words imply that prevention is better than cure and this should be the guiding motto for everyone when it comes to road safety. A number of reckless drivers, youngsters in particular, find it titillating not to adhere to the speed limit, but, doesn’t the bubble of joy burst when foolhardy actions cost someone’s life?

In India, the number of breached traffic rules is directly proportional to the number of road injuries and deaths. Statistically speaking, the number of fatal road accidents in India is compelling, at about 15 persons per hour! The ratio of injured to killed in road accidents is 1:20. The World Health Organisation (WHO) broke the news in its first ever Global Status Report on Road Safety, that with over 130,000 deaths annually, India is top of the world road crash league, with 10 per cent of global vehicular accidents despite being home to only 1.5 per cent of the

world’s vehicles. These certainly are not numbers to be proud of.

Besides the catastrophic damage to invaluable human life, road management problems cost exorbitant amounts of money as well. In the capital, Delhi, traffic jams cause a loss of more than 1.5 crore (a crore is equal to 10m) to the government. R10 crore (100m Rupees) is what fuel expended in traffic jams costs Delhiites. If all the major cities are taken into account, the loss can be a mind-boggling R40,000 crore or more annually, as revealed by The Survey of Centre for Transforming India in 2009. It is 2011 and these numbers have certainly accelerated. The loss in GDP is estimated at R75,000 crore, which is 1 per cent of the GDP of India.

In India, lack of road safety is observed due to a list of reasons peculiar to this country. Lane discipline while driving on the roads is considered petty, and is treated with utter indifference. The drivers perhaps believe that one is supposed to drive the vehicle in the direction of the ‘space’. With traffic-jammed lanes and roads, drivers go out of their way, maybe even in reverse on a heavily jammed road, just to change to the lane which seems to have faster moving traffic. The result is a chaos and pandemonium, not forgetting that an accident that might have cost a car one of its headlights and a motorcyclist his arm or foot. It was once said about driving at night in India that it’s not always possible to know what’s coming towards you – it could be a truck or it could be two motorbikes carrying a wardrobe.

A VOLATILE MIXTUREAnother interesting observation is the way pedestrians and drivers think. Take for example Mr. Ravi, a common man who

Kirit Mehta from not-for-profit organisation The Road To Change considers the lengths India is going to to ensure its accident statistics are dramatically reduced

Something has to give

Road Safety

ONLINE Vol 6 No 2 thinkinghighways.com

lives in a metropolitan area. Early each morning, when Mr. Ravi goes for a walk in his serene neighbourhood, he does not use the footpath or the pavement. He walks on the road because the footpaths are used up by hawkers. Soon, he is interrupted by the sharp honking of a car, which belongs to a Mr. Vijay. He moves, but makes sure not to move more than a couple of inches aside, for the car to pass. A moment later, he is back on track. However, Mr. Vijay is discontent, as he is driving his fastest to make it to his meeting in time. Now, he his delayed by two whole minutes, owing to a thoughtless pedestrian. On the other hand, Mr. Ravi is discontent as his peaceful morning walk was interrupted. He, therefore, vows to give other drivers a hard time. As a result, this peaceful neighbourhood is soon transformed into a chaotic street. Each car has to slow down, honk, wait for the pedestrians to give way and then zip past, all in resentment. Now, Mr. Vijay is driving even faster to make it in time for the meeting, and he is interrupted by a number of pedestrians just like Mr. Ravi. Sure enough, an accident takes place and Mr. Vijay is not only late, but also has to bear the expenditure for the injured victim’s medical bills. Not to forget, the brawling after the accident and before the settlement. Now, the bigger picture is that millions of people living in cities are all exactly like Mr. Ravi and Mr. Vijay.

Other major issues involve not using signals before turning. Moreover, drivers of trucks and buses believe they dominate the streets, as they can squash any car in their way. Taking advantage of the size of their vehicle they drive so recklessly that their passengers have to grip their seats as if they were on a

Something has to give

>>>

With road deaths in India running at 15 per hour, increasing the awareness of traffic issues and the need for enforcement of driving regulations are paramount

FOCUS: INDIA


fairground ride or at a theme park. If one wants an adventure in India, try travelling by local bus. Also, autorickshaws, like mini-taxis, are prominent in most parts of the country. They are an advantageous mode of public transport and are low maintenance. However, it is their drivers that one must watch out for. They tend to take to the air, dodging other vehicles, and then, without any signal of intent to other vehicles, they take a u-turn abruptly. This brings the cars behind to a screeching halt and are the catalyst for many a traffic jam.

Apart from complications due to the apathetic attitude of the citizens, poor infrastructure is also responsible for this chaos. The pot-holes on the roads have almost become a way of life. Strangely, when a stretch of a road is smooth, it holds our attention, but dug-up roads are something we are used to. However, measures are taken for maintenance of the roads and streets. These pot-holes are annually refilled with tar or cement and refilled again and again. This only aids in refilling the pockets of the companies contracted to maintain the roads.

IN DEVELOPMENTA healthy and strong road network is the essence of the socioeconomic development of a country. There must be corresponding growth between roads, traffic, vehicles and

population. Overloaded, overcrowded, chaotic, poorly-funded, poorly-constructed and poorly-maintained roads cannot be of much use for the prosperity of a country and will only hinder the growth and development and will create indiscipline and other problems. Is there a better reason to implement radical measures for promoting road safety and curbing the death toll numbers?

To begin with, in every budget, road development must be placed at a suitable level of prominence and must not be neglected. India needs a viable transport system across the country that provides safety, mobility and accessibility to all in an environmentally friendly manner. In India, under a broad spectrum, several rules for road safety exist. Traffic signs are erected along roadsides, traffic lights are established on all busy roads, drivers are fined heavily for drinking and driving, for not following traffic signals, for not fastening seat belts, for not wearing helmets, etc. However, implementing these rules to their fullest is what needs to be focused upon.

The road management system has a number of loopholes, encouraging corruption. Bribing is a major corruption issue that has infected this country. There needs to be a detailed, appropriate plan, which systematically eradicates this

issue. Development of infrastructure like superior quality roads, bridges and flyovers is imperative. The modes of public transport like buses and trains require drastic improvements. Infrastructure for pedestrians is also important. Footpaths, safe crossings and cycle tracks would make traveling safer for the pedestrians and cyclists. Simple traffic management measures such as one-way streets, parking restrictions and so on would also help bring the state of affairs under control. Lastly, there needs to be widespread awareness regarding the importance of road safety and complying with traffic rules, especially regarding the correct use of zebra crossings, helmets, seat belts and so on.

A CHANGE FOR THE BETTERThe Road to Change is a non-profit organisation and was founded in 2010 to promote and encourage disciplined driving and pedestrian movements and work towards facilitating such efforts. Creating awareness is an important step toward increasing the commuter’s understanding, influencing opinion and motivating behaviour.

At Road to Change, we identify the hazards related to road safety management, and strive our best to spread the word about it. Our mission is to reduce

Recognising the importance of traffic management is vital in reducing traffic fatalities and injuries

Road Safety


traffic fatalities and injuries, and the consequent personal and financial losses by developing a public-private partnership to promote the best driving practices, enforcement of traffic regulations and ideal management of traffic infrastructure. Understanding the importance of traffic management, we plan to interact with government authorities and private organizations to obtain their support and involvement. But we believe that it is not possible without creating awareness of traffic issues and the need for enforcement of driving regulations. The Road To Change also wishes to supplement/assist

all regulatory authorities in activities of traffic discipline, control, technology, enforcement and response to various public issues.

As citizens, we must understand it is our social responsibility to follow these rules as a safety measure for ourselves and others. Regrettably, urban Indians spend more time in their cars than at home or work. Travelling in cities will continue to be a nightmare, unless cities and state governments wake up, and the citizens adhere to their social responsibilities. After all, “life is too short for traffic”, as author Dan Bellack rightly suggests.

Kirit Mehta is Founder and Trustee for The Road to Change

[email protected]

www.theroadtochange.org.in www.Facebook.com/TheRoadToChange www.Twitter.com/TheRoadToChange Blog: TheRoadToChangeIndia.Wordpress.com

Go to thinkinghighways.com and select Country Specific from our online Archives for more articles about India

fyi

“Creating awareness is an important step toward increasing the commuter’s understanding, influencing opinion and motivating behaviour”

19th ITS World CongressVienna, Austria22 to 26 October 2012

www.itsworldcongress.com

Congress Exhibition Demonstrations

How to shape transport to be safer, cleaner, and more efficient.

Hosted byOrganised by

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Visit us on

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ITS European Congress,

6 to 9 June 2011,

Lyon Convention Centre

inserat_180_132_lay02_b.indd 1 03.05.11 10:12

INTELLIGENT VEHICLES

Vol 6 No 2 ON:LINEthinkinghighways.com

For the last seven years Toyota has been stimulating considerable interest in the field of intelligent vehicle design in schools via their

Toyota Technology Challenge. The activity attempts to challenge students aged 11–16

to design and manufacture their own intelligent vehicle with object detection and avoidance capabilities.

This year’s competition consisted of three phases; research, a presentation and finally a session in the maze-style course. In the research phase the teams

explored what was currently on the market, future innovations and different types of intelligent vehicles. They began considering finer details of how they would themselves create an automated vehicle, for example which type of object detection systems to use. The

Tom Hayward was a member of a team of schoolboys who took part in Toyota’s competition to find a new generation of designers and engineers

Age is no obstacle

The team’s four-wheeled, solar-assisted, battery-powered vehicle used ultrasonic sound to navigate

Toyota Technology Challenge


presentation was a five-minute overview of their approach to the project and their production process, this was followed by the judges inspecting the finished product. The course was a square area enclosed by barriers with various shaped obstacles with which the vehicle must not make contact.

The challenge has grown year on year and now attracts entries from 360 schools.

FORWARD THINKING Many of the entrants had previously not even considered the concept of future vehicles being capable of avoiding

Tom Hayward was a member of a team of schoolboys who took part in Toyota’s competition to find a new generation of designers and engineers

>>>

“Our use of solar panels looked good on the design sheet but took more power from the battery than they actually gave it”

a collision and yet many produced surprisingly sophisticated and original designs. With many teams acquiring sponsorship from companies in the industry (including Thinking Highways) the standard was admirably high. Toyota had set originality and innovation high on the agenda and we saw a fascinating array of approaches to the challenge. The teams displayed their flair for imagination with no two vehicles the same; some were simple and reliable while others were astonishingly complex and advanced. A few teams had gone down the route of coding ultrasound modules, an impressive design when we consider this is a system which only a handful of car manufacturers are beginning to include as an extra on some models.

I was part of the team from Sutton Grammar School for Boys in South London and this is how events unfolded, from concept to taking part in the Challenge itself.

After signing up in October 2010 we composed a project folder, not dissimilar to that of our school coursework folders, which we all agreed this was some valuable practice. Once news reached us via our team leader we had made the regional final we immediately began manufacturing our vehicle. Some of the very first decisions we made had huge implications on the capabilities of the vehicle. We reaped rewards from some, but it has to be said we did come to regret one or two. For example, our use of solar panels looked good on the design sheet but in actuality, when it came to moving the vehicle their added weight meant that they took more power from the battery than they actually gave it.

The part we enjoyed most was undoubtedly the production process. Working as a team was thoroughly enjoyable and despite numerous hitches there was always a lively and often light-hearted atmosphere in the laboratory. We had meticulously planned our production process but one of the main things

Tom and his team mates Alister, Daniel, Chris and Alex found that some things, although good on paper, did not produce the desired results in reality

Despite some technical problems, working as a team proved helpful as well as enjoyable

INTELLIGENT VEHICLES

Vol 6 No 2 ON:LINEthinkinghighways.com

and it seemed almost everything else, was against us and everything that could have gone wrong did. We only had time to fix one of the modules and that left us with fully functioning object detection on only two of the four sides. We began the course nonetheless and our confused vehicle did make a respectable attempt before developing a problem on one of the sides we had not fixed.

We were disappointed and rather tired after working frantically for two hours to try and fix the faults. They say “there are no problems, only opportunities.” Well, this was an insurmountable opportunity if ever there was one.

Despite our frustrating experience we all enjoyed the competition and we are considering entering next year with an improved design. Our team was later credited for an extremely advanced and complex electronic system and design. The judges were further impressed with our

level of professionalism and ambition.Toyota’s Challenge stirred up serious

interest in intelligent vehicles and has possibly left our future engineers that little bit more inspired – and for that we must credit Toyota greatly.

Registration for the 2011–12 competition will be open in September 2011. Please email any enquiries to [email protected] or go to www.rapidonline.com/toyota

we learned from the competition was that nothing ever runs as smoothly as you imagine it will.

Eventually we finished the vehicle and began testing. We were confident in our creation and testing was short and conclusive: our vehicle would be fine. A few weeks later we made the journey to the Imperial War Museum in London for the competition. We arrived in good time and made our way to our assigned area. We unearthed our vehicle from the shambolic, disorganized box it shared with all of our tools. Firstly we presented to a panel of judges from Toyota and the competition’s sponsor, Rapid Electronics.

Nervously we explained the details of our creation to the experts. We had made a four-wheeled, solar-assisted, battery-powered vehicle capable of navigating through a maze-like course completely remotely without any assistance from humans. The vehicle had four omniwheels allowing it to move in any direction without any turning circle at all. It used ultrasonic sound to navigate, not unlike a bat. By emitting an ultrasonic pulse of sound and measuring how long it takes to be reflected back it could effectively see how far away an object is. We had mounted four ultrasound modules, one on each side, and, with some fairly extensive programming as its brain, it would decide which way to travel, moving away from areas where obstacles were close and into areas free of obstructions.

PROBLEMS, PROBLEMS After the presentation we had around two hours until we would take on the course but sadly, as is so often the case, what worked flawlessly in the lab failed and the vehicle developed a truly mystifying fault. No-one on the team could locate the problem. Eventually we realised the ultrasound modules were reporting to the chip that an object was 0 centimetres away on all sides except for one. Time,

“They say ‘there are no problems, only opportunities.’ Well, this was an insurmountable opportunity”

Tom Hayward is a student at Sutton Grammar School for Boys, Surrey, UK

[email protected]

http://www.rapidonline.com/toyota

Read more about this subject in the INTELLIGENT VEHICLES/AUTOMATED VEHICLES section of our Archives at thinkinghighways.com/archives.aspx

fyi

The judges credited the team with an extremely advanced and complex electronic system and design and were impressed by their level of professionalism and ambition

Vehicles had to navigate the maze-like course remotely without human intervention

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FINANCE AND FUNDING


Argentina For the first time we look at the Latin American and Caribbean region, growing

in economic terms, in the countries where the World Bank is currently lending in the transport sector.

Brazil, Colombia and Peru appear to have interesting projects. The projects in Brazil and Colombia and the Regional Communications project are at the early stage.

Now that Brazil’s economy is the fifth largest in the world, not to mention its hosting of the forthcoming 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics, the Bank’s involvement there has naturally reduced, with only one sizeable transport project detailed.

Colombia, too, has a large project covering many cities, potentially of interest to the ITS sector, and Peru’s very fragile heritage region of the Vilcanota Valley requires attention.

The recently approved and proposed World Bank projects are briefly mentioned here. For these projects of possible interest, the loans and credits total US$1,882 million.

Margaret Pettit looks at the projects in this area of economic growth

Latin America and the Caribbean

Aim: The objectives are to improve the quality and sustainability of urban transport in selected cities, with emphasis on the needs of low-income people.Status: IBRD Loan approved of US$150.0 million. • Consultants will be required.

Implementing Agency: Secretaria de Transporte de la Nacion, Hipolito Yrigoyen 250, 2do Piso CP1310, Buenos Aires, Argentina Tel: (54-11) 4349-7173Fax: (54-11) 4349-7660Contact: Jorge de Belaustegui, General Coordinator

Aim: The objectives are to assist civil works with paving, rehabilitation and upgrading of provincial roads, construction of bridges, and access roads in nine provinces: Chaco, Formosa, Jujuy, Salta, Tucuman, Santiago del Estero, Catamarca, Misiones and Corrientes.Status: IBRD Loan of US$400 million approved.

• Consultants will be required.Implementing Agency: Unidad de Coordinacion de Programas y Proyectos con Financiamiento ExternoHipolito Yrigoyen 250, Piso 11, Buenos Aires, Argentina Tel: (54-11) 4328-2357Contact: Alonso Victor Hugo, Project Coordinator

Aim: The objective is to support the institutional capacity to encourage efficient planning policies and adequate resource allocation for the rehabilitation and maintenance of the core provincial road network. Status: Decision Meeting was scheduled for April 2011 for proposed IBRD Loan of US$30.0 million.

• Consultants will be required. Implementing Agency: Agencia Cordoba de Inversion y FinanciamientoRivera Indarte 33, Cordoba Capital 5000, Argentina Tel: (54-31) 434-2420Fax: (54-31) 434-4078, Contact: Eduardo Parizzia, Presidente

Aim: The objective is to improve the reliability of essential road assets that facilitate access of provincial production to markets. The project will enhance the efficiency of asset management as a means to support the country’s productive sector and economic growth.Status: Signing of an IBRD loan of US$175.0 million was scheduled for April 2011.

• Consultants will be required.Implementing Agency: Unidad de Coordinacion de Programas y Proyectos con Financiamiento ExternoHipolito Yrigoyen 250, Piso 11, Buenos Aires, Argentina Tel: (54-11) 4328-2357Contact: Gustavo Barcos, General Coordinator

URBAN TRANSPORT IN METROPOLITAN AREAS

NORTE GRANDE TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT

CORDOBA ROAD INFRASTRUCTURE ADDITIONAL FINANCING

PROVINCIAL ROAD INFRASTRUCTURE ADDITIONAL FINANCING

“Peru’s very fragile heritage region of the Vilcanota Valley requires attention”



Bolivia

Brazil

Colombia

Margaret Pettit looks at the projects in this area of economic growth

>>>

Consultant Margaret Pettit

Aim: The objectives are to: (a) ensure the year-round transit ability of the San Buenaventura-Ixiamas corridor; and (b) improve the regularity of incoming and outgoing air traffic serviced by Rurrenabaque airport.Status: Loan negotiations were cpleted in March 2011 and Bank approval is scheduled for May 2011 for an IDA Credit of US$100.0 million.

• Consultants will be required.Implementing Agency: Administradora Boliviana de Carreteras (ABC)Av. Mariscal Santa Cruz, Edif. Centro de Comunicaciones, Piso 8, La Paz, BoliviaTel: (591) 235-7212 Fax: (591) 239-1764 Email: [email protected]: Isela Bermudez, Gerente de Gestiones Viales

Aim: The objective is to contribute to fostering increased competitiveness of the State economy through improved road transport efficiency and enhanced public services delivery. This includes improvement of conditions on municipal networks and the State road network.Status: Project preparation is underway. The project has a proposed IBRD Loan of US$300.0 million.

• Consultants will be required.Implementing Agency: Secretaria de Estado da Infraestrutura TocantinsEsplanada das Secretarias, Praca dos Girassois,Palmas, Brazil Tel: (55-63) 3218-1640/41 Fax: (55-63) 3218-1690 Email: [email protected]: Silvio Leao, Superintendente de Apoio Estrategico.

Aim: The objectives are to: (a) deliver a high quality and sustainable Bus and Rapid Transit system in about 16 selected medium and large cities to improve mobility along the most strategic mass transit corridors; (b) improve accessibility for the poor through feeder services and fare integration; and (c) build greater institutional capacity at the national and local level.Status: Project appraisal has been

completed and negotiations were scheduled for mid-March 2011 for an IBRD Loan of US$350 million. • Consultants will be required.Implementing Agency: Ministry of Transport, Av. El Dorado CAN, ColombiaTel: (57-1) 324-0800Email: [email protected]: Carolina Camacho, Coordinadora Sistemas Integrados de Transporte.

NATIONAL ROADS AND AIRPORT INFRASTRUCTURE

TOCANTINS INTEGRATED SUSTAINABLE REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT

SUPPORT TO THE NATIONAL URBAN TRANSPORT PROGRAM

FINANCE AND FUNDING


Margaret Pettit is principal of CLEMATIS Consulting

[email protected]

For Margaret’s previous contributions visit the FUNDING, FINANCE & PPP section of our Archives at thinkinghighways.com/archives.aspx

fyi

Nicaragua

Panama

Aim: The objectives are to improve access of the hinterland population to essential markets and services through: (a) road improvement works, (b) strengthening of the institutional capacity systems, and (c) reducing vulnerability to natural disasters in the Ministry of Transport and in related entities responsible for the road network in the country.Status: Project Concept Review Meeting

was scheduled for April 2011. Proposed IDA Credit of US$30 million. • Consultants will be required. Implementing Agency: Ministerio de Transporte e Infraestructura (Ministry of Transport)Frente al Estadio Nacional, NicaraguaTel: (505-2) 222-5913Fax: (505-2) 222-3834Email: [email protected]

Aim: The objective is to improve transport to markets and social services along selected primary and secondary corridors, through the preservation of road assets and strengthening the Ministry of Public Works’ (MOP) road management capacity. Status: IBRD Loan of US$110 million has been approved. • Consultants will be required.

Implementing Agency: Ministerio de Obras Publicas (MOP)Calle Curundu, Edificio Principal 1019, Ciudad de Panama, PanamaTel: (507) 507-9495/6Fax: (507) 507-9420Contact: Ivan de Icaza, Vice-Ministro de Obras Publicas

RURAL TRANSPORT LOGISTICS AND ROADS

ROAD ASSET PRESERVATION



Peru

Regional

Aim: The objective is to increase the quality of national road corridors that are essential to Peru’s competitiveness and to promote safer transport conditions for passengers and freight. Status: The Bank has approved an IBRD Loan of US$ 150 million, however, the project is on hold until further notice.

• Consultants will be required. Implementing Agency: PROVIAS NacionalJr. Zorritos 1203, Lima, PeruTel: (51-1) 615-7800, Ext. 4004Fax: (51-1) 615-7453Email: [email protected]: Raul Torres, Executive Director

Aim: The objectives are to enhance the environmental and socio-economic sustainability of the historical, cultural and ecological assets of the Vilcanota Valley. Most of this loan will be allocated to transportation infrastructure in measures to protect the valuable assets from tourism traffic in the historic Inca town centre, access to key archaeological monuments and the main access routes to and from Machu Picchu.

Status: Decision Meeting scheduled for 15 December 2011 for a proposed IBRD Loan of US$40 million. • Consultants will be required. Implementing Agency: COPESCOPlaza Tupac Amaru s/n, Distrito Wanchaq, Cuzco, PeruTel: (51-84) 581-540Fax: (51-84) 236-712Email: [email protected]: Fernando Rodriguez, Executive Director

Aim: The objectives are to: (i) increase access and affordability of broadband communications networks in the Caribbean region and within countries; (ii) contribute to the development of the regional IT industry; and (iii) contribute to improved Government efficiency and transparency through regionally harmonized e-government applications.

Status: Decision Meeting was scheduled for 26 May 2011 for a proposed IBRD Loan of US$6million and an IDA Credit of US$16 million. • Consultants will be required. Implementing agency(ies): to be determined

SAFE AND SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORT

SECOND VILCANOTA VALLEY PROTECTION AND DEVELOPMENT

ADVANCED REGIONAL COMMUNICATIONS INFRASTRUCTURE PROGRAM

ITS & EDUCATION


Mind and matter

Innovation


Ask a university to discuss innovation and you expect to hear theory (neo-Schumpeterian, maybe spiced up with classic Edgar

Schein). But ask a business person and you expect real-world examples (Procter & Gamble being among the most reliable, with IBM another favourite).

When we at City University London discuss transport change with industry and academic partners in London and internationally, we make a concerted effort to combine these two ends of the telescope. Transport spans industry people, policy-makers, researchers and theorists, and dwells partly on thoughts and ideas, but firmly in “doing, making and moving stuff ”.

Lately, many conversations have focused on improving both cost and energy efficiency hand-in-hand with much better customer experiences. Delivering this blend is a big challenge (whether private and public sector; digital-, engineering-, or marketing-led) and we keep seeing what appear to be “road humps”. Is it because the task feels too daunting for transport?

To us, as informed observers, it seems many transport teams and partnerships who, on paper, look to be best placed to speed up innovation are hesitating in the face of big changes. Will they achieve radical decarbonisation, roll out the much-vaunted Internet of Things, or adapt transport’s key systems to become more responsive to user-generated data? Not this year. Our guess is that, among other reasons, transport lacks good, accessible blends of theory and practice. Using such mixes, well-linked to real-world examples, could show a broader and less risky path to big improvements and then step changes in business and customer benefits.

WHY WORRY?We have been listening hard to transport people (it is one of the things we do at the

Transport Hub) and many people are really concerned about this.

We want to identify the real reasons why transport innovation is still moving too slowly and then, blending theory and practice, we will suggest how the pace could be picked up by doing a couple of things a bit differently.

The trouble appears not to be transport’s ability to manage incremental change, because we are all well practised at that. The core is our sector’s capacity and willingness to take on the stretchy stuff (which theory variously calls “transformational change”, “BPR”, “radical or discontinuous change”), where both the prize and the risks are much greater.

Our suggestion, taken from people who know what they are talking about in the worlds of academia and industry, is that a practical way to de-risk these complex needs is to bring innovation confidently into the scope of many people’s work.

If you are not convinced that transport is slow to innovate, here are a couple of practical exhibits:• The United States. Pretty much every

transport system is overcrowded, relatively slow and horribly inefficient – and that covers passengers and freight. Overall, the sector’s carbon and other emissions are not heading down, rather they are “the fastest-growing source of US greenhouse gas emissions” (according to the EPA). That matters because US transportation’s aggregated carbon emissions are now greater than any entire country, except China. At the same time, US infrastructure maintenance and replacement is generally at much too low a rate, so that wear and tear on underlying assets has made retrofitting transport system improvements a nightmare (The Economist, 30 April 2011). Also, we observe relatively few leading examples of novel services and solutions from the USA, other than well-named electric vehicles (Tesla, Volt) but those cannot alone change the nation’s traffic and energy problems;

Andrew Huddart on how universities are challenging the pace of transport innovation

Mind and matter

“It seems many transport teams and partnerships who, on paper, look to be best placed to speed up innovation are hesitating in the face of big changes”

>>>

ITS & EDUCATION


• Europe. Perhaps a surprise, given the apparent proliferation of innovative tram and bike schemes, constantly updated Euro emission standards and cunning road tolling systems. But clearly, our community is not doing well enough. Cars, trucks and heavy diesel are still the status quo. Part of the cause for alarm lies in this region’s extreme oil dependency, figures on which feature strongly in the latest European Commission (EC) White Paper on Transport: “Towards a competitive and resource efficient transport system”. Some 96 per cent of the energy used by transport in the EU-27 is from oil and oil products, according to the EC’s 2010 figures. No doubt, the scale of Europe’s problem needs far more than the current chipping away at the edges.

YOU TURN IF YOU WANT TOWe all know instinctively that transport has big motives to move with caution in the face of drastic change. Many still argue that the sector’s response to change is justifiably braked by our industry’s built-in inertia and long asset lifecycles. We are routinely reminded that as transport is a heavily engineered set of interlocking systems, it would be unwise or to swap out key components on the fly unless you want the whole thing grinding to a halt. Frustratingly, when entire nations now seem able to change to low-energy TVs in a matter of months, the notion of switching to fleets of hydrogen-powered trucks anywhere is expected to take decades because of the challenge to the embedded systems.

And yet look at London’s buses to directly challenge this assumption.

Against any global comparator, the experiments with them are a triumph of boldness and innovation that keeps pushing ahead. Transport for London and its bus company partners deserve real credit for encouraging experimentation with hybrids and hydrogen in a live, operational

public transport fleet…but they look worryingly like an isolated example.

Many more segments of our industry are resisting full-scale innovation; leaving it to small and under-resourced teams rather lazily dubbed “boffins” and waiting for the proof. Perhaps they wring their hands over integration issues but ultimately most are not changing very much. For transport incumbents this tendency to stick with the received wisdom of gentle change – turning at the speed of a supertanker and all that – will probably end badly, especially here in Europe.

Transport has a strong risk of falling into an innovation backwater if key participants hide behind the systemic inertia argument and passively resist efforts to move quickly. Policy-makers won’t hang around waiting, and they will turn soon, which means that starting in Europe (ie, Brussels), transport companies will soon face directives, mandatory specifications, court rulings and other instruments that force quicker movement. If big fines for public sector bodies over air quality do not scare industry into action, then the threat of litigation probably will. If that seems like scaremongering, just have a look at what has happened in construction and the built environment.

So what can we do to encourage actual changes in transport – the industry drivers and the public interest drivers?

HUMAN LEAGUEOur suggestions are mainly of the human kind. The two agendas – the people who direct industry’s capacity to change (by developments and experiments leading to business profits), and the people who

incentivise or discipline (via frameworks, regulations and laws guiding us to a safer society) – are more inter-dependent than either realises. There are plenty of surveys by reputable companies (Bain and others) to confirm that sensible commercial organisations understand and agree about this. So closing up the void between transport’s different hemispheres is a good place to start. Some attitude-driven things to do differently include:• Share:network,showandtell,listen,

reflect, explain, modify views and then broadcast new ones. Dilute risks by putting them into the same pot with other owners of the same problems, then share ideas for solutions. We’ve all got the tools to do this now, anywhere, any time;

• Formtargetedalliances:overlaypartsofthe different agendas that matter to you (specific user needs and the connected regulations, say), and pool resources to pilot working examples of infrastructure that enables innovation. A set of current British examples can be found in the Plugged-in Places, nine of which are piloting electric vehicle infrastructure and services. As well as one car company-backed example in North East England, there are others just starting to become visible like Source London (www.sourcelondon.net) and the Manchester Electric Car Company, expected to launch in October. The activities led by PiPs will reveal differing agendas and innovation drivers from each region, but all are on track to early feedback to the regulators;

• Besystemagnostic:thebespokesystemis rapidly losing its value. All around the industry, our precision needs are no longer reliant on dedicated systems, because problems can increasingly be solved by off-the-shelf components held together

Innovative transport schemes, such as London’s so-called “Boris Bikes” (the Barclays Cycle Hire scheme) should become a regular sight in cities around Europe if industry and academia are correctly connected

Innovation


by thin layers of super-intelligent glue (custom algorithms, smartly programmed controllers and the like). Innovation thinking and translation into action is no longer the domain for specialist “innovators” or researchers for that matter. Practical academics like colleagues at the Cass Business School in London can point the way to increasingly standardised and innovation skills development. These can be widely applied to inter-linked teams of innovators in any workplace.

A HELPING HANDIt is worth pushing harder to share the practice of innovation to a wider, more

democratic set of people in transport, and we are, as the slogan goes, “here to help”. At City we have ideas of practical tools and techniques, and a few health warnings as well. As academics, we are concerned that a lot of techniques being pushed look dominantly at ways of generating new ideas. They heavily outweigh the number of tools for concentrating, focusing and selecting strategic choices.

So fusing mind and matter to join new ideas to everyday work will still need effort and preparation – not least to filter out the noise. But transport people are good at that.

Andrew Huddart is Manager, City Collaborative Transport Hub, City University London, UK

[email protected]

http://www.city.ac.uk/interdisciplinary-city/city-collaborative-transport-hub

See Andy Graham and David Bonn’s articles in the Mar/Apr 2011 issue of Thinking Highways for further reference. Read more in our Archives at thinkinghighways.com/archives.aspx

fyi

“When entire nations now seem able to change to low-energy TVs in a matter of months, the notion of switching to fleets of hydrogen-powered trucks is expected to take decades”

ITS & EDUCATION


Behavioural scienceThe benefits of fusing industry, academia and end-user aspirations to deliver cutting-edge results, explained by Martin Wylie

ROMANSE

Europe/Rest of the World Vol 6 No 2 thinkinghighways.com 39

favour of public transport. To achieve this, ROMANSE set up a Traffic and Travel Information Centre (TTIC) housing a number of systems, each capable of standalone operations or of integration with the other systems in ROMANSE.

By collecting, collating and disseminating information through one central point, ROMANSE can provide accurate, timely, accessible information to travellers both before and during their journeys. This information allows people to make informed travel choices about their route, final destination, time of journey and method of transport. The core central collation system in the TTIC is COMET, a central database and strategy management tool.

The development of ROMANSE is widely recognised as one of Europe’s most successful demonstrations of the potential for integrated TTICs.

PERFECT PARTNERSROMANSE has worked collaboratively with many ITS industry partners over the years providing product and strategy development and evaluation opportunities.

Industry partners have included Siemens Traffic Controls, Microsense, Transport Simulation Systems (TSS), Mott MacDonald, ATKINS, IBI and The Transport Research Laboratory (TRL).

Over the years ROMANSE has also worked with several academic partners including the Transportation Research Group (TRG) at the University of Southampton, the Technical University of Crete and the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. Much of the work at ROMANSE has been undertaken in partnership with the TRG.

The TRG was established in 1967, focusing at that time on research into road traffic, infrastructure design and traffic control. There was an immediate collaboration with Southampton City Council (SCC), with projects such as the Bitterne Bus Priority Scheme in the early 1970s, which remains a leading example of its type in the UK. Collaboration took the form whereby TRG were responsible for aspects of strategy/algorithm design and on-street evaluation and SCC were responsible for system design and

Southampton’s ROMANSE Centre works in collaboration with industry and academic institutions to further the deliverance of effective ITS solutions

>>>

“The main objectives of the ROMANSE project was to assess whether ITS was capable of influencing travel behaviour by the widespread dissemination of traffic and travel information”

In order to push the envelope of creativity in a given field fusing the minds of academia with the skill sets in industry would be an obvious choice in delivering such an

aspiration. This article sets out one local authority’s experience of being part of a sustained fusion of academic and industry liaison in the field of Intelligent Transport Systems.

A FINE ROMANSEIn the early 1990s Southampton City Council in the UK resolved that it was no longer feasible or desirable to embark on expansive road construction programmes to accommodate further growth and agreed to investigate the emerging technologies to make better use of the highway network and encourage the use of public transport.

To facilitate this, a consortium consisting of local authorities, transport consultants, research establishments and manufacturers was formulated and ROMANSE project (ROad MANagement Systems for Europe) was born. The purpose of the consortium was to develop innovative technology- based solutions to transport problems in south Hampshire, focused on the City of Southampton. The consortium was successful in obtaining significant funding from both the UK Government and the European Union for the, then, advanced thinking on the use of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS).

The main objectives of the ROMANSE project was to assess whether ITS was

capable of influencing travel behaviour by the widespread

dissemination of traffic and travel

information. Through this

process, the hope was to enhance the efficiency of the network, provide high quality information for strategic decisions, and to encourage a change in modal shift in

The benefits of fusing industry, academia and end-user aspirations to deliver cutting-edge results, explained by Martin Wylie

implementation. This form of successful collaboration continued into the 1980s, with TRG undertaking the evaluation of SCOOT in Southampton and on into the 1990s when the ROMANSE project was initiated.

This was followed by a string of collaborative EC-funded projects over the last two decades where ROMANSE has worked with TRG as well as with other partners in Europe Some of the key projects have been ROMANSE II, EUROSCOPE, EURAMP, CITYMOBIL, PRISCILLA, CONVERGE, SMARTNETS, PRIME and ENTRANCE. Large nationally funded projects have also been undertaken in collaboration, including FUTURES (looking at new Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS technologies) and a new TSB project looking at harnessing large data sets, which ROMANSE and TRG are undertaking with Siemens UK.

KNOWLEDGE IS POWERThroughout this period, ROMANSE has been at the forefront of new Urban Traffic Management and Control (UTMC) applications and has provided a valuable experimental platform for TRG research as well as providing state-of-the-art facilities for the travelling public. In return TRG has provided valuable results back to ROMANSE on strategies and/or Business Cases for applications including Variable Message signs (VMS), Parking Guidance and Information (PGI) strategies, Urban Traffic Control (UTC) and bus priority.

Alongside its contract research, TRG also provide teaching and student research programmes at various levels. These include Undergraduates in Civil Engineering, Postgraduates undertaking our MSc in Transportation Planning and Engineering and Postgraduate research students undertaking PhD or EngD studies (Engineering Doctorate). ROMANSE has been excellent over the years in providing knowledge transfer and support for traffic

research projects being undertaken by students at all levels. For example, undergraduate students have recently studied new signalised pedestrian crossing facilities, using sites and data from Southampton provided by ROMANSE as case studies. Results are then fed back to ROMANSE.

Dr Nick Hounsell (Director, Transportation Division) University of Southampton said of the partnership “the collaboration between ROMANSE and Southampton University has been mutually beneficial over many years. It has helped to ensure that Southampton stays at the forefront of urban ITS in the UK, with corresponding benefits to the public and the environment, and it has benefited a large number of students on various transport courses through their ability to conduct real case studies to support their University work. Let’s hope that this beneficial collaboration can continue well into the future.”

Thanks to Dr Nick Hounsell (Director, Transportation Division) University of Southampton for his text relating to the TRG. References for the specific projects came from their respective websites and the TRG.

ITS & EDUCATION


Martin Wylie is Traffic Signals Engineer at Southampton City Council in the UK

[email protected]

Read more in our Archives at thinkinghighways.com/archives.aspx

fyi

PROJECTS OVERVIEWEURAMP 3mStudy across Europe of ramp metering techniques including the development, deployment and its benefits and feasibility.

CITYMOBILTo achieve a more effective organisation of urban transport providing a more rational use of motorised traffic resulting in less congestion and pollution, safer driving, higher quality of living and enhanced integration with spatial development.

PRISCILLAThis project was concerned with city-wide implementation of bus priority measures, and the challenges this sets for optimum priority strategies using traffic signals integrated with Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) systems.

SMART NETSThis project aimed at enabling a significant improvement of the international state-of-the-art in real-time network-wide urban traffic control via application, demonstration, and comparative evaluation of the new-generation control strategy TUC (Traffic-responsive Urban Control).

PRIMEPRIME aimed to improve road safety on motorways and adjacent urban networks by increasing the effectiveness of incident detection and incident management through the development of innovative methods.

CONVERGEStudy of car park guidance, its effectiveness and best practice.

ENTRANCEStudy in Southampton of the effective deployment of variable message signs for traffic information dissemination.

ROMANSE IIThis project built upon the very successful pilot of on-line traffic information and control centre developed within the ROMANSE project.

need to know “Students have recently studied new signalised pedestrian crossing facilities, using sites and data from Southampton provided by ROMANSE as case studies. Results are then fed back to ROMANSE”

A major player in PPP road projects and managing customer services across a range of tolling/road pricing sectors and stakeholders

Egis Projects has unrivalled experience in all types of projects having completed 22 projects since 1993 for a total value of €12 billion: • PPP, BOT, concessions• motorways, bridges, tunnels, urban infrastructure• real toll, shadow toll or availability schemes

Strategic developments for Road Driver Services focus on expanding our core business activities into projects covering: • OpenRoadTolling(ORT,“free-flow”)• Electronic Toll Collection interoperability• Road safety video-based enforcement• Heavy Goods Vehicles national tolling• Urbantolling(lowemissionzone,congestioncharge,etc)• Trafficdemandmanagement

Egis Projects is operating 1,630 km of roads with 1840 km under contract, and has more than 1.2 million registered customers for ETC services.

In addition to responding to international tenders, Egis Projects is also developing in-house independent tag/OBU service provision including front and back office management: Easytrip Services is already operational in Ireland and the Philippines.

Egis Projects Road Driver Services key business references include:• Information Exchange Agent project in Ireland (coversETCinteroperability)• ORT system for the Golden Ears Bridge in

Vancouver, British Columbia• Mobile speed enforcement services in Ireland• Easytrip Services

Steve MorelloBusiness Development ManagerEgis Projects, 11 avenue du Centre78286 Guyancourt cedex, FranceTel: +33 1 30 48 48 66Mob: +33 6 24 20 90 61Email: [email protected]: www.egis-projects.com

Contact egis

egis May 2011.indd 3 23/05/2011 13:49





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