Intelligent Transportation Systems Program Research Articles

Connected and automated vehicle systems: Introduction and overview

ABSTRACTThis paper provides an introduction to the history and concepts of connected and automated vehicle systems. Connected vehicle (CV) systems have been an important focal point for the intelligent transportation systems program for a while already, based on their ability to support a wide range of ITS applications and to knit vehicles and infrastructure elements into a well-integrated transportation system. Automated vehicle (AV) systems have had a longer and more turbulent history, with a recent upsurge of interest sparked by Google's initiative. The AV interests have had a strong element of technology push, but this paper shows how the AV systems can improve transportation system operations when they are combined with CV systems. The general-interest media and internet have tended to confound CV and AV systems with each other, but this paper disentangles them to explain their differences as well as their potential synergies.

Intelligent System for Transportation Mode Selection in ASEAN Countries

Association of Southeast Asian Nations: ASEAN is an organization of ten countries in Southeast Asia consisting of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Brunei, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand. One of the major purposes of Asean is to create the Asean Economic Community: AEC as an economic organization. The mission of the AEC is to develop a single market and develop production base to be stable prosperous, highly competitive and economically, integrated with effective facilitation for trade and investment including a free flow of goods, services, investment, skilled labors and capital . This paper focuses on investigating the constraint within the three major modes of transportation (Air Sea and Truck) and reviewing the major factor influenced mode selection of the trading organization in Asean countries. Whilst constraints and complexities exist particularly within different countries, products values, lead time, a lack of knowledge on the condition of each transportation mode of the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME). At the time for those requirements can result in business limitation and restrictions. The results of research will lead to the design of an intelligent transportation system program that will not only illustrate solution for the trading organization in Asean countries but also provide variable costing and accurate transit time as management tools for users.

25th Anniversary of U.S. Intelligent Transportation Systems Program [ITS Research Lab

25th Anniversary of U.S. Intelligent Transportation Systems Program [ITS Research Lab

Intelligent Transportation Systems and Greenhouse Gas Reductions

The field of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) has witnessed significantly increased activity in recent years, with the application of modern control, communications, and information technology to vehicles, roadway infrastructure, and traffic information systems. The primary objectives of ITS have been focused primarily on improving safety and increasing mobility and associated transportation efficiency. In addition, it is now well known that ITS technology can be used to reduce transportation-related environmental impacts. These environmental impacts include pollutant emissions that lead to poor air quality, as well as energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Over the years, we have seen many ITS programs focusing on safety and mobility that end up also having significant environmental benefits. These benefits range widely due to a number of variables. However in recent years, a number of ITS research programs have emerged that are specifically designed to minimize the environmental impacts of transportation. In this manuscript, we briefly outline how the different areas of ITS can impact GHG emissions and then describe a number of recent ITS programs that are specifically aimed at reducing energy and environmental impacts. These environmental ITS programs typically show energy and emission reductions on the order of 5–15 %.

Environmentally Beneficial Intelligent Transportation Systems

Abstract Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) have been developed over the years as a means to solve a variety of transportation problems. The primary objectives of ITS have been focused primarily on improving safety and increasing transportation efficiency. However, ITS can also have significant environmental benefits. There has been long term concern regarding vehicle pollution and associated air quality. More recently, there is an increased concern with energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Many existing ITS programs have the potential to reduce energy consumption and GHG emissions; however, it is also possible to specifically design ITS programs that minimize environmental impacts of transportation. In this paper, we briefly outline different kinds of ITS programs and their potential environmental benefits. We then review several ITS research projects being carried out in Southern California that are specifically targeting reductions in energy consumption and GHG emissions.

PATH at 20—History and Major Milestones

The California partners for advanced transit and highways (PATH) program was founded in 1986, as the first research program in North America focused on the subject now known as intelligent transportation systems (ITS). This paper reviews the history of the founding of PATH and of the national ITS program in the U.S., providing perspective on the changes that have occurred during the past 20 years.

Intelligent Transportation Systems: What Do Publications and Patents Tell Us?

Intelligent transportation systems (ITS) have attracted much attention and have seen rapid growth since their first mention in the 1980s. As substantial efforts by both the public and private sectors have gone into the ITS field, tracking its progress and evaluating its development have become essential to transportation researchers, investors, and policy-makers. To this end, we first developed a comprehensive database of ITS publications and patents. Then we used time series analysis and content analysis on ITS-related publication and patent documents to understand general trends in ITS, the impact of federal ITS programs, the development of ITS across individual subfields, and clustering of ITS technologies. The results provide insights into academic research, commercially motivated innovation activities, and the status of ITS-related technologies.

What We Know Now That We Wish We Knew Then About Intelligent Transportation Systems: A Retrospective on the 1992 Strategic Plan

From September 1991 until June 1992, a core writing team worked on what was the first intelligent transportation systems (ITS) strategic plan in the United States. This plan was entitled "A Strategic Plan for IVHS [Intelligent Vehicle Highway Systems] in the United States." It defined the ITS program at a national scale in a way that has been characterized as seminal. The plan, by most accounts, served as the blueprint for the early development of ITS in the United States and as the basis for subsequent plans produced by ITS America, the federal government, various states, and a number of private-sector organizations. Various aspects of ITS are explored retrospectively, contrasting views from 11 years ago, when the strategic plan was produced, with the current reality. Areas discussed include advanced traveler information systems, advanced transportation management systems, reliability, getting the ITS program off the ground in the early 1990s, strategic use of information, automated network management, electronic toll collection, congestion pricing, architecture, commercial vehicle operations, advanced public transportation systems, and regions. ITS is compared with the Interstate system, and a discussion covers both the upcoming reauthorization of the Transportation Efficiency Act for the 21st Century and the knowledge that has been gained through this retrospective about ITS-related issues on that reauthorization.

Learning Systems for Predicting Experiential Travel Times in the Presence of Incidents: Insights and Lessons Learned

Implementation of the intelligent transportation systems program has resulted in a wealth of readily available data describing key transportation system parameters for many of the nation's roadways. However, the development of systems that can process the data to support effective decision making aimed at improving travel conditions has lagged behind the development of monitoring and data recording devices. A study investigated the feasibility of developing an artificial neural network (ANN) model to predict experiential travel time under transient traffic conditions, including accidents, by using readily available data from roadway sensors in real time. Computational experiments were performed to investigate the impact of several factors on the quality of the ANN's predictions: ( a) the time lag of the input data, ( b) the input variables, and ( c) the temporal resolution of the input variables. With the correct input data set and network parameters, the ANNs were able to predict reasonable values for experiential travel time. The study shows that the length of the time lag did not have a statistically significant effect on ANN performance, that speed appears to be the most influential input variable, and that varying the resolution of the input data produced similar errors for both higher and lower resolutions.

Breakeven Analysis for Statewide Intelligent Transportation System Project Identification and Assessment

The use of breakeven analysis as a tool to assess the benefits of intelligent transportation systems (ITS) at the system level in systemwide sketch planning is discussed. The breakeven analysis was developed on the basis of the SCRITS (SCReening for ITS) spreadsheet template and used data from Madison, Wisconsin, as a case study and provided considerable in sight into the magnitude of the potential benefits of different ITS programs. The analysis can help identify critical performance variables in the assessment of ITS benefits. Breakeven analysis coupled with sensitivity analysis can be used to identify and assess ITS projects for deployment in the ITS planning and programming process with limited data. It can be used to screen, prioritize, and select ITS projects among different ITS options. It can also be used to compare ITS projects in different geographic locations on the basis of different traffic data and breakeven points. The method is also useful in the identification of data needed for detailed ITS project assessments and evaluations. Such data should include before-and-after studies of ITS deployments as well as refined cost data and traffic flow estimates. The case study identified the breakeven points of several ITS deployment options, including ramp metering, traveler information systems, emergency response systems, and commercial vehicle operations under a variety of scenarios. These results can be used to identify and operate ITS projects so that they are likely to have the greatest payoff from their deployment.

MyBus: helping bus riders make informed decisions

The Smart Trek Model Deployment Initiative, a US Department of Transportation-funded intelligent transportation systems program in the Puget Sound region, has made great strides in integrating and disseminating traveler information. The initiative focuses on real time information to help travelers make informed decisions about their travel options. The Smart Trek project has brought about a variety of real time transit information applications. One of these is MyBus, which makes departure predictions and delivers traveler information to Web browsers and cell phones. MyBus aims to present to riders, in real time, the predicted departure times of buses at specific locations throughout a transit region. King County Metro, Seattle's transit agency, operates a large fleet. Up to 1200 vehicles are in service simultaneously, departing from over 1000 locations. MyBus predicts approximately 210000 weekday and 140000 weekend scheduled departure events. This is over a million departure predictions per week. MyBus has shown that predictions on this scale are feasible and manageable. Several technologies are central to the success of MyBus. A common format for the transit agency schedule and spatial data was crucial, letting us redeploy the Seattle pilot project with data from the Portland Tri-Met transit agency with minimal effort. The format we chose was a database schema based directly on the Transit Communications Interface Profiles standards.

Configuration Management in Transportation Management Systems: Evaluation of Need

Configuration management, a process developed to control change in complex information technology–based systems, has attracted an increasing amount of attention from the transportation engineering community. As the intelligent transportation systems program accelerates and transportation departments develop and operate increasingly complex transportation management systems, the need for configuration management grows. In this research effort the need for configuration management within transportation management systems is examined by exploring the foundations of configuration management, analyzing the key functions of transportation management, surveying transportation officials, and conducting a case study to examine the configuration management process used by the Georgia Department of Transportation.

Unjamming Traffic with Computers

This article discusses ways in which new computer simulation technology can help traffic engineers discover solutions to highway congestion. Specifically, a model of traffic scenarios called Transportation Analysis Simulation System (TRANSIMS), can be used to predict what the effects of building a bridge or adding a highway lane might be. The simulation also brings the scientific method to traffic planning; an experimental situation can be precisely re-created. Transportation planners are also learning from simulations by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Intelligent Transportation Systems Program. This system mathematically models behavior down to individual drivers habits--creating digital cars with a penchant for cutting off other cars, speeding, and showing traits seen often in Boston.

Developing a Market-Sensitive Intelligent Transportation Systems Educational Program

Results of research undertaken to evaluate the educational needs of the emerging field of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSs) are presented, and whether course offerings in academic programs meet these needs is ascertained. A survey was conducted to determine needs for ITS education among public- and private-sector entities and to assess the perception of the academic sector on the type and level of ITS education to be offered. The results indicate that academic programs are aware of the educational needs of the private and public sectors in ITS and have been reacting to those needs. A traditional civil engineering curriculum is inadequate to educate engineers in ITS, thus the ITS educational program must be inter-(or cross-) disciplinary. Focus should be on the areas that are not traditionally part of civil engineering education such as communications, traffic surveillance, systems analysis, and social and institutional issues. The results are intended primarily to provide a guideline for universities to develop the content of an ITS program by identifying the type of program structure as well as the topics to be covered in the courses. A case study is presented of how such a program was implemented at the graduate level at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

Intelligent Transportation Systems and Sustainable Communities: Findings of a National Study

The 1990s may well be remembered as the decade in which the idea of sustainability took hold in government, business, academia, and popular culture. In the United States, concerns with sustainability have entered policy discussions at various levels of government and sectors of the economy. The application of the sustainability paradigm to transportation has coincided with the advent of intelligent transportation systems (ITS). ITS—the application of advanced technologies (e.g., computers, communications, advanced sensors) to the surface transportation system—is a major new advanced transportation technology initiative that has become a highly touted prospect for improving the nation’s surface transportation system. ITS could have significant effects on the nation’s environment, economy, and society, and this has prompted widespread research and speculation on the range of potential ITS impacts. It has also brought ITS into the sustainability debate, and controversy exists over whether ITS will facilitate or undermine efforts to promote sustainable communities. A series of conceptual and applied exercises being done at the national level, as well as within Minnesota, on the implications of the sustainability paradigm on ITS are described. After the policy context surrounding ITS is introduced, key dimensions of the sustainability concept, particularly sustainable development and sustainable communities, are examined. The concept of sustainable communities is linked to transportation and ITS. In conclusion, findings on how ITS and other information technologies might promote sustainable communities are given, with special attention to the context of Minnesota’s ITS program.

The 220 MHz ITS spectral allocation: potential, pitfalls, and applications

In 1992 five narrowband frequency pairs in the 220-222 MHz band were allocated for intelligent transportation system (ITS) applications. These allocations are capable of supporting low-rate digital communications (4-30 kb/s). This article examines potential applications within the ITS program which can effectively use the low data rate that these allocations can provide. An overview of the narrowband wireless data communication challenges and the communication theoretic techniques likely to be employed on high-performance modems is provided. An experimental system was built, and preliminary field test results are presented which demonstrate that spectral efficiencies in excess of 3 b/s/Hz are achievable in practical modems.