*STARNET

Stakeholders Cooperation Plan

 

 

Version 1.0       

 

June 19, 2006

 

 

 

 

Prepared for the Sacramento Area Council of Governments

and associated agencies in the Sacramento region

 

by Siemens ITS

 

 

SACOG logo

 

 

 

SIEMENS logo


Document History

 

 

Document Description

Date

Version Number

First draft release of Stakeholders Cooperation Plan for review

May 2, 2006

0.1

Revised per comments at May meeting of ITS Partnership.

June 19, 2006

1.0

 

 

 

 


Table of Contents

1      Introduction. 1

2      STARNET Stakeholders. 2

3      Sacramento Region ITS Partnership. 2

3.1       Partnership Members and Participation. 3

3.2       Partnership Meetings. 3

3.3       STARNET Technical Advisory Committee. 4

4      STARNET Decision Making and Guiding Principles. 5

5      Coordination of Operations. 6

6      STARNET Information Sharing. 7

7      Formal Agreements. 7

 

 


1         Introduction

The Sacramento Transportation Area Network, or STARNET, is an information exchange network and operations coordination framework that will be used by the operators of transportation facilities and emergency responders in the Sacramento region of California.  It will enable the real-time sharing of data and live video, and development of joint procedures, pertaining to the operation of roadways and public transit and related public safety activities. 

 

STARNET will enhance the effectiveness of real-time transportation management and emergency response in the following ways.

 

·         Provide procedures for enhanced coordination of activities between agencies.

 

·         Provide additional information, including live video from roadside cameras, needed for operations personnel and emergency responders to make faster and better decisions.

 

·         Provide information exchange, a map-based integrated view of data from all agencies, and joint procedures needed for agencies to better coordinate their activities.

 

·         Provide more comprehensive, more accurate, and more timely information to the public concerning the current status of transportation facilities and incidents. 

 

·         Provide the data exchange needed between computer systems to enable automated coordination of traffic signal timings across jurisdictional boundaries even when using traffic responsive pattern selection.

 

·         Enable agencies to more easily share resources (equipment, software, communications links, and personnel) thus reducing costs and freeing funds for other enhancements.

 

·         Enable automated collection of compatible data from all agencies for use in regional modeling and performance evaluation.

 

The Stakeholders Cooperation Plan identifies the procedures and documents to be used to coordinate the activities of stakeholders in the implementation, operation, and maintenance of STARNET.  It is used to guide development of agency policies and procedures and answer questions pertaining to how stakeholders will provide input to the needs and requirements of STARNET; how decision making will be handled (e.g., voting or consensus); how procedures will be coordinated; and how stakeholders will share documents and other information related to STARNET.

2         STARNET Stakeholders

The real stakeholders in STARNET are the members of the public that use the region’s transportation system.  Acting as their proxies, are the public agencies that build and operate the region’s transportation facilities – especially the roads, bus fleets, and light rail transit lines – or provide emergency response services and need to interact with those operating the transportation facilities.  These agencies act on behalf of the public, providing the planning, construction, operation, and maintenance resources needed to keep the transportation facilities safe and efficient, and providing emergency response services. 

 

Below is the list of currently identified STARNET stakeholders.  This list might and most likely will expand as more public agencies or private companies are added that are involved with transportation management or emergency response in the Sacramento region.

 

STARNET Stakeholders:

·         California Highway Patrol

·         Caltrans – District 3

·         City of Citrus Heights

·         City of Elk Grove

·         City of Folsom

·         City of Rancho Cordova

·         City of Rocklin

·         City of Roseville

·         City of Sacramento

·         City of West Sacramento

·         El Dorado County Transportation Commission

·         El Dorado County Department of Transportation

·         Federal Highway Administration

·         Paratransit, Inc.

·         Placer County Transportation Planning Agency

·         Sacramento Area Council of Governments

·         Sacramento County

·         Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District

·         Sacramento Regional Fire/EMS Communication Center

·         Sacramento Regional Transit District

·         Yolo County Transportation District

 

3         Sacramento Region ITS Partnership

The Sacramento Region ITS Partnership is an advisory body made up of transportation management agencies responsible for significant public transportation facilities in the Sacramento region.  The Partnership meets on a regular basis and identifies issues and opportunities in deploying Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) in the Sacramento region.  The Sacramento Region ITS Partnership was formed to serve as an advisory group to the SACOG Board on ITS matters and to bring the discussion on ITS integration to a regional level.  Through the work of the ITS Partnership, a number of studies have been undertaken that lay the groundwork for a regionally integrated ITS system, project deployment, and use of federal funds.

 

The Sacramento Region ITS Partnership provides a ready-made forum for STARNET stakeholders to discuss and coordinate STARNET issues.  Partnership meetings include STARNET items on the agenda.  The Partnership is an advisory body only.  All final decisions regarding agency-specific components of STARNET rest with the individual agencies. 

3.1      Partnership Members and Participation

The Sacramento Region ITS Partnership is open to all agencies in the region that want to participate.  Currently, all active members of the ITS Partnership are also STARNET stakeholders.  The following list shows the active members of the ITS Partnership as of March 2006:

·         California Highway Patrol

·         Caltrans – District 3

·         City of Citrus Heights

·         City of Elk Grove

·         City of Folsom

·         City of Rancho Cordova

·         City of Roseville

·         City of Sacramento

·         City of West Sacramento

·         Federal Highway Administration

·         Sacramento Area Council of Governments

·         Sacramento County

·         Sacramento Regional Transit District

·         Yolo County Transportation District

·         El Dorado County Transportation Commission

·         Placer County Transportation Planning Agency

 

ITS Partnership meetings are open and any interested parties can attend.  Recent meetings focusing on the STARNET Concept of Operation attracted representatives of several public safety and emergency response agencies, interested in the opportunities presented by STARNET for increased coordination and information sharing between transportation operations and emergency response personnel.

 

3.2      Partnership Meetings

The Sacramento Region ITS Partnership is chaired by the SACOG ITS Coordinator, David Shabazian.  He, or his designee, solicits agenda items, prepares the agenda, schedules meetings, arranges a meeting venue, arranges presentations pertaining to agenda items, chairs the meeting, records meeting minutes, and follows up on action items.  Meetings are held on an as-needed basis, and typically average one meeting every six weeks or so.

 

Once STARNET deployment begins, each ITS Partnership meeting’s agenda will routinely include a STARNET Status Report.  Once STARNET is operational, STARNET Annual Performance Review will be included on the agency for at least one meeting each year.  Other STARNET items will be added to Partnership meeting agendas as needed, including configuration change proposals (see STARNET Configuration Management Plan).

3.3      STARNET Technical Advisory Committee

STARNET involves extensive use of technology and joint procedures that require more in-depth stakeholder discussion than can be provided at ITS Partnership meetings.  Therefore, the ITS Partnership maintains a Technical Advisory Committee to conduct such in-depth discussions and report findings (recommendations) to the ITS Partnership.  The Technical Advisory Committee is open to all interested stakeholders and meets as often as needed.  The ITS Partnership appoints a chair person who is responsible for organizing and conducting meetings and reporting findings.  The chair person can delegate these tasks to others as appropriate.  The Technical Advisory Committee may also create subcommittees as needed.

 

The following are examples of issues addressed by the Technical Advisory Committee.

 

·         Detailed review and discussion of the STARNET System Requirements document.

 

·         Development and refinement of joint operating and maintenance procedures.

 

·         Review and discussion of proposed changes by any agency that may impact others.

 

·         Development and refinement of ideas for STARNET system enhancements.

 

·         Detailed review and discussion of STARNET performance data.

 

An important element of STARNET are the joint operating procedures used to make best use of the video and data sharing capabilities of the technology side of STARNET, and to generally enhance the integration and coordination of activities between the involved agencies.  The Technical Advisory Committee spends considerable time on developing, reviewing, and continually refining these procedures.  As with all aspects of STARNET, there is no formal requirement for agencies to implement these procedures.  They are developed jointly in a spirit of mutually beneficial cooperation, with the ultimate goal of collectively improving transportation and emergency management for the region’s residents.  Regular reviews of data collected on actual operation experiences and performance statistics are used to evaluate progress in this regard.

 

4         STARNET Decision Making and Guiding Principles

Decision making with regard to STARNET issues will be in accordance with the Sacramento Region ITS Partnership Memorandum of Understanding for Participation in the Regional ITS Deployment Strategy.  This MOU calls for voting only for issues dealing with use of shared regional funds.  All other decisions are made on a consensus basis, and failing that, independently by the agencies involved.

 

Apart from the regional funding issues addressed in the memorandum of understanding, the ITS Partnership is intended to only provide a forum for discussion and consensus building aimed at enhancing coordination and cooperation between STARNET participants, and ensuring STARNET participants are aware of the interests of, and potential impacts on, other stakeholders before making a decision or taking an action (or lack there of) that can affect others.

 

All stakeholders are urged to consider the following attributes of STARNET in making decisions concerning STARNET. 

 

·         STARNET is most effective when all agencies managing significant transportation facilities participate.

 

·         STARNET is effective only if participating agencies diligently use and maintain its information sharing capabilities and implement the regional transportation management coordination procedures it develops.

 

·         STARNET is a shared resource, and the actions or inactions of one agency may have serious negative impacts on others, including cessation of information flow from one or more other agencies, uncoordinated activities, and deterioration of services available to the public.

 

·         STARNET, in addition to providing information valuable to transportation operations and emergency response personnel, provides valuable information to the public via the region’s travel information systems.

 

Consideration of these attributes suggests the following guiding principles for agencies’ actions relative to STARNET. 

 

1.      Actively participate in the Sacramento Region ITS Partnership and its committees and in joint reviews and discussion of STARNET, to cooperatively implement STARNET initially and thereafter to continually improve the effectiveness of STARNET.

 

2.      Strive to gain and maintain the policy-level support needed within your agency to ensure funding, provision, use, and maintenance of STARNET components, capabilities, and procedures relevant to your agency.

 

3.      Use STARNET to make data, incident information, and video available to other agencies and systems, and to the public, to the maximum extent feasible.

 

4.      Use STARNET to obtain useful data, incident information, and video from other agencies and systems to enhance cooperative real-time transportation and incident management.

 

5.      Make the use and maintenance of STARNET and its joint operation procedures, an integral part of day-to-day procedures and training programs.

 

6.      Prior to making any change (e.g., in policies or operation procedures, or in the configuration or capabilities of hardware, software, or communications facilities) that could affect other STARNET participants, discuss such proposed changes with other STARNET participants, and cooperatively work to avoid or minimize any deleterious impacts (see STARNET Configuration Management Plan).

 .

5          Coordination of Operations

As documented in the STARNET Concept of Operations and in the STARNET Operations and Maintenance Plan, the involved agencies cooperatively agree on procedures needed to coordinate their transportation management activities, and to coordinate their configuration and maintenance of STARNET facilities.   These procedures aimed at regional coordination are incorporated in each agency’s operation and maintenance procedures.

 

The following are examples of how an agency’s operation and maintenance procedures might be modified to accommodate STARNET.

 

·         Procedures previously involving making telephone calls to other agencies for information exchange are modified to use STARNET instead.

 

·         Agencies modify procedures to cover use of the regional incident tacking system provided by STARNET, which is used to inform other agencies of pertinent incident information.

 

·         Agencies using STARNET to view live video from other agencies’ closed circuit television cameras add procedures for avoiding contention for simultaneous camera control between remote users. 

 

·         Agencies add procedures for determining what data to make available to which other agencies and to the regional travel information system.

 

·         Agencies add procedures for using data, incident information, and video from other agencies.

 

·         Agencies add procedures for coordinating more activities with other agencies than was previously feasible.

 

·         Agencies add maintenance procedures for STARNET components and documentation. 

 

STARNET does not involve changes to current agency responsibilities and authority, and should involve only marginal, if any, increase in the workload of agency personnel.  Instead, STARNET is intended to facilitate coordination within the current institutional and procedural framework.

 

6         STARNET Information Sharing

SACOG maintains a web site used by stakeholders to exchange information about STARNET.  The web site address is www._________ .  This web site requires a password for access.  It is for the exclusive use of STARNET stakeholders.  Users should not divulge passwords to others nor put links to the site from other web sites.  Passwords are issued by the ITS Coordinator at SACOG or his designee. 

 

The web site provides an area to post documents of shared interest, a bulletin board for discussion of issues, a list of stakeholder names and e-mail addresses, notices of upcoming meetings and meeting agendas, and similar materials.  Draft documents are posted there for comment. 

 

A separate STARNET web page with information for the public is available via links from the SACOG home page.  Active and final versions of all major documents are available there. 

 

The systems engineering process used during implementation and maintenance of STARNET provides for thorough documentation of all stages and aspects of STARNET, as explained in the STARNET Systems Engineering Management Plan.  Documentation is continually updated as described in the STARNET Documentation Plan and the STARNET Configuration Management Plan.

 

7         Formal Agreements

The Sacramento Region ITS Partnership Memorandum of Understanding for Participation in the Regional ITS Deployment Strategy, although not a binding agreement, provides a framework for cooperation between key STARNET stakeholders, especially for sharing of regional funds. 

 

As STARNET is implemented and becomes operational, the level of cooperation needed between the participating agencies will increase.  For this reason, participants will negotiate a second Memorandum of Understanding specifically for the operation and maintenance of STARNET.  Material covered in this MOU will include the guiding principles discussed above, and it will reference the STARNET Operation and Maintenance Plan.

 

As STARNET is implemented and expanded, if a stakeholder contributes some element or infrastructure for use in the STARNET system, that stakeholder should not remove the element deliberately or by neglect, without reasonable notice to the Regional ITS Partnership Committee.  For this reason, if a new stakeholder participates and provides an element or infrastructure that STARNET is dependent on, then that agency should sign the STARNET Operations and Maintenance Memorandum of Understanding and ensure the element/infrastructure is not removed or neglected.

 

Some STARNET stakeholders may, from time to time, find a need to enter into a formal agreement (beyond the MOU) for some aspect of STARNET implementation, operation, maintenance, or upgrade.  Such an agreement may be needed in the future, for example, for local cost sharing, or if agency A wishes to enlist the resources of agency B to provide communications facilities, hardware, software, or operation or maintenance services which otherwise would be the responsibility of agency A.  Such agreements will be the responsibility of the involved agencies and implemented only if and when needed. 

 

 

 

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