U.S. Transportation Secretary Slater Announces Seven ITS Projects for National Evaluation

U.S. Transportation Secretary Rodney E. Slater today announced the selection of seven Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) projects in California, Florida, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Washington for national evaluation.

The selected sites are in the Silicon Valley near San Jose, Calif.; in Riverside, Calif.; in Seattle and Spokane, Wash.; in New Jersey; at the Delaware River Port Authority in Pennsylvania; and in Dade County, Fla.

The seven projects are part of the ITS integration program. The program's objective, which is specified in the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21), is to accelerate the integration and interoperability of ITS in metropolitan and rural areas.

"President Clinton and Vice President Gore are committed to responsible planning for projects that will improve the safety and efficiency of America's surface transportation networks and improve the quality of life for all Americans," Slater said. "These projects will confirm the value of integrating technologies as a means of connecting communities and show the way for others in metropolitan and rural communities to deploy integrated ITS infrastructure."

Funding for the seven evaluations is $1.5 million. The sites were selected from among 67 sites that receive funds from the ITS integration program. The seven were selected as the most promising for filling information gaps about the benefits and costs of some of the newer ITS technologies or for documenting newer, successful ways of doing business.

The evaluations are designed to increase the understanding of the benefits and impacts of deploying and integrating ITS infrastructure in metropolitan and rural settings. Independent consultants will perform all evaluations. Some evaluations will focus on obtaining "before-after" measurements of impacts, whereas others will focus on interviews that document lessons learned about ways communities can work together.

The projects to be evaluated consist of:

• Silicon Valley, Calif. Project to be evaluated: concept of operations for a project on the I-880/SR 17 corridor for Santa Clara County through the Silicon Valley. This corridor extends about 15 miles from Milpitas to Los Gatos. The Smart Corridor improvements project will support integration and information sharing among and across the intelligent transportation subsystems.

• Riverside, Calif. Project to be evaluated: demonstration program testing the application of intelligent transportation systems technologies for providers of public transportation. The project was developed by the Southern California Association of Governments, in association with the Riverside County Transportation Commission, the Riverside Transit Agency and SunLine Transit Agency. The goal of this demonstration is to test ITS system application on transit operations; to establish standards and criteria for open environment technology; to assess transit operational productivity increases from such applications; to evaluate cost effectiveness; and to identify the means, methods and actions required to implement and integrate ITS technologies into traditional fixed route transit, demand response transit and non-traditional transit services such as smart shuttles.

• Seattle. Projects to be evaluated: the I-5 Corridor multimodal traveler information system design and implementation; State Routes 2 and 97 Traveler Information Project; and ferry terminal traveler information improvements.

• Spokane. Project to be evaluated: traveler information system along SR 395 in Spokane, Stevens and Ferry Counties between Spokane and the Canadian border. This goal of this project is to create a comprehensive and integrated roadway traveler information system that will communicate to the public and to road maintenance crews information concerning current weather conditions, roads surface conditions, border crossings, flooding, slides and any other items necessary to assist roadway users in making informed travel decisions.

• New Jersey. Project to be evaluated: TRANSMIT. TRANSMIT is TRANSCOM's system for managing incidents and traffic. TRANSCOM is a coalition of 15 transportation agencies in the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut region. It provides a cooperative, coordinated approach to regional transportation management.

• Delaware River Port Authority (DRPA), Pennsylvania. Project to be evaluated: SmartBridges. Smartbridges is a group of technology enhancement projects that include traffic signal control for DRPA bridges, management of traffic flow, incident response and management, and electronic toll collection as well as safety enhancements and regional traveler information for several modes of transportation. DRPA bridges include the Betsy Ross, Benjamin Franklin, Walt Whitman and Commodore Barry bridges.

• Dade County. Project to be evaluated: Sunguide. Sunguide is a regional (Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach Counties) initiative using Advanced Traveler Information System to help reduce congestion.

The U.S. Department of Transportation's ITS program was reauthorized in TEA-21, which was signed into law by President Clinton in 1998. ITS combines information and communications technologies to manage surface transportation networks and improve operational efficiency and safety.