1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND

            Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) provide and use information about transportation conditions to improve system performance in such areas as safety, mobility, efficiency and environmental impacts. Typically, ITS generates massive amounts of data about the state of travel that are used primarily by transportation authorities to effectively operate and manage their transportation systems, and by private individuals and industry to manage trips. These primary uses provide short-term, real-time information regarding the transportation systems’ current conditions and driver and passenger choices.

            The increasing deployment of ITS and the amount and variety of ITS-generated data throughout the nation also offer great potential for longer-term transportation planning. Often, ITS-generated data and information might be similar or better than that traditionally used in transportation planning, operations, administration, and research. Some types of ITS-generated data may have no traditional counterparts but offer the potential for new and extended applications in these longer-term planning areas. Archived ITS-generated data can provide a valuable resource for such longer-term uses. Therefore, the Archived Data User Service (ADUS) was incorporated into the National ITS Architecture in September 1999 to help realize the potential usefulness of ITS data.

            A U.S. Department of Transportation multi-agency, 5-year ITS Data Archiving Program Plan was developed based upon the vision of “improving transportation decisions through the archiving and sharing of ITS generated data.” The plan includes program elements that need to be accomplished to meet the plan’s goals and objectives. Initial program elements of the plan (Wave I) include an “ADUS State of the Practice and Legacy Systems Review,” and a “Study of Innovative Uses of ADUS” which are intended to cover the applications of ITS-generated data to various subject areas. These subject areas are: (1) roadway/traffic, (2) transit, (3) safety, (4) freight, commercial vehicle operations, and rail, (5) rural/statewide, and (6) metropolitan planning processes.

            Many ADUS applications are now ongoing, or in the process of being implemented. Some of these systems for archiving traffic and highway monitoring data have been described in a report prepared by the Texas Transportation Institute^1.1. However, archiving and using ITS data in highway safety have not been systematically documented.

1.2 PROJECT OBJECTIVES

            A broad spectrum of stakeholders could benefit from ITS-generated data to meet their data needs in planning, operations and maintenance, administration, training, modeling, simulations, and development of control strategies. In the context of ADUS, the term “ITS-generated data” refers to those data generated by ITS that are primarily used “in managing system operations and providing information on system conditions and choices to the public.^1.2” Specifically, ADUS refers to data generated from any one of the nine components that make up the ITS infrastructure: (1) freeway management, (2) incident management, (3) arterial management, (4) electronic fare payment, (5) electronic toll collection, (6) transit management, (7) highway-rail intersections, (8) emergency management, and (9) regional multimodal traveler information.

            The overall objectives of this project are to provide information and reports that can:

            1.   Provide awareness and education for associated ITS and non-ITS related partners, users, and customers regarding real and potential improvements in transportation decisions through:

• the use of archived ITS-generated data,

• the integration of ITS-generated and non-ITS data and data systems, and

• the sharing of archived ITS-generated data with other potential users.

            2.   Be used to develop future Technical and Institutional Synthesis Studies outlined in Wave II of the ITS Data Archiving Five-Year Program Description^1.3.

In particular, this project assesses the state-of-the-practice, identifies technological and institutional barriers and opportunities, and provides real-world examples of existing practices where ITS-generated data are archived and used for planning purposes. The assessments and analysis will be centered on four major ADUS applications: Operations and Maintenance, Planning, Highway Safety, and Transit.

1.3 REPORT ORGANIZATION

            The next chapter discusses the general barriers to, and benefits of, ADUS. Chapter 3 describes the major information sources and methods used to conduct the state-of-the-practice reviews and to formulate ADUS opportunities. One requirement of this report is that the discussions on each of the four applications need to stand-alone. Hence, separate chapters are devoted to specific applications such as Chapter 4 on Operations and Maintenance, Chapter 5 on Planning, etc. Each chapter includes a review of the state-of-the-practice, a number of case studies, discussions on barriers to ADUS use and solutions to overcome the barriers, and an account of the innovative uses of, and opportunities for ITS-generated data. Discussion that is pertinent to more than one application is repeated in the appropriate chapters. For example, archiving and using ITS-generated traffic volume data benefit not only the Planning application but also the Operations and Maintenance application, and the Safety application. Therefore, the discussion on archiving and using ITS-generated traffic data is repeated in the respective chapters. Recommendations on future research activities conclude the report.

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