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2.0 Benefits, Costs, and Lessons Learned of the Intelligent Infrastructure

Intelligent Infrastructure

Technology Application Areas

Figure 2.0

Classification Scheme for the Intelligent Infrastructure

The intelligent infrastructure consists of a wide variety of applications intended to improve the safety and mobility of the traveling public, while enabling organizations responsible for providing transportation facilities and services to do so more efficiently. Sections 2.1 to 2.13 of this report will discuss specific applications within the 13 technology application areas that make up the intelligent infrastructure listed in Figure 2.0. ITS can be deployed to improve the operation of both the highway and public transportation systems. Several applications can support critical transportation functions during emergency situations. Other applications facilitate convenient payment for highway tolls and transit fares. Traveler information programs synthesize information collected by ITS and disseminate it to travelers for their benefit in making travel decisions. Information management programs help transportation organizations manage and analyze the flow of data from deployed ITS and use it to improve transportation planning and operations. Crash prevention and safety applications provide a variety of countermeasures, often location-specific, to address transportation safety concerns. Road weather management implementations improve the ability of the highway transportation system to react to adverse weather conditions. Several applications can improve the daily operation and continuing maintenance of the highway system. ITS for commercial vehicle operations (ITS/CVO) and intermodal freight applications help facilitate the smooth and safe flow of freight throughout the country and at our borders.

Several metropolitan areas are implementing ITS services that are very highly integrated. Integration is accomplished by creating links between components, systems, services, or technology application areas. These links are used to share operational information and allow better use of infrastructure across jurisdictional boundaries. One example is sharing arterial traffic condition information originating from a traffic signal system with a freeway management system, allowing the freeway management system to provide expected travel times on alternate routes during congested periods. There are numerous other ways of integrating various implementations of ITS to achieve benefits greater than those of the individual system. The online Benefits Database contains a section presenting the evaluation reports that discuss integrated systems.

For a more complete understanding of the integration of ITS components, visit the ITS Technology Overview Web Site available through the ITS JPO website (www.its.dot.gov, click "ITS Overview", and follow the link to the ITS Technology Overview Web Site). The ITS Technology Overview Web Site provides a description of the types of information that can be shared between ITS applications to enable integrated operation.

Several documents have also been published which discuss the integration of ITS applications:

These documents are electronically available on the ITS Electronic Document Library at www.its.dot.gov/library.htm.

The USDOT has been actively tracking the deployment of ITS applications within the United States since 1997. In order to track progress toward fulfillment of deployment goals established by Secretary of the DOT in 1996, the USDOT ITS JPO developed the metropolitan ITS deployment tracking methodology. This methodology tracks deployment of many of the infrastructure-based ITS applications discussed in this chapter. Information is gathered through a set of surveys distributed to the state and local agencies involved with the various infrastructure components (such as arterial management, freeway management, and transit management systems). The surveys gather information on the extent of deployment of the infrastructure and on the extent of integration between the agencies that operate the infrastructure. Deployment is measured using a set of indicators tied to the major functions of each component. Integration is measured by assessing the extent to which agencies share information and cooperate in operations based on a set of defined links between the infrastructure components.[36]

Information collected during the ongoing series of surveys is available at the deployment tracking website, www.itsdeployment.its.dot.gov. This website contains updated information on the deployment of many infrastructure-based ITS applications discussed in this chapter.

ITS Lesson Samples

A sample of six general ITS lessons is presented in this section. Often, an ITS lesson depicts a combination of experiences encompassing one or more of the ITS application areas (e.g., arterial management, freeway management) as well as nontechnical areas (e.g., human resource, legal issue). Broadly, these general lessons are classified in the following topic areas—management and partnerships; planning; design and deployment; procurement; technical integration; operations and maintenance; legal issues; and human resources. The lessons presented below are in a summary format, intended to be a prelude to the efforts currently under way by the ITS JPO to develop a publicly accessible ITS Lessons Learned Database. The database is expected to include lessons learned in all major ITS categories previously identified in Table 1.3.1.

1. A Delaware experience in ITS planning[37]

Lesson Learned—Include ITS in long-range plans.


Drawing of people in a meeting

"Winning buy-in as part of the department's long-range plans is often easier in the long run than winning ongoing battles for approval for each project," noted a 2004 evaluation of the Delaware Department of Transportation's (DelDOT) statewide ITS program, DelTrac.

DelTrac was an integral part of the 2002 Statewide Long-Range Transportation Plan. Because the long-range plans at DelDOT called for radio broadcast of traveler information, DelDOT was able to take advantage of the available radio license to develop its traveler information services when a primary radio license became available in 2000, well before the DelTrac ITS infrastructure was actually in place to provide real-time traffic information.

The DelTrac evaluation provided a number of suggestions for inclusion of ITS in the department's long-range plan:

2. A Utah experience in technical integration[30]

Lesson Learned—Execute thorough configuration management from the start of an ITS project.


Drawing of the letters I T S in a jigsaw puzzle

The Utah Department of Transportation's (UDOT) Salt Lake City ITS deployment, known as CommuterLink, is among the most comprehensive ITS operations in the nation. All ITS enabled functions and services are integrated, controlled, and monitored at the Traffic Operations Center (TOC).

In 2002, UDOT executed a series of case study evaluations that assessed the components of the CommuterLink deployment. Highlights of the lessons learned regarding technical integration of systems included:

Maintaining accurate information about the current configuration was a challenge during the CommuterLink deployment. On a frequent basis, the contractor would add components and integrate new capabilities to the traffic operations center. There were also frequent changes in the communications channels as new backbone communications came online. A configuration management approach should have been in place from the start that identified the naming conventions, interfaces, and required protocols.

3. National experience in design and deployment with ITS standards[38]

Lesson Learned—Call out specific standards from the NTCIP group when procuring standards-based DMS.


Drawing of a person wearing a hardhat and carrying a t-square

The lessons cited were drawn from the experience of nine agencies that were among the first to use Dynamic Message Sign (DMS) built to the National Transportation Communications for ITS Protocol (NTCIP) specification. NTCIP is a group of ITS standards. ITS standards allow systems to talk to one another by supporting standard information exchange. Standards are designed to promote interchangeability and interoperability. DMS was one of the first systems to use elements of NTCIP and prove that the standard works.

The following are highlights of the lessons that past implementers offer on NTCIP-based DMS:

It is also reported that the lowest price is not always the best solution, and that incorporating standards into ITS design and deployment is an investment in the future.

4. A lesson in integrated ITS transit management and partnerships[39]

Lesson Learned—Account for benefits to each stakeholder to ensure successful implementation of integrated ITS.


Drawing of hands shaking in front of a bar graph

An independent cross-cutting study looked into six ITS transit field operational tests to learn what made them successful or not. These field tests included: SmarTrip© (Washington, D.C.), SmartCard (Chicago, IL), Translink (San Francisco Bay Area, CA), Go Ventura (Ventura County, CA), Automated Dispatching (Santa Clara, CA), and Smart Shuttle (San Gabriel Valley, CA). The study included several lessons on the implementation of integrated ITS transit involving multiple organizations:

More details of these and additional lessons will be presented in a website planned to be available publicly in the summer of 2005.

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