A Look Back at the Year in ITS

Contractors from France, Italy and Malaysia, among others, discussed the construction of a highway to connect the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo to the town of Zenica. The proposed 46-mile (74-km) highway forms part of the scheduled Trans-European highway linking the Balkan country with its northern neighbors.

The Tennessee Department of Transportation announced plans to implement a host of ITS applications on the I-65 corridor, located north of Nashville.

Canadian Transport Minister David Collenette announced federal funding of over $7 million (CAD) for ITS in Canada. The funding was provided to the ITS Society of Canada, the University of Toronto and the provinces and territories.

The Japan Highway Public Corp. of Nihon Doro Kodan reported that their previous year’s toll revenue reached $18.3 billion (US). According to Federal Highway Administration statistics, total toll collection in the U.S. for the same year was $5.2 billion.

The Construction Ministry of Tokyo asked for a public works-related budget of 6,650 billion yen for fiscal 2000. Spending included the creation of 350 automated toll stations on expressways as part of the country’s ITS program.

ITS America introduced the Traffic Data Forum to promote the development of real-time traffic information services within the U.S.

Motorola Inc. announced a next-generation smart card for use in transit applications. Higher security based on DSE algorithm, faster transaction speeds, a 70% increase in reading distance, multi-applications capabilities and ISO standards compatibility are featured in the smart card.

AIRTIS, the traveler information division of TransCore, unveiled their traffic and weather website (www.currenttraffic.com) offering free traffic incident and congestion reports in addition to current local weather across the U.S.

According to an online survey from E-valuations, 94% of respondents reported they wanted to receive real-time, location-specific Internet applications in their automobiles.

Per the survey, 75% expressed interest in wireless turn-by-turn driving instructions; 74% wanted real-time speed trap warnings; 72% wanted live, localized traffic reports; 70% are interested in vehicle diagnostics info; 61% wanted wireless transmissions of estimated repair costs and maintenance schedules; and 6% did not want any sort of wireless Internet services in their car. Additionally, 78% wanted e-mail services, while only 7% said that e-mail was the only feature they preferred.

Voice-activated telematics systems offering advanced security features and information access were announced as standard equipment on select Lincoln luxury vehicles and as an option on the Ford Focus in Europe.

The shared-car concept for non-ownership autos expanded when California’s Bay Area Rapid Transit Board of Directors authorized a demonstration of a transit rental car service. Users share a station car each day for convenient, less expensive access between the transit station, home and work.

As part of the $9.3 billion (US) Livable Communities budget proposal for FY 2001, U.S. Vice President Al Gore announced that the Administration pursued $211 million for new transit system work in 12 urban regions.

The U.S. DOT sought to enter major transit grant agreements with Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Memphis, Minneapolis-St. Paul, northern Illinois, northern New Jersey, Pittsburgh, Portland, Ore., Salt Lake City, Seattle and Washington, D.C.

At an all-members meeting in Brussels, the MOST Cooperation announced its goal to establish the MOST multimedia car networking system as a global standard. The first MOST equipped cars are expected to be on the market in early 2001.

ASF, the South of France Motorways company, issued a contract to Ascom Toll Collection and Parking Systems for the replacement of 250 tollbooths. Rhône Valley was slated to receive 210 booths, with the remaining 40 for new toll plazas.

The University of Toronto’s Department of Civil Engineering was awarded an additional $150,000 (CAD) toward the establishment of an ITS testbed in order to help improve the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of public transit in Toronto.

DaimlerChrysler invested $100 million (US) in satellite broadcaster Sirius Satellite Radio as a step to providing nationwide telematics services to their customers.

The Federal Highway Administration announced a six-year study to examine the way state and local transportation management centers gather, synthesize and disseminate traffic information.

Representatives for Korea’s Inchon International Airport Expressway announced that the roadway is to host a variety of ITS applications when opened at the end of 2000. In addition to an ETC system, the road features real-time traffic and weather information and its own traffic control center.

Singapore Bus Services Ltd. benefited from an agreement between Unity Wireless Integration Corp., Orbital’s Transportation Management Systems Division and Sanyo Trading Co. as the three agreed to provide SBS with the world’s largest transit management system.

SBS’s automatic vehicle management system uses GPS to track 2,700 buses in order to improve services, schedule adherence and bus scheduling.

National Work-Zone Safety Awareness Week, a collaboration between the Federal Highway Administration, American Association of State Highway & Transportation Officials and American Traffic Safety Services Association, was recognized in the U.S. as a measure to increase the public’s awareness of fatalities that occur in work zones.

A U.S. federal audit released on Boston’s Central Artery/Tunnel project led to the firing of its leader, Massachusetts’s Turnpike Authority Chairman James Kerasiotes. He was dismissed after the audit upped the project’s price tag to $13.6 billion (US), approximately $1.4 billion above the $12.2 billion bottom line Gov. Paul Cellucci and the state legislature had been striving to meet.

Massachusetts Secretary of Administration and Finance Andrew Natsios was named Kerasiotes’ replacement.

A paper-thin RFID tag which requires no battery, reads vehicles at high speeds and costs under $10 (US) was released by Amtech Systems (now known as TransCore).

Queensland Motorways Ltd. announced the expansion of their ETC systems to two additional Australian roads.

A car sharing program in Seattle, known as Flexcar, was introduced as a solution to the demand on parking and congestion. Rather than owning a car and adding to the city’s congested neighborhoods, Flexcar members pay to use a car only when they need it.

Opening of the PrePass system at Colorado’s Ft. Collins weigh stations completed the nation’s first electronic preclearance corridor. All seven weigh stations on I-25 from the Mexican border through New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming, where the corridor joins I-90, are now equipped.

In Japan, a government laboratory, Oki Electric Industry Co., and two other firms successfully tested a communications link between a satellite and a moving vehicle.

In recognition of their accomplishments in the previous year, the California Alliance for Advanced Transportation Systems was presented with the "Best State Chapter Award" by ITS America.

A new traffic management system was announced by the Japan National Police Agency, in cooperation with a number of U.S. companies, to manage the flow of emergency vehicles in the streets of Japan. Priority management and road guidance for emergency vehicles, and a warning system for surrounding traffic make up the basis of the system.

ITS France made its debut with George Dobias, the director of the Syndicat des Transports Parisiens, as president. The group received support from ERTICO and members, which include Tele Atlas and 3M France.

The Consumer Electronics Association and the Society of Automotive Engineers collaborated and agreed to develop vehicle standards for the ITS Data Bus. The two formed steering committees to establish goals for the development of standards and assign responsibilities to each organization.

Plans for a traffic monitoring system for their 7,440-mile (12,000-km) national road network were announced by the Greek Ministry of Environment, Planning and Public Works.

An international partnership between CUE Corp., Tegaron of Germany and MediaMobile of France led to the formation of the International Traffic Data Alliance, which distributes real-time, high-quality traffic information in the RDS/TMC format over FM radio stations in Germany, France, England, the U.S. and Canada.

ITS South Africa held their first ITS Symposium and Exhibition in Midrand, South Africa.

Technology evolved as Motorola released Bluetooth-enabled products. A Bluetooth car kit, consisting of an integrated module that offers cordless operation, has the ability to seamlessly hand off calls from the hands-free auto environment to the handset outside the vehicle. Vehicle functions such as door unlock and on-board vehicle diagnostic systems are other features.

VERTIS hosted the 4th Asia-Pacific Seminar at the Beijing International Conference Center. The event had over 700 attendees representing 16 countries in addition to 80 exhibitors. Seoul Korea was announced as host of the 5th Asia-Pacific Seminar in 2002.

ITS Canada completed their Asian trade mission with stops at the 4th Asia-Pacific ITS Seminar in Beijing as well as Hong Kong. The goal of the trip was to develop international recognition of Canadian-based technology and services available to the world ITS marketplace.

Honda and Onstar agreed to offer Onstar mobile communications services in Honda and Acura vehicles beginning with the 2002 Acura RL luxury sedan sold in the U.S.

West Virginia became the 17th state in the U.S. to implement HELP Inc.’s PrePass system.

The Minnesota Department of Transportation officially opened the Duluth Transportation Operations Center as part of an advanced traffic management system providing real-time information to travelers and transportation officials for the city of Duluth.

A new, 34.7-mile (56-km) toll road which connects the Polish cities of Krakow and Katowice opened to drivers. Fee for using the toll road: $2 (US) for cars and $5 for trucks.

Chicagoland commuters became the first in the U.S. to be able to travel throughout the city and suburbs using a fully operational, intermodal, multi-agency contactless smart card. As part of the Chicago Transit Authority’s existing $106 million (US) fare card contract, the smart cards are used on more than 1,800 buses and at 143 rail stations.

Canadian Transport Minister David Collenette announced that the Canadian government has committed $3 million (CAD) to 19 cost-shared projects under Transport Canada’s ITS Deployment and Integration plan.

Russia and India agreed to build a new transport corridor that would link the two countries via Iran. The Indian government stated that the multimodal corridor will extend from India via sea to Iran, via rail to the Caspian Sea and then to Russia.

Japan’s Ministry of Transport announced that it would introduce a nationwide traffic control system in early 2001. The system, which incorporates road tolls and measures to ban privately owned vehicles from certain areas, is being introduced to relieve congestion and environmental damage.

Image Sensing Systems Inc. announced an agreement with its Middle East partner, Bahrain Advanced Technology Co., to deliver 5,000 units of Wireless Technology Inc.’s equipment over the next year.

The Land Transport Authority of Malaysia began their bus pilot test on selected bus services. Frequent users of certain bus services were invited to be Super Riders who can travel on rail and bus services using an exclusive contactless smart card.

The test program helps evaluate the performance of the smart cards and their readers, which will be offered to the general public before 2002.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Lab teamed with PriceWaterhouseCoopers to take TRANSIMS, a traffic simulation package, and create products that can be deployed to metropolitan planning agencies across the U.S.

An ITS U.K. seminar reported that studies had shown drivers penalized for speed offenses on Britain’s roads were 50% more likely to have been involved in a crash in the last three years.

An additional paper revealed that the introduction of automatic intelligent speed control could reduce crashes by one-third.

A five-year, multi-million dollar contract was awarded by the Delaware River and Bay Authority to Lockheed Martin IMS to design, develop and install the E-ZPass ETC system on the Delaware Memorial Bridge.

The Transportation Corridor Agency of Orange County, Calif., spent $5.5 million (US) to end their toll road operation contract with Lockheed Martin IMS.

Shortly thereafter, it was announced that Chase Manhattan would take over a large majority of the day-to-day operations of the toll road.

A comprehensive 10-year National ITS Program Plan Research Agenda was unveiled by ITS America in a coordinated effort with the U.S. Department of Transportation.

When completed, the project will include several activities leading to the development of a National Program Plan/Research Agenda.

The world’s first IDB-C/IDB-1394 systems-enabled demonstration vehicles were introduced by a group of companies from the IDB Forum at the Convergence 2000 Conference in Detroit.

Networked and operating with a variety of scenarios, the demo included networked low and high-speed multimedia consumer products as well as the introduction of plastic optical fiber for IDB in a commercial vehicle.

TransCore Inc. received a multimillion-dollar contract with Sichuan NeoSource Intel-Tech Ltd., Chengdu, Sichuan Province, to deploy Intellitag wireless communication windshield sticker tags for vehicle registration application.

The People’s Republic of China requires all vehicles in Yibin City be assigned an electronic ID number. The AVIM system conducts wireless inquiries of passing vehicles and notifies officials of the vehicle’s registration information in addition to the status of annual vehicle examination, vehicle emission, taxation and traffic record, all within 1/10th of a second. As of press time, this automatic vehicle ID management system was the first of its kind in the world. n