The 411 on 511

The availability of 511 presents an opportunity to redefine how transportation operations affect the everyday traveler. More importantly, via 511 travelers derive the immediate benefit of applying technology to transportation.

The path for establishing the 511 service started with a petition to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in March 1999. The U.S. Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT), in cooperation with the American Association of State Highway & Transportation Officials (AASHTO) and several state DOTs, appealed to the FCC to secure exclusive access to an “N11” telephone number for disseminating traveling conditions to the traveling public.

The U.S. DOT petition to establish a national three-digit dialing code for traveler information was granted by the FCC on July 21, 2000, in a Report and Order, which assigned 511 as an abbreviated dialing code for travel information services.

The FCC’s order makes seven specific points in the assignment of 511. They are:

•               511 is assigned to government entities for both wireline and wireless telephone services;

•               Technical details of implementation and cost recovery are left with federal, state and local transportation agencies to determine;

•               Federal, state and local transportation agencies are to determine the type of information to be provided;

•               Federal, state and local transportation agencies are encouraged to ensure that 511 transcends municipal boundaries and is appropriate to the national designation of the number;

•               Transportation agencies are en-couraged to determine uniform standards for providing information to the public;

•               U.S. DOT is encouraged to facilitate ubiquitous deployment of 511; and

•               The FCC will assess the deployment of 511 in 2005 to determine if the number is in widespread use.

Mindful of both the opportunities and challenges 511 presents, AASHTO, in conjunction with many other organizations including the American Public Transportation Association and the Intelligent Transportation Society of America, with support from the U.S. DOT, established a 511 Deployment Coalition. The program kicked off in January 2001.

Value to users

The goal of the 511 Deployment Coalition is “the timely establishment of a national 511 traveler information service that is sustainable and provides value to users.”

The intent is to implement 511 nationally using a bottom-up approach facilitated by information sharing and a cooperative dialogue through the national associations represented on the Policy Committee, the governing body of the program.

The 511 Deployment Coalition is composed of a Policy Committee and a Working Group. The mission of the Policy Committee is to provide guidance on how to achieve this goal. The Working Group of practitioners was formed to support the Policy Committee. Under the guidance of Policy Committee deliberations, the Working Group identified three major issues that needed to be addressed.

The first is content—should there be some minimal level of content and quality of that content?

Second is consistency—to what extent should there be some level of consistency among 511 services through- out the U.S.?

The last is cost—should 511 be free to the user? If so, how should 511 be financed?

Two 511 Policy Committee retreats were held to develop guidelines for what became known as “the 3-C’s” for 511 deployment.

The first retreat in March 2001 established the following important principles toward crafting the guidelines for 511 deployment:

•               Strive to create a national system with high-quality information: Customer acceptance and sustained demand for 511 depend on being able to consistently provide high-quality services. The users of 511 will perceive a common service wherever they go;

•               Recognize and consider limitations of public sector resources: 511 does not, generally speaking, come with specific new funding sources. Limited funds exist to support 511, and often those funds will compete with other transportation investments; and

•               Embrace private sector involvement to go beyond public sector-supported services: 511 can offer many types of services. Some of these services, while beneficial to the traveling public, may not fall within the purview of a public sector responsibility.

The second retreat in August 2001 served as a forum for validating the draft content and consistency guidelines. It had been deemed appropriate that the cost information be described in a separate discussion paper for business models to pursue 511 deployment. The second re-treat resulted in final direction for establishing version 1.0 of the 511 Implementation Guideline, which was released in November 2001. This guide-line document is available from several sources, including the U.S. DOT ITS website (www. its.dot.gov).

Multiple efforts

Simultaneous with the efforts of the AASHTO-led 511 De-ployment Coalition, the U.S. DOT began developing products to facilitate the consideration and deployment of 511. These products include:

•               511 Early Adopter Case Studies for Arizona, greater Detroit, Kentucky, Minnesota, San Francisco, Utah and Virginia’s I-81 corridor;

•               White papers for the transportation community on the telecommunications industry, telecommunications terms and telecommunications technologies; and

•               A review of business models for traveler information services to date.

In addition, the U.S. DOT is making funds available through a 511 Planning Assistance program to state public agencies to develop regional and statewide plans for implementing 511 traveler information services and/or to help defray the costs of telephone service providers in converting traveler information telephone numbers. The U.S. DOT is making $100,000 of federal funds available to every state.

Lastly, the U.S. DOT issued a request for applications from public agencies that are currently deploying, or operating, a telephone system that delivers traveler information services so that those agencies may enhance their system to provide a high-quality 511 service. The 511 Model Deployment recipient will establish a 511 service that demonstrates the state-of-the-art information content, user interface and delivery.

The emphasis of 511 as a ubiquitous, equitable medium for accessing traveler information services reinforces the importance of ITS data as a tool for customer service. This is consistent with the application of ITS as a tool for transportation management, so that the travelers can be more informed and experience higher-quality services. Travel and traffic management depend on traveler in- formation to realize gains in network performance. 511 is another tool that can reach a much broader audience than what has been achieved in the past. 511 may emerge as a portal for the broad public to appreciate the benefits of transportation management and ITS.

In considering traveler information, one can focus on two main areas of interest from the perspective of the traveler. Pre-trip traveler information offers the capability to assist travelers in making mode choices, travel time estimates, route decisions or delaying trips prior to departure. En route traveler information provides vehicle drivers and transit users with information while en route, which will allow alternative routes or modes to be chosen for their destination. The potential de-crease in traffic enabled through better-informed travelers also may provide benefits in highway safety, reduced air pollution and decreased congestion.

 

Gathering info

Transportation management centers (TMC) are an excellent source of content for traveler information. An established focal point for the assimilation of agency information, or multiple agencies, is the key to success in collecting the content that would enable travelers to modify their behavior. The continued emphasis that TMCs place on information gathering on the transportation network achieves a dual benefit of supplying the TMC with better content and of informing the traveler more accurately of the conditions they may encounter.

Traveler information has been demonstrated in many case studies to be an effective tool for TMCs in scene management. Incidents, scheduled events, construction activities and weather are examples of what causes a TMC to perform scene management. The traveler information is effective in guiding travelers toward alternative routes, or even delaying their travel, to avoid congestion or unsafe conditions.

In a limited study performed for the U.S. DOT, it was shown that traveler information products can yield greater reliability of travel. Reliability of travel describes the average time for a trip from point to point. Simulated consumers of traveler information were able to effectively modify their route and arrive at their destination consistently within an acceptable time window.  A 1999 survey of the TMC in Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky confirmed this hypothesis. More than 99% of those surveyed said they benefited from the use of the telephone-based traveler information by avoiding traffic problems, saving time, reducing frustration and arriving at destinations on time.

Additional focus group research on traveler information reveals that travelers, and motorists in particular, are seeking information on travel conditions to guide them toward making a choice. The travelers are telling the public agencies that they are willing consumers of information that may yield improvements in overall transportation network performance. The TMCs in this regard can have an impact on traveler behavior, and 511 is a tool that is immediately accessible by virtually all travelers.

Implement 511 in your area

Establishing 511 is a challenging effort, yet the rewards that can be achieved through improved system performance, improved customer service and improved public perception are highly valuable. A number of resources are in place to help in the efforts of individual agencies and TMCs to pursue development of 511:

•               The FHWA ITS Help Line (866.367.7487 or e-mail ITShelp@fhwa.dot.gov) offers a portal to the various resources within FHWA. This number can assist with general information concerning where to locate items on the FHWA websites and FHWA documents;

•               The ITS Peer-to-Peer program (888.700.7337 or e-mail P2P@fhwa.dot.gov) is a technical assistance program that provides free, short-term assistance. Over 120 public sector peers, some with experience in deploying 511, are available to assist you and your agency;

•               The U.S. DOT websites on 511 are continually updated with new content. The ITS Joint Program Office webpage on 511 is available at www.its.dot.gov/511/511.htm. The FHWA Operations webpage on 511 is available at www. ops.fhwa.dot.gov/Travel/traveler_info.htm. Please note the “511 Deployment Status” page for the latest developments on where 511 is implemented; and

•               The ITS America webpage for 511 is located at www.itsa.org/511.html. This site features all the available press releases from the states that deploy 511, along with all the meeting minutes and reports from the 511 Deployment Coalition.

The efforts made by the 511 Deployment Coalition, the 511 early adopters and those agencies that will soon deploy 511 are creating a path for better customer service. The transportation management community will look back upon this time as a milestone for getting traveler information conveniently to the consumer.     TME