SPONSOR: Oregon Department of Transportation

BUDGET: $6,960

ABSTRACT: The goal of intelligent transportation systems (ITS) is to improve the effectiveness, efficiency, and safety of the transportation system. Effective deployment of ITS technologies depends in part on the knowledge of which technologies will most effectively address the issues of congestion and safety. Thus, it is important to understand the benefits of both existing and emerging technologies. Based on documented experience locally and throughout the country, ITS deployments in urban areas have the potential to offer the following benefits: Arterial management systems can potentially reduce delays between 5% and 40% with the implementation of advanced control systems and traveler information dissemination; Freeway management systems can reduce the occurrence of crashes by up to 40%, increase capacity, and decrease overall travel times by up to 60%; Freight management systems reduce costs to motor carriers by 35% with the implementation of the commercial vehicle information systems and networks; Transit management systems may reduce travel times by up to 50% and increased reliability by 35% with automatic vehicle location and transit signal priority implementation; Incident management systems potentially reduce incident duration by 40% and offer numerous other benefits, such as increased public support for DOT activities and goodwill. There is a wide range of benefits that can be obtained from ITS deployments. For example, fuel consumption, travel time, and delay can be reduced. ITS deployments can also result in higher travel speeds, improved traffic flow, and more satisfied travelers for all modes. ITS deployments in Oregon that have demonstrated or shown potential for benefits include the Portland Region Advanced Transportation Management System (ATMS), ramp metering, variable message signs (VMS), TriMet's automatic vehicle location (AVL) and bus dispatch system (BDS), TripCheck, Oregon