The first day of the ITS America Annual Meeting (ends June 7) concluded with a Best of ITS America Awards ceremony. The event enabled attendees to participate in a live voting system to select the intelligent transportation systems (ITS) project, that they felt most worthy of winning the award.
The ITS project nominees were:
Demonstrating benefits on a connected vehicle corridor
(Utah Department of Transportation and Utah Transit Authority)
A connected vehicle system along Redwood Road, an urban arterial in Salt Lake City, uses DSRC radios to provide transit signal priority to city buses. An analysis of connected vehicle, transit system and ATSPM (automated traffic signal performance measures) data, that was collected over 18 months of operation, demonstrated that the schedule reliability of these buses has improved significantly.
Tampa Hillsborough Expressway Authority Connected Vehicle Pilot Project
(HNTB and Center for Urban Transportation Research at the University of South Florida)
The Tampa Hillsborough Expressway Authority (THEA) and its partners are deploying a variety of connected vehicle applications in downtown Tampa in a groundbreaking effort to help prevent crashes and keep traffic moving. The multimodal project has equipped more than 1,000 cars, 10 buses, eight streetcars and a pedestrian crosswalk with connected vehicle technology, enabling both vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication.
Transportation performance measures
(Utah Department of Transportation)
Transportation performance measures are live traffic data driven measures that provide an objective approach to evaluating transportation issues statewide. The project’s overall goal is to convey an easily understood message to facilitate collaboration among decision makers.
Automated traffic signal performance measures
(Utah Department of Transportation and Indiana Department of Transportation)
ATSPMs show real-time and historical functionality at signalized intersections and they allow engineers to directly measure what they could previously only estimate and model. ATSPMs allow agencies to effectively optimize and manage traffic signals without extensive field data collection, and to visualize data in an easy-to-understand format that is web-based and easily accessible by a diverse group of users.
Connected vehicle pilot
(Wyoming Department of Transportation)
Sponsored by the USDOT Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office, Wyoming DOT is deploying V2V and V2I technology and applications on I-80 in order to improve safety and the reliability of travel during adverse weather conditions.
“Four of the five projects were within one vote of each other,” said Shailen Bhatt, president of ITS America, “I think that reflects the high quality of these projects.” Bhatt went on to announce the Best of ITS Award-winner as: the Tampa Hillsborough Expressway Authority Connected Vehicle Pilot Project.
“We’re very happy to have won and are proud of our team,” said Judith Villegas, an electrical engineer student, from the Tampa Hillsborough Expressway Authority. “Everyone has been working so hard and winning has given us a sense of achievement.”
The ITS America State Chapter awards were also presented. The Outstanding Chapter award for division one was won by ITS Florida; ITS Arizona snapped up the award for division two. The State Chapter Special Recognition award was presented to ITS Carolinas and the Student Essay award was won by Greg Jankord (below), a PhD student from the Ohio State University.
