Transit System Technology

Technology Integration

A major force driving the shaping of policy solutions to transit system problems today is the concept of a coordinated methodology and application set, continental in scope, that provides a consistent and economically efficient guide to the infrastructure and operational systems of mass transportation. By standardizing transit system technology and its administration, by incentivizing wise policy implementation, and by funding research and application of more efficient technologies, such programs can lead to the adoption of smarter systems by a growing number of municipalities and regions.

Through the Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office of the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT)'s Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA), for example, challenges such as corridor congestion and intermodal exchange are receiving some of the first directed attention and research funding. RITA directives such as its Integrated Corridor Management (ICM) program are slated to translate from research into better-planned and more effectively operated metropolitan and regional transit systems.

One element illustrative of the ICM approach is the Clarus initiative, by which extensive real-time weather reporting and forecasting data is compiled, sorted, and categorically ramified, the results being disseminated to users with diverse needs across the transit spectrum. Five components of Clarus show how the results can serve different user bases that together ease congestion and reduce hazards across a given transit system:

• 1.
  Enhanced road weather forecasting for all surface transit modes
• 2.
  Seasonal weight restriction decision-support tool for trucking and rail
• 3.
  Nonwinter maintenance and operations timing support
• 4.
  Multistate surface mode control strategy support
• 5.
  Enhanced road weather content for travel advisories

As a result of testing and tuning of the Clarus system in the 13 U.S. states and three Canadian provinces that began in 2004, the U.S. Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) identified specific means [Page 1480]“to foster collaboration between transportation engineering, computer science, and atmospheric science disciplines” toward the goal of using data to improve transit operations management and create innovative interfaces within and between transit agencies.

FHWA then awarded eight contracts as of 2011 for the development of data integration, visualization tool improvement, alert system upgrades, mobile applications, and related technologies. These applications are coming online for use by trucking companies, bus systems, urban and rural motorists, emergency response and police departments, road crew managers, transit system operations centers, insurance companies, and other user bases in the United States and Canada.

Specific to congestion problems, the ICM system combines and connects data and management tools across four major areas of transit: rail systems, bus systems, freeway systems, and arterial signal systems. The research approach is to develop both information and hard infrastructure technology that together can yield a better informed, time-sensitive, and conditions-predictive operations management and user base across all modes in a given transit corridor that has been identified for comprehensive improvement.

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