State of ITS: Telling the Intelligent Transportation Systems Success Story for Portland, Oregon
Max Coffman, Jonathan Makler · Transportation Research Board 86th Annual MeetingTransportation Research Board · 2007
Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) professionals in the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area have collaborated on many projects in the recent past, including the creation of a region-wide fiber-optic cable network and traveler information distribution system. Metro, the region’s Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), is currently revising its Regional Transportation Plan, and is considering creating a new funding structure especially for ITS projects, which have historically had trouble competing for traditional transportation funds. To encourage this process, members of TransPort, an inter-agency ITS technical advisory committee, are collaborating to produce a “State of ITS in Portland” report highlighting some of the region’s most compelling ITS projects and providing performance measurements where available. The examples are organized into three benefit categories: mobility, safety and cost-effectiveness. The featured programs include transit and truck signal priority, real-time traveler information, freight weigh-in-motion, ramp metering, incident response, road weather information, adaptive signal control and electronic parking payment. The report concludes by describing the potential for future regional collaboration on at-grade rail crossing information sharing and an expansion of the integrated corridor management program. In the report, examples are explained in terms that an intelligent reader who is unfamiliar with ITS jargon can understand, and will eventually be distilled down to a graphics-rich executive summary for top level decision makers.