UPDATE: Thursday, September 1st, 2011
Members of the Western States Rural Transportation Consortium gathered for a Steering Committee meeting at the conclusion of the National Rural ITS Conference, held in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, at the end of August. The meeting agenda is available here.
Photo by Leann Koon
To promote technology transfer and education, the meeting opened with the traditional roundtable discussion of various ITS projects each of the member organizations that were present are working on or have recently deployed.
Doug Galarus and David Veneziano provided an overview and project update on the Clarus One Stop Shop website that was recently completed. In addition to reviewing the site features and development progress, they shared results of the user survey recently conducted. The survey provided good feedback on what works well and suggested improvements to enhance the OSS site. The project will conclude at the end of September so watch for a related update and final report.
Photo by Leann Koon
Photo by Leann Koon
A task order for One Stop Shop Phase 2 will be issued in the near future. OSS Phase 2 will include expansion of the content and coverage area of the Western States region, several upgrades, load testing, and continued preparation of the prototype site for public use.
One tenet of the WSRTC is to leverage ideas and funds between the states. In addition to continuing the informal brainstorming sessions for rural ITS project ideas, the group will begin to develop one-page concept papers for incubator project ideas. These papers will be approved by the WSRTC and form a basis for full project proposals. They will be posted on the WSRTC website as well when they become available.
Leann Koon presented a summary of the 2011 Western States Rural Transportation Technology Implementers Forum. The 6th annual Forum drew 31 participants from five western states and represented three state DOT’s, five different universities, the ITS Joint Program Office at the US DOT, and the California Highway Patrol.
One of the first incubator projects approved by the Consortium is the survey of western states safety devices. The intent of this project is to learn about applications of safety devices in the western region. The product would be a starting point/document where someone can see what has been done elsewhere in the region and find out who best to contact for more information. The group spent time brainstorming what systems were of interest to the group. Examples included variable speed limits pertaining to rural safety, variable speed limits in work zones, work zone safety systems in general, and automated chain control (automated safety systems, worker and motorist safety).
To review the meeting minutes, click here, or go to the Consortium’s Documents page.
The next Steering Committee meeting for the Western States Rural Transportation Consortium will be held around the Northwest Transportation Conference, Feb. 7-9, 2012, in Corvallis, Oregon. Specific details regarding this meeting will be forthcoming.