UPDATE: Tuesday, March 20th, 2012
The Western States Rural Transportation Consortium held its winter Steering Committee meeting on February 9, 2012, in conjunction with the Northwest Transportation Conference on the campus of Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon. Click here to take a look at the meeting agenda.
After introductions and a quick overview of the main agenda items, Leann Koon and Doug Galarus provided an update on planning for the 2012 Western States Forum and a quick review of the tentative speaker agenda.
David Veneziano described the status of the Year 1 incubator projects – Survey of Western States Rural Safety Warning Devices and Regional ICM Planning. The group discussed survey logistics along with points to consider such as rural versus urban devices, system components, diversity of ITS devices deployed, location identification conventions, and high/low speed or divided highways. Upcoming work on the Regional ICM Planning project will focus on Emergency Operations Center protocols in each of the Consortium member states, as well as the initial development of the ICM planning process.
Next, Doug Galarus discussed the various updates and improvements made to the One Stop Shop (OSS) website. Load capacity and performance, traffic layers, and the long term support and maintenance of the website were discussed. Doug also provided a brief update on other projects that are ongoing or upcoming that might be of interest to the Consortium; these included Automated Safety Warning Controller, Professional Capacity Building for Communications, WeatherShare, Integration of AWOS with RWIS and Responder.
After reviewing the pooled fund Task Orders, the meeting moved to discussion about the different Consortium meeting dates and venues. The next Consortium meeting will be in conjunction with the Western States Rural Transportation Technology Implementers Forum, June 12-14, 2012, in Yreka, California. The Consortium will meet again at the National Rural ITS Conference in Biloxi, Mississippi, in mid-September.
The Consortium meeting concluded with the roundtable discussion of the wide variety of rural ITS projects each of the member states are currently working on. The group engaged in dialogue on several subjects, sharing contacts and relevant experiences with different member states.
To review the meeting minutes, click here, or go to the Consortium’s Documents page. The presentation from the meeting is also on the Consortium’s Documents page.
The WSRTC mission, vision, and goals focus on Partnership, Technology, Research, and Education. To that end, Steering Committee members attended the Northwest Transportation Conference and presented in a couple different sessions. David Veneziano presented his research on Weather Based Variable Speed Limits in the Operations Strategies to Improve Safety session.
The WSRTC was the subject of one of the presentations in the Rural ITS Applications session. David and Doug explained the origins and history of the Consortium, what the Consortium is and the challenges it addresses, along with the benefits it provides to the member states and the field of rural ITS. The team also described the numerous spinoff and incubator projects associated with the WSRTC as well as the focus on technology transfer through the Western States Forum and other WSRTC activities. Click here to review the WSRTC – A Partnership to Advance Rural ITS presentation or go to the Consortium documents page.
