UPDATE: Monday, November 4th, 2013
WSRTC Steering Committee members participated in the recent National Rural ITS Conference held in St. Cloud, Minnesota, August 25th-28th, 2013. A regular Consortium meeting was held on August 28, 2013. The meeting agenda and the meeting presentation can be reviewed here or on the Consortium's Documents page.
Photo by Doug Galarus
David Veneziano called the meeting to order with a welcome, introductions were made around the group, and the agenda was reviewed.
First on the agenda were a discussion and wrap-up of the 2013 Western States Forum. Doug Galarus provided a review of the event and the technical content that was presented.
Save the Date for the 2014 Forum to be held in Yreka, California, June 17-19!
Sean Campbell, Ron Vessey, and Doug Galarus discussed participation in the Pooled Fund along with the current status of Task Order 4 (Meeting Coordination, WSF Travel Support, Website Maintenance) and Task Order 2 (Rural Traveler Information – OSS). The Consortium website and the information presented have been a valuable resource and a good marketing tool. Sean Campbell stated that at Caltrans’ Division of Research, Innovation, and System Information (DRISI) the website is pointed to as an example of how a project-related site should be developed and presented.
David Veneziano reviewed the progress and status of the Year 1 incubator projects – Regional ICM Planning, Survey of Safety Warning Devices. Candidate corridors for demonstration in the regional ICM planning project were selected. These include US 395 in California and Nevada and Rt. 299-US 395 in California and Oregon.
The review of western states’ safety warning devices is wrapping up with just a few more contacts remaining. David Veneziano presented the preliminary findings of the project at NRITS during a session addressing automated warning systems. The presentation entitled Synthesis of Western U.S. Automated Safety Warning Systems can be found here and in the Consortium Documents.
The next incubator project will focus on the Technology pillar of the Consortium’s mission and goals. The project's purpose has shifted slightly to examine the use of Bluetooth technologies for estimating wait times at chain up areas. The objectives of the project are to identify which technologies to use, develop the algorithms to estimate wait times, and to evaluate the data. More information about this WSRTC incubator project will be posted on the website when the project's work plan has been reviewed and finalized.
Doug Galarus discussed completed, current and upcoming research projects of interest to the group. These included Automated Safety Warning Controller, Professional Capacity Building (PCB) for Communications, OSS Phase 2, WeatherShare Phase 3, Integration of Aviation AWOS with RWIS Phase 2, and WeatherShare Integration with Caltrans QuickMap.
The traditional roundtable discussion of rural ITS projects the group is involved with closed out the meeting. Each member has a number of active projects underway.
To review the meeting minutes, click here, or go to the Consortium's Documents page.
The next WSRTC Steering Committee meeting is tentatively scheduled to occur in conjunction with the Northwest Transportation Conference in March, 2014. Check back at the end of the year for more information.
ITS professionals from around North America attended NRITS this year. Session topics were diverse and informative. In addition to David's presentation, other WSRTC members were speakers and panelists at the conference. Ian Turnbull from Caltrans was a panelist in a session called Maintenance and Operations Management: Are we thinking strategically? Doug Galarus from WTI also presented Field Element Data Quality Control from the Perspective of Data Redistribution in the session on ATIS Information: Understanding and Maximizing Usage. This presentation discussed work that stemmed from numerous WSRTC Spin-Off Projects including WeatherShare and the One Stop Shop (OSS).
These presentations and others from the conference can be found in the Proceedings of the 2013 NRITS Conference.