The State of the ITS Industry in a
Time of Change

Introduction

Good afternoon.  I once again thank Rick Weiland and the ITS committee for this opportunity to speak to you.   IT is a very provocative topic and not just because the political winds have shifted.   We are sensing a number of changes both in the industry and in the environment in which it operates.

Let me begin by talking about some of the initiatives within the federal program – some of which are meant to provoke change and some of which are responding to changes we are sensing in the environment.  Then I’d like to conclude by specifically addressing the title of this session – The State of the ITS Industry in a Time of Change by asking the question ‘Where does the ITS industry go from here?’ and present for your consideration two possible futures for the industry as it emerges on to the market place.

Vehicle

To me, one of the most exciting “changes” going on right now is the fact that ITS is hitting the consumer market.  There is no question that the intelligent vehicle market is building -- and when it reaches full steam it will be huge, both in potential to solve safety problems and unintended consequences.   Our ability to deal with some of those unintended consequences, and consumer concerns early, will shape the way this market develops – regulated, & litigated or free market driven. 

“Mayday” automobile incident response is becoming a key introduction of ITS to the average consumer. How we handle the interface will color consumer's view of the dependability of consumer electronics in vehicles.  To that end, under the auspices of the ITS Public Safety Initiative, the National Mayday Readiness Group reported out their first set of agreements between the Public Service Answering Points (PSAP) and the Mayday service providers.   USDOT will be sponsoring an operational project  that is intended to demonstrate effective voice and data interfaces between private sector Mayday call centers and PSAP 911operators.

It will involve demonstrating and evaluating communications approaches that permit Mayday call centers to access appropriate 911 operators based upon the reported location of a telematics-equipped vehicle.

The test will be conducted by a partnership involving PSAP entities, commercial Mayday service providers, and other, such as telephone service providers, emergency medical service providers, traffic management, and trauma centers as appropriate.

This project is intended to start in late FY 2001.

Another concern that is emerging now and will only build is the concern over privacy, particularly with any tracking or geolocation device in the vehicle.  I think we are seeing this first and most intensely with Enhanced  911 (E911), but we will also see it as more and more cars start using enhanced DSRC for a variety of transactions.   I am genuinely pleased to see the work that is going on right now in ITS America on the issue of privacy

Finally, the issue of driver distraction and driver confusion is building.  Both industry and government need to demonstrate to the American public that we understand and the products that are coming out enhance rather than degrade safety.  

The Intelligent Vehicle Initiative (IVI) program has recently appointed a Human Factors Technical Director to the IVI program to co-ordinate not only the human factors work within the IVI program, but work going on dealing with the same safety impacts in other parts of NHSTA and the Department.

We are also even more optimistic that the electronic platforms being put in cars today can become a force for a breakthrough in safety.    This past summer (2000) we showcased a number of these technologies at a very successful event and suggested that just as we set an infrastructure deployment goal that we consider establishing benchmark of having 25 percent of all new commercial vehicles sold in 2010 equipped with one or more IVI safety systems, 10 percent of new light vehicles sold in 2010, and 10 percent of new passengers cars equipped with one or more IVI safety systems.

This year we have set aside  $5 million  to demonstrate roadway departure collision avoidance technology.  Run-off -the road crashes are one of the most frequent causes of automobile fatalities, accounting for 19% of all crashes and resulting in more than 500,000 injuries and 13,000 fatalities annually. We expect to solicit proposals in February and have the demonstration operational  in 2002.

Infrastructure

New Horizons.  On the intelligent infrastructure side, I think one of the major new headlines is the fact that new horizons seem to be opening up faster than realistically we can accommodate them in defining user services     We are seeing applications in roadway maintenance, enhanced pedestrian use, enhanced disaster response, enhanced traffic enforcement, weather prediction, better planning, co-ordinate health and human services transportation and the list could undoubtedly go on. 

It has caused us to seriously raise the question about where do we draw the line in defining what is ITS.  That question is both philosophical, which I will refer to later, and very practical – since we have used the definition of user services to define what is eligible for ITS federal funding.   Do we keep it narrowly focused on the traditional Alphabet soup of Advanced Traveler Information Systems (ATIS), Advanced Travel Management System  (ATMS),  Advanced Passenger Transit System (APTS) etc., or do we risk ITS becoming so broad that is meaningless?

Having seriously considered that question, we see real promise in four emerging areas.  Over the coming year, we will be making investments in operational tests and other development work in these areas.

Speed Management.
There is solid evidence in Europe that ITS can be extraordinarily effective in speed control resulting in reduced crashes.   We will be issuing an RFP for an operational test to demonstrate the use of ITS for variable speed limits in the Second Quarter of 2001

Pedestrian Safety
We will also be issuing an RFP to demonstrate the use of ITS in enhancing pedestrian safety that within the First Quarter of 2001

Public Safety
One of our more visible “new horizons” is the Public Safety initiative.   We have convened a “table” of those associations whose constituents are involved in public safety:  police, firemen, paramedics, emergency hospital personnel, public safety dispatchers, state troopers and more.  Their charge is to begin to understand:

·         How ITS can support their missions  -- for example,  the use of television cameras to more accurately determine what kind of equipment and medical response is needed at the scene of an accident
·          How ITS will impact them -- for example under the Public Safety Initiative we have just worked out a set of agreements between those that are operating the Mayday services and the traditional Public Safety Answering Points
·         How architectures that are being developed in the public safety arenas can be aligned with the ITS architecture

And they have made good progress.   This year we will be demonstrating an Enhanced 911 operational test. While commercial Mayday services have the location of the incident, they do not have direct contact with the appropriate 911 dispatcher. The project will demonstrate how this link can be made efficiently and recognize the unique needs of both the commercial service and the 911 dispatchers.

Intermodal Logistics
Finally, in the Logistics Arena, I’ve become evermore convinced that one of the keys to greater productivity in goods movement is a web of information and communication across what is an even more fragmented industry than the public sector transportation industry.   This year we hope to demonstrate the application of ITS to some fairly simple concepts:

Asset and cargo visibility test seeks to improve the productivity of container and chassis usage by monitoring their movement between freight terminals and customers, to improve the staging of both assets to have them available when needed, and to provide immediate maintenance information to motor carriers to reduce movements of unsafe chassis.

The terminal dray operations test expects to improve cross-town movements of freight in Chicago. Data will be forwarded from a marine terminal on the West Coast to freight terminals in Chicago to be shared with local carriers for prompt movement.

The freight information highway test expects to provide freight asset and cargo information in a standard format to all carriers, ports and terminals through an open architecture backbone information system.  This test will also support the asset and cargo visibility test and the terminal dray operations test.

Deployment.  As we turn to the deployment side,  the news is that we are making good progress:

Metropolitan
·         We have 50 metropolitan areas with traffic management centers
·         300+ traveler information phone numbers in the U. S.
·         50 percent of the top 78 metro areas have travel info web sites
·         25 percent of the public transit properties of the to 78 cities use AVL,  and smart card is being introduced rapidly
·         75 percent of all toll roads n the U. S. have E.T.C

Rural
·         Has hit the retail market with GM predicting 3-4 million sold in the next 2 years
·         RWIS system are in wide use and we have active interest from the U. S. Weather service to now link up in using those systems for more effective forecasts
·         There is growing interest in statewide and regional travel information
·         And we are beginning to see ITS looked at as a solution to some of our National park crowding problems

Our latest survey shows significant progress in integrated metropolitan ITS Deployment (See slides which accompany this presentation.)

As we make progress in deployment we are now seeing and hearing about a new set of challenges:
·         How we are going to fund the on going operation of Transportation Operations Centers,
·         How do we develop architectures that will incorporate legacy systems with the least amount of pain possible. 
·         We've had issues begin to arise on  the ethics of exclusivity in the use of publicly funded  traffic data.
·         We  don’t have nearly enough data!
·         How do we turn what we have into useful information

These are good problems to see emerging!  It means that there is a fair number of agencies that have passed thru  some of the first hurdles of deployment and are now facing questions of how do they operate the ITS infrastructure that they have.

As many of you are aware,  we have just published the  final architecture rule.  In it, we will  be requiring  most state and metropolitan areas to have an architecture in place within the next  four  years.  We strongly believe that  the finalization of this requirement  will cause  a major jump in the attention that will be given to ITS and ITS integration.  We believe that over the next two to three years, there will be groups convening across the U.S. to discuss. 

·         Over the long term how do we see ITS enhancing our current operations.  How do we see it happening?  Who is going to take responsibility for it?  When?
·         What will be the relationships among the various agencies
·         What institutions, if any, need to be brought into being?
·         And how are we going to use the technology once we get it in place?

We strongly believe that those discussions will have a powerful effect on awareness and ultimately the marketplace.

Another major boost will come from the  511 transportation number that was awarded by the FCC last summer  While everyone may not have a personal digital assistant -- yet,  they do have a phone.  And the 511 telephone number could have the effect of putting every state and city DOT one phone call away from their customers, which will make the public agencies more accountable and whetting the public's appetite for more information.   Finally,  it could open up new business opportunities in the private sector.

AASHTO and ITS America have joined forces to lead a co-coalition of public and private sector stakeholders to work out  guidelines for access, minimum service levels and other issues.  We have funded several early adopters who are paving the way in implementing 511 and are exploring other means to leverage a small amount of money to seed the necessary development to make this service available.

Longer Term.  There are three other initiatives -- among many that we are undertaking this year which I think have great leverage potential as we begin asking the question: 'What is next for ITS?'

5.9 ghz .  The FCC has allocated a new spectrum at 5.9Ghz for Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) applications.  These applications open the possibility of major new public safety functions in addition to the more conventional electronic tolls and Commercial vehicle operations.  The DOT is supporting the definition of this spectrum through the DSRC standards effort and the preparation of the licensing and service rules proposals to the FCC.  These activities will be concluded in 2001 when the FCC issues its rules for the use of the 5.9GHz spectrum.  This will allow the development of products for all applications using the 5.9GHz.

Performance Measure.   This year we are testing  our ability to collect  data that could be developed into a meaningful system performance measures -- meaningful to the consumer,  and actually reflective of how well we operate the system.   We found 10 cities with relatively dense ITS infrastructures  and we are in the process of collecting data,  archiving it, and testing various performance measures.  Specifically we are zeroing in on something like the probability that your commute time will be what you expect it to be. 

Information Requirements for the National Highway System (NHS).   As we move beyond deploying the first wave of  ITS infrastructure, I think we must begin asking the question:  'What information capability should we expect from a fully functioning road in the 21^st century?'.   Just as we don’t replace a typewriter with a typewriter, we  should replace roadways,  when that is needed,  with roadways that meet the functional requirements of the 21^st century.

Thus we have begun a small effort to see if we can  specify "minimum information requirements" for the NHS  that are appropriate for the widely varied, weather, geographic and traffic conditions that exist across the  U.S.   If we can we may want to consider incorporating them into the functional requirements of roads -- so that when they are rebuilt,  we automatically bring them up to a functionality that includes information and communication capability:  Over the long term  that would give us a nationally instrumented roadway network capable of producing key information for the driver,  and  the roadway manager.

Let me close  today  by raising a paradigm question about where we are going.

Several forces are now at work that are driving  ITS and  the Operation of the surface transportation system to the front of the agenda:

·         The early adopters of ITS now have some infrastructure that they can “operate” and they are facing issues of  how do we fund it?  How can we use it more effectively?   They have moved from building the ITS infrastructure to operating it
·         The main body of public agencies are still at early stages of  ITS implantation but the force of either congestion,  weather response, disaster response, special event response  major work zone mitigation is  forcing them to look at ITS and integrated operations.   Whether it is called ITS or Operations – it is coming to the forefront of their agenda
·         The enforcement community  is beginning to understand some of the power of ITS
·         As is the medical response community,  the disaster response community, the weather community and so on

Is all this is good? Yes it is, but it raises a big question of where does this leave us in terms of charting a course for the future of ITS.   Let me explain:

Over the last decade we have probably thought of ITS something like this – an adjunct to the main business of highways, transit, medical response, auto manufacturing etc.  – looking to get in.  Incubated on the outside because it involved new connections, new skills, and new partnerships – but intended to be applied to the main businesses of transportation.

Russ Shields once said that the pattern that he has observed in technology adoption is that an organization first adopts technology to make existing business processes more efficient, but in time, the technology often transforms the business process, the organizational structure, and sometimes the business itself.

I think that we are near that critical point – where we begin to ask – will ITS truly be mainstreamed – become adopted by the various business of transportation so that all that remains of ITS is architecture and standards perhaps?

Will we see a future where the State, county and local DOTs so incorporate ITS that it permeates their entire business, where it transforms their mission to become far more operations oriented -- and we lose the “term”  ITS.?

This of course has the advantage of the real business owners -- owning ITS and now using it to carry out their business:

ITS is no longer something that is elite -- with the road and transit guys looking in from afar
It allows ITS to transform, from with, some very powerful and well established institutions
Alternately will we see a future more like this?

Where ITS becomes far more than technology.  ITS becomes a transforming agent; where it becomes, in fact a defacto new surface transportation entity  (both from a professional association perspective and an operations perspective).

If this is the case, then ITS needs to move beyond technology -- to the institutions, organizational structures, and missions it engenders -- it needs to move to a mission focus -- rather than a focus of technology to accomplish a mission.   Because soon that technology will be adopted -- then what?

These are key questions that need to be addressed over the course of the next year, as we, in co-operation with ITS America develop the ITS 10 year program plan and must certainly be addressed as we begin discussions about reauthorization.   I leave those questions with you to ponder and encourage you to become involved both with the plan that is being developed under the auspices of ITS America, and the National Dialogue on Operations that is being developed under the auspices of ITE.