Okay, well the first item on the agenda is just some welcome and opening remarks from Ben and Rich. If you guys want to go ahead and share whatever thoughts you might have about what we're trying to do here. Rich, go to you? Sure. I just want to welcome everyone to this WebEx and again point out that really within this past year, I mean we've made some tremendous progress, and I just really enjoy these intersessional meetings like this where we can go through the projects and that way, the short amount of quality time that we have at when we next get together will be all that more productive, and again, I just want to thank everyone, especially given today's stresses that we're having with responding and various either the public sector or the private sector responding to the demands of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, you know, has been quite daunting on all of us, so again, I just want to thank you all for taking the time out of your schedules to keep this thing going. Ben? Thank you, Rich. Just want to echo Rich's statements there, thank everybody for their time and effort. I know this is the peak season for transportation, and as Rich mentioned about the Katrina, really I guess you'd call it the disaster, catastrophe, in New Orleans and the surrounding areas. So I know we have a lot of people that have a lot on their plate this time. I've talked to quite a few that wanted to be on the call that had other commitments, but looking over the opportunities we have to talk about the day, there's four project opportunities, and I've reviewed those. A lot of thorough work went into them, and again, just thank everybody for their time, and I believe we have had a really an excellent year in working through our charge here, our charter for our team, our working group. We have a couple of projects that we're working now that's coming along very well. r more today, but again, I thank everybody and we look for your participation as we go through these projects. We certainly welcome and solicit your questions and any comments you could make on these, so thanks again. Thank you, guys. Tony, did you have anything in particular you wanted to add before we get going? No, I'd echo what Rich and Ben have already said. All right, thank you. We do have kind of an aggressive agenda, so we're gonna try to get through this quickly. Hopefully, those of you who are on the line have seen the agenda. Basically what we're gonna do is we're gonna spend 10 minutes on each of the four project proposals. The proponents of the project will have about 5 minutes to quickly recap the project and then there will be about 5 minutes for folks to ask questions to the presenter and then we're gonna move quickly to the next project. We suspect that there will be plenty of opportunities to get into in-depth questions. What we're looking for here primarily are clarification questions, so if you don't understand something that's being presented, please offer your question, and we'll ask the presenters to try to answer as quickly as succinctly as possible to get through all four projects. Next we'll talk about what we're gonna do next as far as providing you and the participants and I an opportunity to offer more in-depth comments and questions and also to offer your ratings on the various projects. So with that, we're gonna go right into the first one, and that is increasing velocity of freight movement through efficient scheduling and that's Ron and Ben. Do you want to kick it off? Ron, you want to take it over? Sure. You can just join in if need be. In terms of the title of the project is really the overall objective of the goal of the project is to increase the velocity of moving freight through the system through efficient scheduling. You all can see there well, except for the guys that are on the telephones, I was gonna say, you all can see what the problem is, essentially that the inability for terminals to properly schedule trucks into facilities, causes waste and fuel, increases emissions, et cetera. Hello? Okay. Drivers today don't know they have a load to pick up, but they're not sure exactly what time they should be there to pick up a load and without having to wait in line, so the goal is to set an appointment system so that drivers can specifically schedule the time that they're gonna show up at the gate and they can go essentially through the system without having to wait. Problems we had today is that, I mean, the shipping business is pretty good right now. You have increased overall intermodal volume. But the problem is, you have unavailability of tools as far as scheduling to pick up and drop off of the containers and there's also the inability to collect the data from the terminal operating systems in order to build a schedule. The effects, no consistency of delivery and transit times, which obviously affects the scheduling and planning by the receiver and the trucking company. You have increased driver wait time. You have overall adverse effects both of vehicle and pedestrian traffic, higher transportation costs as well as safety issues. So, the plan is to develop a pickup, or an appointment system to allow for the efficient scheduling of the drivers into the terminals. Now, the approach that we're going to take is, first we're gonna do a requirements analysis and technology identification. There some people made comments last time that we know that there are solutions out there today, but they're single-point solutions, and really the objective. Project is to develop more of a global, and I say global, but really thinking here in the U.S. -- a solution that can be worked in any type of terminal, whether it be an intermodal terminal or -- This is Bruce, thank you, are you gonna get-- The attempt is to survey -- find the requirements, take a look at the solutions that are out there, figure out which are working, which are not. It's not just-- and Karen, I think you're on-- it's not just the system, it's the cultural issues. Those are going to be explored as well, to figure out okay, if you want to put one good solution in, it's going to be universally accepted, you know, how is that gonna work? It's not really just a technology solution, it's really looking at technology and marrying that in with the operational needs and what really can work from the operations side. We would be at some point in time we would have to integrate with the terminal operating systems and then also Ken or someone had sent me a note suggesting how this would work with the terminal optimization system. The system would. Initially, though, the plan would be just to develop the appointment system because there's a lot of benefits in doing that. And then the system could then tie in with what (indiscernible) is working on in her project, so the two would definitely work together, but they don't necessarily need to be done at the same time, or so... I think that's about it. I don't know if that's 5 minutes or not, but just give a quick brush stroke on what the intent of the system is and the overall approach, so Ben, do you have anything to add to that? Just one comment. As Ron stated earlier, there are solutions out in the industry today. For example, with UP (ph) we have a reservation system to come in the gate that's in place to date, but what we find in looking at the industry as a whole is that these are very fragmented, they're individual-type solutions, and we believe that by having so many different ones individually by different organizations, you have a lot of redundancy, you have overlapping resources, and it is somewhat inefficient and we're hoping that through this project, we can bring some continuity to this area of appointments. One of the issues that we've talked about a number of times is that when you unload a lot of containers and trailers, they're stacked up, and you want to pick up one box, but it's the under three boxes and behind three more, so I think what we're talking about here is a solution to address those type of issues and something that would be common throughout the industry. Okay, thanks, Ben and Ron. Any questions from anybody who's on the line? This is Rich, Rich Bider (ph). You know, it might be good to put in the problem definition, just articulate what Ben had just said regarding that, you know, there are products that are better out there that tend to or at least try to address this, but it's not a viable solution for everybody. In other words, it can be very puritan in its response, so it might be good to highlight the fact that even though there are products, it's still not sufficient to address the problem. Any other questions or comments? I would echo what Rich just said. I think it would be useful for bolstering the case for your project if there was a justification as to why, for instance, this isn't something that should be left up to the industry. It is already there to do scheduling systems or appointment systems, and why this is different, and maybe even to the extent of why we're looking to get a project that's sponsored possibly in part with federal funds, why the federal government should be involved with an initiative like this. Yeah, this is Bruce, thank you. I also want to comment that Marine Terminal already has a scheduling system in and he's presented it at various ITS meetings and other ones, and he's very successful and he says up to -- if they've got a slot within a half an hour, a trucker can call in and get in as long as there's slots available, but until you address the equipment issue of getting-- you can get all the guys you want on a schedule through the gate, but if you can't get to the equipment and get it loaded and have it pre-organized, all you're gonna do is get people through the gate; you're not gonna get freight moved. So you'll eliminate the gate problem, but you haven't moved the freight and I thought this was a freight industry-type solution. You know, you make a good point. Let me kind of answer it a little bit. What we have today in the industry is, we have one solution where we reserve equipment. For example, on the domestic side of the business, all of our equipment, our containers for loading, you go into a computer and you reserve those, and then you have another system -- I'm talking about my own company-- another system that you reserve a gate reservation. So I think what we're seeing here, and you make a good point there, that you can't just get in the gate, there's got to be something that's viable once you get in the gate, the box is ready to go and you can move with it and it should be a system that says okay, you know, the same system I can get a box to load, I can find out when the box can come into the gate, when it will move on train, and when I can pick the box up at destination, and I think that's what we would like to see and it's in this type of a project. Bruce, I think I mentioned it but the plan is to integrate this in with a terminal operating system so that availability of equipment and assets, hopefully we can get that. As long as we can do the integration. That not always able to do that, but certainly that would be the goal. Well, just so you know on the EMPU program, they say they got equipment, but you go in to get the equipment, and it's not mounted, and if you don't do a physical yard check and make sure the equipment is matched up to the right equipment, because I've actually pulled out a 48-foot chassis with a 53-foot box attached to it and they actually let it out the gate, so unless somebody gets it and has it matched up, and that's why I believe you actually need to go to the next step of actually when a piece of equipment is mounted on a chassis, it should be able to somehow identify what box is sitting on that chassis and the box should be able to identify what chassis it's sitting on so they know it's mounted right and the equipment's ready to go, because the efficiency at the ramp really breaks down to getting equipment moved, and same with the yard capacity issues. Bruce? This is T. Vaughn (ph) with MTC. You made a reference to our system and talking about controlling the gate and not the yard, but in our system, the appointments are made available. The limitations are based on the capacity of the individual pieces of equipment in the yard. So it is addressed. It is not just the gate flow that happens. Okay, well, I appreciate your input. I'm sure this is a great discussion, could go on for quite some time. I would encourage Ben and Ron to chat more with Bruce and Steve if they want to continue that discussion. We've gotta get moving to the next one so we can try to stay as close to schedule as possible. So, Jennifer, if you can advance the next slide and if you can give the control to me, I'll talk a little bit more about my project. Paul, you have to have control now, so if you want-- Okay, great, great. I'll go to the next-- Is that yours, Paul? I'm trying to go; no, it's the next one. I'm not sure why it's not moving forward. Try the arrow at the top next to where it says 205. Okay, there we go. Okay. Basically, what this project is that I'm proposing here, we've been involved with the state of Baltimore to put in place a system that relies on cars that have drivers in them that are using cellphones to monitor traffic conditions, and basically what it provides is a much more detailed look at what the traffic conditions are not only on the major expressways, which is what most traffic management and traffic monitoring systems do, but also on arterials and surface streets. We've been in discussions with the port of Baltimore to look at whether or not it makes sense to try to come up with an application or ways to leverage this information which is quite a bit more detailed and more extensive than anything that's available through any other means to facilitate the movement of freight into and out of the port facility, specifically the terminal in Baltimore. Basically, the argument here is that if drivers and dispatchers have more information about conditions on roadways, it can make more educated decisions about how best to manage their fleet to meet the requirements, the business requirements that they have. I'm gonna show real quickly, hopefully the animation will work on this. This is what you're seeing here is a map of the Baltimore area and down in the lower central part of the graphic is the Dundalk (ph) Marine Terminal, and the argument we have here is again, with the information that's available through this system, that port truckers in particular will have a lot more information and the dispatchers will be able to get them good information about how to get into and out of ports with a minimum of congestion and all the bad things that come with that, like bad air quality and loss of time and loss of money. The first thing you see here is, this is a scenario that we came up with to kind of demonstrate what the system might do. So we're gonna use this scenario to kind of describe the functionality of the system and the benefit it will provide. Hypothetically, we have two loads to be picked up at terminal by 6:00 p.m. and it's now 5:30 p.m., and the dispatcher has three trucks in the area and is uncertain which trucks, which two should be sent to pick up the loads. Obviously, there are a number of different factors that come into that and if you were to look at dig ram, you might say well, trucks on the left are probably closer to the terminal and without further information, you might just decide to send the two trucks. In reality, based on traffic conditions that, might not be the smartest thing. See the one directly underneath her is in a downtown area and you may end up having a longer drive time to get to the terminal. So which two does she send? Well, the data from this system will provide enough information about what's going on in the network so that they'll be able to come up with travel times and conditions on roadways, and you see a little, a traffic cone and an exclamation point inside a little yellow diamond-shaped object there. These are basically other pieces of information that the state of Maryland already provides, and these are construction and incident information, and they all factor into the calculation of speeds and travel times and all the links in the area. So based on the information that's provided this dispatcher, with by integrating the system in with a computer-aided dispatch system, can determine which of the vehicles are likely to make the 6:00 cutoff. So instead of sending the two closest, she'll send the two that will make it. And that's what the last thing shows here, is that if you look at each one of these vehicles and the prescribed routes that they would take to get to the port, you find out that indeed -- and obviously this is a hypothetical case -- that the two circled have shorter travel times and are the only two that have an opportunity to make the gate before it closes. So the benefit, obviously that, you provide here is that you're fewer missed cutoffs, less time in congestion, and hopefully, what you'll find here is that overall, a better use of resources by sending the vehicles that are most appropriate. Now, this is just one scenario. Obviously, because you have the information that covers the entire network, you could get information across everything that's happening and you could manage traffic into and out of the port area and even across the metropolitan area. And then I'll wrap it up by saying that currently the system is operational-- the traffic monitoring component of this, the pro-vehicle component of this is up and operational. It's covering about 300 square miles, and I don't recall specifically the number of roadway miles, but I believe it's somewhere around 1500 or 2,000 roadway miles that are currently covered by this system, and what we're proposing is to run a pilot that employs that information to provide this kind of service to the commercial freight industry. So with that, I'll open it up for anyone who has questions. This is (indiscernible) I have a question and the fact that's also related to the first presentation, and this regards to the impact on any kind of a scheduling system with additional security constraints that the truck is having, and I mean such things as the TWIG card. How will all these systems take into effect to try to make a seamless process where drivers and the loads on there don't hamper all the best laid plans, such as this and others in the event that the identification of the driver is a problem or the load is a problem? So would there be a vulnerability in any of these systems if the TWIG card and other measures are not taken into account? Do you want us to hit that one first, Ron, and then I'll follow up? No, you go first. Sure, I'll go first. It's not something that's specifically accounted for in our demonstration, although I guess it could be. I think if you're looking at something that it's talking about a comparative analysis of different vehicles that may or may not make a cutoff time, you know, a dispatcher could always factor in the amount of time it takes on average to process into the port. So you wouldn't necessarily specifically address that issue, but you would expect -- you would take into account the time penalty that's associated with having to clear security into a port, that they could build that into their system. It's not something that I'm proposing to be included as part of this system, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it can't be. Does that answer your question? Thank you. Okay. Ron, did you want to try to tackle it? The way I look at the TWIG card is that just means if the driver has a card, that gives them access to the appointment system, and if he can't get access to it that means he's not authorized and he can't schedule, you know, his time slot. Now, if there is problems with the card, yes, that's gonna have an impact on several different things, but I guess just from a technology standpoint, the TWIK (ph) card, if we want to use it as a way to get authorization into the system, either has it and it works or he doesn't have it, and I mean, I'm not sure, again, from just the technology standpoint what else you could do along those lines. Okay, any other questions or comments? Either you're all asleep or just blown away, right? Okay, let's go to the next project, then, and that would be understanding and responding to the convergence of congestion and vulnerabilities in cargo transportation, and that's Irv Arconi and (indiscernible), and you already win the award for the largest project title, by the way. Excellent, excellent! I'm glad we won that one. Let me just do a brief overview and then Monseray (ph) will add in. We have complimentary skill sets in this area and hopefully, that will show the viability of this project. I think very sad and tragic to say this, but audit justification of our project. [ Beeping ] Hello? Still here. The demonstration of the viability of the project is in fact what we're seeing in New Orleans. We have a port that accounts for some 25% of U.S. exports that has major highway traffic nearby, a tremendous amount of transportation modes rely on the convergence of those modes in New Orleans, and you have a situation where that has been tremendously disrupted, and certainly, the first priority in there, of course, are the victims, the individuals who are suffering that we've all seen, but we are now also reading what is done to all the transportation modes. Our sense is in reading all this and trying to observe it is that there is no overall plan that any mode has as to what is gonna take place when such an event takes place. Now, this is an extreme event, but I would suggest that it's not as extreme as may occur when you have a strike at a port, which can bottle up that port or when you have a situation that's occurred two years back in Norfolk where one of the tunnels flooded that leads to the port, and what that did to that port. In an area where there's a light amount of traffic, the rail truck or so forth tend not to have a great effect because you're not disrupting a whole lot.