Intelligent Transportation Systems

ITS Lab @ PSU

Intelligent Transportation Systems Laboratory

A broad range of diverse technologies, known collectively as intelligent transportation systems (ITS), holds the answer to many of our society's transportation problems. ITS are comprised of existing and new technologies, including information processing, sensors, communications, control, and electronics. Combining these technologies in innovative ways and integrating them into our multimodal transportation system will save lives, time, and resources.Transportation is the backbone of our society the movement of people and goods provides the foundation of our quality of life and economic prosperity. Fulfilling the need for a transportation system that is both economically sound and environmentally efficient requires a new way of looking at and solving our transportation problems. The strategy of adding more and more highway capacity neither solves our transportation problems, nor meets the broad national vision of an efficient, integrated transportation system. We focus on the integration and improvement of all modes highway, transit, bicycle, pedestrian and freight.Traffic crashes and congestion take heavy tolls in lives, lost productivity, and wasted energy. ITS enables people and goods to move more safely and efficiently through a state-of-the-art, intermodal transportation system.

 
 

Intelligent Transportation Systems Laboratory's Featured Project:

Using Existing ITS commercial Vehicle Operation (ITS/CVO) Data to Develop Statewide (and Bi-state) Truck Travel Time Estimates

The transportation of freight is an important component of the Oregon economy. The Federal Highway Administration estimates that from 1998 to 2010, the total tonnage of freight shipments to, from, and within Oregon will have increased 50% and the value of those same shipments nearly doubled. While other modes are clearly important for freight transportation, trucking is the dominant mode in terms of tons and value. Currently, there is no system that estimates travel time for many major freight corridors in Oregon. However, the existing infrastructure of Oregon's Green Light program provides an opportunity to generate travel time estimates for many travel corridors in Oregon with little additional investment. The Green Light program enrolls approximately 3,330 trucking companies with 30,200 transponder-equipped trucks (which does not include carriers participating in other electronic screening programs from other states). There are 22 equipped stations in Oregon where these transponders can be read and corridor travel times predicted. These estimates would also be useful to travelers and would be an additional enhancement to Oregon's traveler information system, TripCheck. In addition, these stations also include weigh-in-motion systems which provide axle weights, spacing, and gross vehicle weight estimates uniquely matched to a transponder-equipped truck. The objective of this

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