2020

This project presents recent applications of new procurement practices, or traditional procurement practices applied in new ways, to partner with emerging technology providers. The final report includes information that may be useful to project managers as they carry out individual projects, to program managers exploring ways to proactively engage industry, and to contracting and procurement staff wanting information about new and innovative practices. The case studies and resources highlighted in this report were selected for how they addressed recent procurement challenges identified by ENTERPRISE members. The resources provide guidance on process, specialized information for specific technologies, and examples of procurement training. They represent a cross-section of general procurement and technology-specific procurement to help articulate agency needs, identify prospective partners, determine contracting processes, and guide projects through procurement when partnering with emerging technology providers. Case studies are presented in terms of the challenges that they address, and key procurement practices are also highlighted. They include a variety of innovative contracting approaches and project specific applications of different procurement processes.

The process of gathering information about road conditions during a winter storm typically involves plow operators, enforcement or other traffic operations staff reporting on conditions that they observe while on the road. These staff perform several critical functions during road weather events and reporting road conditions for traveler information is often less critical than other functions. This frequently leads to inconsistent, inaccurate and untimely reports. ENTERPRISE sponsored this effort to research what transportation agencies are doing to leverage technology and automate or assist with winter road condition reporting. Phase 1 of the effort focused on gathering information about how agencies were approaching automated and assisted classification of road conditions. Phase 2 explored specific attributes of data that can be used to automate road condition reporting with the intent of increasing agencies’ understanding and evaluation of this data. This was achieved by establishing a list of available data sources, providing an overview of the types of data available from each source, describing common characteristics for various types of data, and gathering information about agency experiences with data to automate the reporting of winter road conditions.

Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) provide cost-effective solutions for agencies to achieve their mobility objectives. Both agencies and travelers are dependent upon the availability and reliability of advanced technologies. As a result, the use of technology is increasing and agencies’ investments in ITS assets are increasing along with the effort required to plan, procure, manage, and operate them.

The purpose of this report is to summarize the current state of ITS asset management, both in the ENTERPRISE member agencies and across North America, and to describe the attributes and criteria being used to effectively support ITS asset management.

Active Transportation Management (ATM) encompasses a suite of strategies that give agencies the ability to dynamically manage recurrent and non-recurrent congestion based on prevailing and predicted traffic conditions. ATM approaches focus on influencing travel behavior with respect to lane/facility choices and operations. ATM deployments are still relatively new in the United States with few deployments prior to 2010, however the number of deployments has increased in the past decade nationwide. ENTERPRISE conducted this project to identify resources and document lessons learned related to the development and deployment of ATM strategies, with an emphasis on deployments in urban areas that include multiple applications (e.g. Variable Speed Limits (VSLs), dynamic queue warning, part-time shoulder running).

Transportation is on the verge of dramatic change with the introduction of connected and automated vehicles (CAV) and mobility as a service (MaaS), also referred to as mobility on demand (MOD). As private industry identifies new market opportunities to deliver transportation automation and services, infrastructure owners and operators are working to understand what their roles and responsibilities will be in the future and during the ensuing transition period. ENTERPRISE initiated this project to begin exploring how CAV and MaaS might impact operations, especially as it relates to ITS infrastructure.

The following materials were used in a series of workshops conducted during the project and are provided here for further reference.

• Project two-pager
• Definitions for CAV
• Definitions for MaaS
• Potential Impacts to ITS/Traffic Operations for MaaS and CAV

The ENTERPRISE Pooled Fund Study has completed two previous efforts supporting transportation agencies integrating arrow board status information from the field into traveler information systems to alert TMC operators and travelers in real-time, for example, of a lane closure. Per direction from the ENTERPRISE Board, Phase 1 and Phase 2 were completed in 2017 in order to properly assess needs and potential solutions before deployment and evaluation of a real-time arrow board system at one or more ENTERPRISE agency sites.

In 2018, the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) conducted a one year pilot project through a contract with a vendor (Street Smart) that installed a monitoring device on 20 arrow boards that provided arrow board status information (e.g. right arrow on, left arrow on) to the vendor’s server. The arrow board status information from the server was then integrated with MnDOT’s Advanced Traffic Management System (ATMS) and then their Road Condition Reporting System (RCRS). In 2019, the Iowa DOT had access to 5 equipped arrow boards with reporting capabilities (Street Smart, iCone, Ver-Mac) to provide real-time arrow board status information to the vendor’s server. This project evaluated the deployments of the arrow board concept in these two ENTERPRISE member states (Minnesota and Iowa). In addition, an overview of the Regional Transportation Commission (RTC) of Southern Nevada real-time arrow board reporting system deployment is included as another perspective. Overall the data analysis for MnDOT and the information gathered from interviews from MnDOT and Iowa DOT indicate a benefit to the traveling public and Transportation Management Center (TMC) operators with additional information on the overall network with the location of lane closures provided by arrow board reporting systems.