Completed

Intersection crashes continue to represent a significant share of transportation fatalities and serious injuries throughout the country. In addition to intersection lighting, signing and geometric improvements, organizations have turned to ITS as another tool for improving safety. Over the past several years, a variety of mainline and cross street oriented intersection conflict warning systems have been developed and tested in many states across the country. Some systems have been developed using local expertise, while others have been supported by the USDOT Cooperative Intersection Collision Avoidance Systems program. No specific guidance has been available for these systems in regard to placement, size, messaging, failsafe, etc. This has resulted in a fairly broad range of approaches and with the states’ growing experience there is now an opportunity to work together in moving toward standardization.

Bringing together organizations that have developed and deployed intersection conflict warning systems, the purpose of this project was to develop a consistent approach for accelerated, uniform deployment and further evaluation of intersection conflict warning systems (ICWS), and to recommend preliminary standards for MUTCD consideration. This work was initiated through a webinar and two in-person workshops. Participants included ENTERPRISE pooled fund states, other states that have deployed systems, FHWA, NCUTCD, AASHTO and NACE.

Results

• Increased awareness of systems deployed
• Preliminary standards to support accelerated and more consistent deployment for experimentation
• Evaluation framework for further experimentation
• Roadmap to reach complete standards in the MUTCD

Awards

This ENTERPRISE project received an award for Best New Innovative Practice during the 2012 National Rural ITS Conference for its success in bringing together organizations that have deployed intersection conflict warning systems (ICWS) to capture current practice and develop preliminary design guidance for further standards consideration.

Webinars/Workshops

For additional information and presentations from the project webinars and workshops click here.

Related Documents/Links

For a listing of related documents and links to this intersection warning conflict systems (ICWS) ENTERPRISE project click here. For more information about the other phases of ENTERPRISE work with intersection conflict warning systems go to:

• Phase 2 – ICWS Coordination and Systems Engineering: This project furthered supported the standardization of ICWS by coordinating among the various national standards and association groups, and by developing a concept of operations and system requirements for the four types of ICWS identified in the Design and Evaluation Guidance for Intersection Conflict Warning Systems developed in Phase 1. 
• Phase 3 – ICWS Support and Outreach: This phase will continue coordination with national standards groups, industry associations and other pooled fund programs that have been engaged through the ENTERPRISE ICWS work. Phase 3 will also continue to provide ICWS deployment support to ENTERPRISE members.
• Phase 4 – Roadmap for Next Generation Intersection Conflict Warning Systems (ICWS): This project identified and documented issues related to the development and deployment of next-generation approaches to ICWS. This information was utilized to develop a roadmap of prioritized next steps to help guide future ICWS deployment efforts.

ENTERPRISE member agencies use a variety of tools and approaches to inform travelers about conditions on the roadways, including Dynamic Message Signs (DMS) and traffic flow maps on internet dissemination websites.  The impacts of these tools are not clearly understood.  While the public response to these dissemination tools has been very positive, there remains minimal solid evidence about the travel pattern changes caused by these messages or the impacts on other routes. Based upon the ENTERPRISE Travel Time Best Practices project, in nearly every state deployed, the travel time reports have received very positive feedback, and perhaps the value lies in informing travelers of conditions ahead, regardless of whether they divert.

ENTERPRISE recognized the need for additional research on the impacts of traveler information and approved the “Impacts of Traveler Information on the Overall Network Project” to focus on understanding the impacts that travel time message displays (web and roadside) have on the network.

To determine the impacts of travel times, on-line surveys were created and linked to the traveler information portion of the Minnesota and Washington State Department of Transportation (DOT) websites to gather feedback from travelers regarding their use of travel time information displayed on the web and on roadside DMS.

In addition to surveying travelers’ opinions, historical travel time displays on DMS together with related traffic volume data (from locations downstream of the DMS) from the Minnesota and Washington State networks were analyzed.

This ENTERPRISE Project was highlighted in the July/August 2013 ITS International publication.

There are a number of private vendors today who sell and provide third party data for a variety of transportation purposes. Data may be oriented to commercial freight companies, personal navigation systems, transportation agencies and many more. Speed, travel time, volume and occupancy data is important in maintaining the safety and mobility of the transportation network. Some transportation agencies use this type of data from third party providers to deliver traveler information, manage traffic, and conduct studies.

ENTERPRISE initiated this project – Understanding Utilization of Third Party Travel Data and Information – to better understand what providers are offering, how states are using the data and what their options might be for future use of such data. The approach for this project involved an initial survey of ENTERPRISE member needs and uses for third party data.

The final report summarizes the information gathered during this project and is written in a format to accommodate easy future reference by the ENTERPRISE members. The information summarized in this report includes:

1. ENTERPRISE member survey of third party data needs and uses
2. Third party data provider information
3. Public agency experiences with using third party data

Related Documents/Links

Following is a listing of related documents and links to the Understanding Utilization of Third Party Travel Data and Information ENTERPRISE project.

Source	Related Document/Link
ENTERPRISE	Understanding Utilization of Third Party Data and Information – Final Report
Washington State DOT	Request for Proposals: Traffic Data, May 2011
Washington State DOT	Request for Proposals-Amendment 1: Traffic Data
Washington State DOT	Third Party Data Use Assessment
Virginia DOT	Request for Proposals: Statewide Evacuation, Special Event and Work Zone Real Time Video and Data Collection Services, October 2010
Ministry of Transportation Ontario	Alternative Methodologies for Travel Time Studies Final Report, July 2012

The ENTERPRISE Pooled Fund Study in 2009 developed initial warrants for the following Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) devices to assist agencies in the decision process of deploying technology devices as well as to validate the location of deployed devices. 

• Closed Circuit Television (CCTV);
• Dynamic Message Signs (DMS);
• Highway Advisory Radio (HAR); and
• Road Weather Information Systems (RWIS).

The second phase of the project was completed in 2010 and focused on developing warrants for the following technology devices:

• Variable Speed Limit (VSL) Signs;
• Dynamic Speed Display Signs (DSDS);
• Curve Warning Systems;
• Ramp Meters; and
• Intelligent Work Zones.

Transportation professionals at the state/province, county, and city levels face challenges on how to handle increasing requests for the deployment of technology devices.  The overall approach to the ITS warrants is modeled after the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) warrants for traffic signal installations.  Based on this model, the ITS warrants identify guidelines to assist deployment decisions of technology devices.    

During the initial warrants effort more than 20 transportation professionals participated in testing the warrants and some of these agencies are continuing to actively using the warrants as part of the decision making process for selecting device locations.  The next warrant efforts continued to support the success of the initial phase by providing additional device warrants for transportation professionals to use.

• Phase 3: This phase documented the activities ENTERPRISE conducted as owner and maintainer of the ITS planning guidance to assist in identifying potential organizations for transitioning the guidance. After the ENTERPRISE Board reviewed the different options for one organization to maintain the warrants, it was agreed that ENTERPRISE should continue to own and maintain the warrants and partner with organizations to review the warrants. The AASHTO Subcommittee on Traffic Engineering (SCOTE) agreed to review and provide comments on the planning guidance in 2013. In Phase 3, ITS Planning Guidance was also developed for Intersection Conflict Warning Systems.
• Phase 4: The purpose of Phase 4 was to continue to partner with the SCOTE task force to update the ITS planning guidance documentation and website based on recommendations and enhance the planning guidelines developed to date.

Website

The ITS Warrants developed by ENTERPRISE are available at: http://enterprise.prog.org/itswarrants/. The warrants website includes background information of the development of the warrants, instructions on how to use the warrants, and the warrants for the devices developed to date.

This project builds off a series of projects (ITS Warrants – Phase 1 and Phase 2) that have been conducted by the ENTERPRISE Pooled Fund Study to develop preliminary warrants for ITS devices. The warrants were designed to assist agencies with deployment decisions and site selection. ENTERPRISE continues to test and refine the warrants while exploring industry acceptance for the concept. The overall approach to developing the ITS warrants was modeled after the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) warrants for traffic signal installations.   

Ideally, the ENTERPRISE Program envisioned that a National or International agency would embrace the concept of technology device warrants and carry the concept forward in order to support traffic engineers for years to come. In order to move towards this vision, ENTERPRISE approved this project “Supporting the Transition of ENTERPRISE ITS Warrants to a Permanent Home”. The objective of this project was to document activities ENTERPRISE had conducted as owner and maintainer of the warrants to assist in identifying potential organizations for transitioning the warrants to a new owner.

As ENTERPRISE documented the details of each task that was involved with owning the warrants, a number of options were suggested as potential organizations to transition the ownership and maintenance of the warrants. However after the ENTERPRISE Board reviewed the different options for one organization to maintain the warrants, it was agreed that ENTERPRISE should continue to own and maintain the warrants and partner with organizations to review the warrants. This approach was based on the understanding that it would be easier to find agencies willing to review and comment on one or more warrants periodically than it would be to find an organization willing to accept the entire workload of all the warrants. Given this, ENTERPRISE as part of this project developed a warrants review process to assist with review and modifications of the warrants.

The Phase 3 effort, also included developing ITS warrants for Intersection Conflict Warning Systems.

At the completion of this project, ENTERPRISE moved forward with Phase 4 to work with a task force from the AASHTO Subcommittee on Traffic Engineering to review and provide input to the ITS Warrants.

Website

The ITS Warrants developed by ENTERPRISE are available at: http://enterprise.prog.org/itswarrants/