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ITS CANADA ELECTION FOR CHAIRPERSON AND BOARD OF DIRECTORS
ITS
Canada's current Board of
Directors was elected in May 2005 for a two-year term.
The next election will be held in February/March 2007,
with results confirmed by a vote of the members at
the Annual General Meeting to be held on Sunday, April
29, 2007, in Niagara Falls, Ontario. If you wish to
be a part of the team that will influence and guide
the future of ITS in Canada, please consider being
a candidate for Chairperson and/or Director in the
upcoming election.
Susan
Spencer, Director of Intelligent Transportation Systems
at Transport Canada, has agreed to act as Returning
Officer for the election process.
A
call for nominations for Chairperson and Directors
is hereby initiated. The closing date for nominations
will be Monday, January 29, 2007.
Members
in good standing are invited to mail or fax their
nominations to Susan Spencer using the Nomination
Forms available on ITS Canada’s website. In
order to be valid, nominations must include the signatures
of a nominator, a seconder and the candidate, as well
as a half-page biography of the candidate. Those with
previous experience in ITS Canada’s activities
are encouraged to include their contribution to the
Society in their biography.
The
nominator, seconder and candidate must not be representatives
of the same Corporate or Sustaining Corporate member.
Please note that the nominators, seconders and candidates
must be members in good standing, with membership
fees fully paid by January 27, 2007.
Any
candidate for Chairperson who also wants to be a candidate
for Director must submit two nomination forms: one
for Chairperson and one for Director.
Nomination
forms and biographies should be mailed or faxed to:
Ms.
Susan Spencer, Director – Intelligent Transportation
Systems
Transport Canada, Surface Transportation Policy
330 Sparks Street, Place de Ville, Tower C, 27th
Floor
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0N5
Fax: (613) 998-3987
An
electronic copy of your biography should also be forwarded
to askus@itscanada.ca.
The
slate of candidates will be announced during February
2007, and ballots will be mailed out to qualified
members at that time. More information about the voting
process will be provided in ITS Canada’s upcoming
newsletters. Should you have any questions regarding
the status of your membership, please contact ITS
Canada’s Secretariat via email at askus@itscanada.ca.
Full details regarding a Director’s role have
been posted on the ITS Canada website at: www.itscanada.ca/english/boardofdirectors.htm.
PARTNERSHIP SUCCESS – ITS AND PUBLIC TRANSPORT
SYMPOSIUM IN MONTREAL
By
William Johnson, Chair of ITS Canada’s Education
and Training Committee
ITS Canada, in partnership with the Association québécoise
du transport et des routes and the Canadian Urban
Transit Association, presented a successful symposium
in Montreal entitled “Les systèmes de
transports intelligent (STI) au service du transport
collectif” or in English “Intelligent
Transport Systems (ITS) and Public Transit”.
The event was organized by AQTR under the guidance
of an Organizing Committee of members representing
the three partner organizations.
The
one-day event attracted an audience of over 120 delegates
from Québec and across Canada. The program
included 10 informative presentations and interaction
with eight exhibitors. Dr. Brendon Hemily, a member
of ITS Canada, delivered the first formal presentation
to set the stage for the day’s program: “ITS
in Canadian Public Transit: Context and Problems”.
Invited speakers then made presentations on topics
as diverse as: “framework for evaluating ITS
projects”; “dynamic transit information
signs”; “transit signal priority”;
“systems to ensure user safety”; “use
of 511”; “benefits on 98 B-Line”;
“ITS and fleet maintenance”; “real-time
detection and notice of delays”; and “Ottawa’s
smart card project”. AQTR plans to post the
speakers’ presentations on their website at
www.aqtr.qc.ca and these will be available shortly.
The
symposium enjoyed the support of the Agence métropolitaine
de transport (AMT) and Transports Canada (for simultaneous
interpretation service) as well as sponsorship from
Bombardier Transportation, Bell Canada and Tecsult
Inc. To welcome delegates, Mr. Claude Carette, President
of AQTR, and Mr. Joël Gauthier, Honourary President
of the Symposium and President and CEO of AMT, delivered
the opening remarks. Delegates enjoyed a lively and
informative luncheon speaker, Mr. Carl Desrosiers,
Executive Director of Operations, Société
de transports de Montréal who spoke on plans
to upgrade the Montreal Metro, “The Reno-system
Project”. Dr. Michael Rochlau, President and
CEO of the Canadian Urban Transit Association, delivered
concluding remarks.
The
success of this event is a tribute to the importance
of the topic and to the close cooperation among the
three partners – ITS Canada, AQTR and CUTA.
This cooperation has been greatly facilitated by the
existence of both a spirit of collaboration and formal
agreements among the partner organizations. ITS Canada
can take some credit for initiating the collaboration
that led to this event through its initiative to foster
ITS training workshops and similar regionally focussed
outreach events with partners across Canada.
511 IN THE UNITED STATES
Statistics
for October 2006, as reported to the 511 Deployment
Coalition:
 |
1,631,857
total calls in October. |
|
Almost 62 million calls
nationwide since inception. |
|
26 consecutive months
with over 1 million calls. |
|
511 was available to
over 100 million Americans (35%). |
|
Systems deployed for
over one year saw a 21.3% increase in October
2006 call volumes compared to October 2005. |
|
The Southeast Florida
service received its 9 millionth call and the
Oregon service received its 2 millionth call. |
|
September saw the 2-year
anniversary of the service launch in Colorado
and Nebraska had its 5- year anniversary. |
TRANSIT SIGNAL PRIORITY IN MISSISSAUGA – An Innovative Approach to System Fine Tuning
By Mike Corby, IBI Group
The
City of Mississauga, with partnership support from
Transport Canada, has undertaken a pilot deployment
of Smart Vehicle applications in order to validate
potential benefits. Transport Canada’s funding
comes from the ITS component of the Strategic Highway
Infrastructure Program. As part of this work, Transit
Signal Priority (TSP) has been deployed along the
Hurontario Street corridor. The Smart Vehicle TSP
system includes three main components:
|
Transit Management
System (TMS), which includes the Vehicle Logic
Unit (VLU) on board the transit vehicle, and central
CAD/AVL software; |
|
Traffic Signal Control System,
including central software TSP logic; and |
|
Transit vehicle detection
system. |
This
system is capable of active, conditional TSP, where
TSP is only initiated when predetermined conditions
(e.g., schedule adherence and passenger loading) are
met. The onboard VLU controls the TSP request by tracking
the transit vehicle position along the roadway to
determine schedule adherence, along with passenger
loading from the automatic passenger counter. When
the predetermined conditions are met, the request
for priority is initiated. Each intersection approach
has unique TSP trigger points to initiate and cancel
the request for priority.
Although
several TSP systems have been deployed with this level
of system sophistication, there is little published
literature focusing on the methodology used in fine-tuning
TSP applications. For the Mississauga assignment,
a unique TSP fine-tuning process was developed that
is based upon the use of a GPS video survey tool,
RouteMapper Lite™.
The objective of
the TSP fine-tuning exercise is to verify that TSP
is operating properly and that the TSP parameters
(including the VLU distances for check in/check out,
the traffic signal system maximum green extension,
red truncation times and bus dwell times at nearside
stops) are suitable for the various intersections.
RouteMapper
Lite™ is installed on a selected transit vehicle,
which drives through the route several times in order
to provide a comparative sample of TSP activity at
the same intersection during different time periods.
The TSP event logs from the TMS and the traffic signal
control system are collected and analyzed using the
RouteMapper Lite™ browser to consolidate the
TSP activity, effectively replaying the TSP events.
The
RouteMapper Lite™ GPS video survey results were
used to identify intersections where:
|
The request for
priority was generated, but not received –
potentially faulty detection system. |
|
The request for priority was
not generated, but was received – detection
system is acknowledging a request from an upstream
intersection. |
|
The request for priority was
generated and received, but the TSP routine was
not successful – TSP parameter adjustment
required. |
 Screen capture
PARKING AUTOMATION – A SEGMENT OF ITS THAT HELPS REDUCE CONGESTION
… AND FRUSTRATION!
By
Robert Bruce, ITS Canada Director
Intelligent Transportation
Systems keep traffic moving efficiently on road networks
throughout the world. This traffic is all heading
to exactly the same location – a parking space.
Too many cars and too few parking spaces put tremendous
strain on our transportation networks. Just as the
technology of ITS reduces the need to expand the concrete
infrastructure, clever and innovative parking solutions
minimize the need to build more parking stalls.
Nothing
highlights this traffic/parking problem more than
special events that attract thousands and thousands
of visitors to a single destination. Few of us can
resist the urge to search for the parking spots at
the cheapest price or the one free spot nearest to
the event. This search causes added queues and congestion
in the area of the event and strategies to reduce
the search help to improve conditions on the road
network.
Some
of the classic traffic demand management solutions
are quite simple, and geared towards people using
other than the car as transportation. Common implementations
are improvements to bicycle and pedestrian access,
public transit right of ways, public transit fare
subsidies and other related solutions.
Other
solutions involve innovative mixes of ITS and parking
systems. These systems can leverage existing technology
infrastructure, to share information for the benefit
of travellers.
Prepaid
parking can be purchased at the same time that the
event ticket is purchased. Purchased on the web, tickets
with a bar-code identifying payment can be printed
at home. The driver waves the paper with the bar code
in front of a scanner at the parking lot entrance
and is automatically admitted into the parking lot.
Parking systems allow only one entry per bar code,
eliminating potential fraud.
This
system reserves a parking space for a patron the same
way his families’ seats or entry passes to the
event are reserved. The driver proceeds directly to
his parking lot with confidence that a space will
be available for him.
Changeable
Message Signs can alert drivers to the parking conditions
that they will encounter. Such parking information
systems are common in the Central Business District
of European cities where the local municipality owns
the parking lots and is keen to share the information.
They have played an important role in maintaining
the economic viability of downtown districts.
For
special events, trailer-mounted Dynamic Message Signs
can be deployed. The signs can be updated in real-time
to reflect capacity of the parking lots. As lots become
full, new messages direct cars to locations where
parking is available. Further out from the event,
this same type of sign can direct drivers to off-site
parking locations where shuttles can transport the
patrons into the event, reducing congestion and queuing
at or near the location.
This information
can be viewed on the web and personal devices, allowing
drivers to make intelligent parking choices prior
to departure or even modify the choice on route. Fusing
datasets from a variety of sources gives the driver
useful and timely information, reducing the stress
of the commute and parking.
 Photo courtesy of TPA North America Inc.
UPDATE
ON ISO/TC204
By
William Johnson, Chair CAC for ISO/TC204
ISO and Standards
International ITS standards are developed under the
auspices of ISO, the International Organization for
Standards (no, the word order is not an error! ISO
is an anagram, not an acronym). ISO is a consortium
of national standards bodies from over 100 countries
and the Standards Council of Canada is our national
member. The SCC authorizes a Canadian Advisory Committee
(CAC) to oversee Canadian participation in the international
activities of each ISO Technical Committee. The ISO
Technical Committee 204 is responsible for international
standards related to intelligent transport systems.
The SCC authorized creation of the CAC for ISO/TC204
in 1994 based on the joint recommendation of ITS Canada
and Transport Canada.
TC204
and ITS
There are 12 active working groups in TC204. They
span the entire scope of the application of ITS to
vehicles, infrastructure and control systems. The
chair of the CAC works closely with the SCC Program
Officer to facilitate the review of draft documents
and voting on ballots. Countries can also initiate
work items that, with the support of at least five
member countries, can be developed through the various
stages to finally emerge as final international standards
(IS).
The
12 active working groups are each led by an international
convener who is sponsored by their home country but
who becomes responsible to the TC for the work program.
This arrangement grants the convener independence
of the sponsors of each work item while maintaining
some coherent direction over the TC’s work program.
Canada sponsors Dr. Lewis Sabounghi as the International
Convener of Working Group 7 – Fleet Management
and Commercial Freight. Informally, Canada has sponsored
the convener of sub-working group 10.6 – Traveller
Information User Services Integration, Mr. Jackson
Wang.
We
note with regret that Jackson has recently resigned
from this role and we thank him for his valuable leadership
and technical contributions to the international activities
of Working Group 10.
Highlights
of 2006
TC204 completed work on the development of an international
standard for “Data Dictionary and Message Sets
for Electronic Identification and Monitoring of Dangerous
Goods Transportation”. This work item was originally
proposed by Canada, and has engaged the contributions
of the five participating countries and the support
of the 23 member countries in the final ballot. ISO
17687 now passes into the realm of an international
standard.
Another
highlight of 2006 was completion of ISO 14827, Parts
1 and 2, “Data Interfaces Between Centres for
Transport Information and Control Systems”.
Work is now underway to extend this international
standard to include a profile based on XmL for these
data interfaces.
Report
on Canadian ITS Standards Experience
A World Report on ITS Standards was completed in 2006
under the sponsorship of Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation
(APEC) and ISO/TC204. The Canadian contribution was
reported at a Workshop on Best Practices in Busan,
Korea, in April 2006. These results will be made available
in Canada as soon as publication is arranged. In the
meantime, interested parties can contact the Chair
of CAC for TC204.
Plenary
in Cape Town
The South African Bureau of Standards hosted the fall
2006 TC204 plenary and working group meetings in October
in Cape Town. This was the first time the plenary
had been held outside of Europe, North America and
Asia-Pacific. Despite the great distance to Cape Town,
the meetings were very well attended. The Chair of
the CAC and the Convener of WG7 represented Canada
at the plenary.
The
next meeting of the TC204 Plenary will take place
in North America on April 27, 2007, in Lexington,
Kentucky. As the venue is relatively accessible, we
hope that there will be many delegates from Canada
attending this session. The next North American Plenary
Meeting of TC204 will take place in fall 2008 and
Canada is considering an invitation to host that event.
Stay tuned!
ITS
IN SOUTH AFRICA
By
Paul Vorster, ITS South Africa
ITS in South Africa has grown
rapidly in the preceding two years and hosting the
FIFA Soccer World Cup is accelerating ITS deployment.
Currently, there are two flagship projects, namely,
the Gautrain Rapid Rail Link and the N1 Freeway Management
Project.
Gautrain
is a rapid rail link between Johannesburg and Pretoria
and between Sandton and the International Airport
(recently renamed as the OR Tambo Airport). Please
visit www.gautrain.co.za for more details.
The
N1 Freeway is the busiest road by far in South Africa
and links the national capitol Pretoria with Johannesburg,
South Africa’s commercial capital. Suffering
from serious congestion, the N1 Freeway Management
Project is deploying CCTV cameras and various detectors
linked by fibre optic to the National Management Centre
that is responsible for activating EMS to respond
to incidents. This is a project of the National Roads
Agency.
The
Metropolitan Governments of Johannesburg, Pretoria
(Tshwane) and Ekhurhuleni are cooperating with the
National Roads Agency and the project is expanding
from a pilot project into area-wide deployment.
FIFA
Soccer World Cup 2010 will be hosted in South Africa
and is giving rise to several other anticipated ITS
deployments, such as integrated ticketing development.
Other projects include the R8 billion taxi recapitalisation
and mega upgrades to logistics infrastructure and
rail projects, both freight and commuter.
The e-Transport Conference and Exhibition is being hosted by ITS South Africa on March 6-9,
2007, in Pretoria. The theme is “Sustainable
Public Transport for Soccer World Cup 2010”.
ITS Canada is planning a trade mission to coincide
with this event in order to investigate the opportunities
and possible local partnership options. For conference
information, visit www.sasits.com or contact Paul Vorster (paul@sasits.com)
for details.
FUNDING
ANNOUNCEMENT
On
November 29, 2006, the governments of Canada and Ontario
announced that they will team up to fund research
to make Ontario transportation safer and more reliable,
with an investment of $930,000 in research and development
projects on intelligent transportation systems. Each
government will contribute $465,000 for projects beginning
now through to September 30, 2008.
The
University of Toronto will oversee three projects
totalling $264,000, expected to be complete by fall
2008. Two of the projects will explore ways to make
transit more convenient and attractive for passengers
by increasing the level of service and making transit
schedules and routes more flexible.
A
third project will explore changes in the movement
of goods by commercial vehicles that will provide
up-to-date information on heavily used truck routes,
which will help in planning and investing in future
highway improvements.
These
initiatives are funded by the governments of Canada
and Ontario under the $600-million Strategic Highway
Infrastructure Program, which dedicates $100 million
for initiatives that better integrate the country’s
transportation system. One of these is the $30-million
intelligent transportation systems initiative, which
includes applications such as advanced systems for
traveller information, traffic management, public
transport, commercial vehicle operations, emergency
response management and vehicle safety.
For full details: www.tc.gc.ca/mediaroom/releases/nat/2006/06-h168e.htm.
MEMBERS
IN THE NEWS
On
November 9, 2006, Trapeze Group announced
the strengthening of the Company’s commitment
to provide intelligent transportation systems through
the creation of a new Mobile Hardware & Communications
division and the integration of the company’s
existing product development and ITS development teams.
The changes are designed to further enhance Trapeze’s
enterprise offering in the demand response and fixed
route sectors. The new Division will focus on integrating
Trapeze products with third-party hardware and software
to deliver complete end-to-end solutions, including
the communications infrastructure required to make
this happen.
TransLink’s
Golden Ears Bridge Project was awarded the Gold Award
for Project Financing at the Canadian Council for
Public Private Partnerships 2006 National Awards for
Innovation and Excellence ceremony held in Toronto
in early November. The award recognizes the project’s
innovative approach that will result in six to ten
million dollars in savings to taxpayers, compared
to a project solely delivered by the public sector.
It also recognizes the project’s success achieving
a fixed-price, date-certain contract and transferring
responsibility for construction costs, on-time delivery
and operating performance to the private sector. The
project will improve the economic competitiveness
of Fraser Valley, improve the flow of commercial goods
and business traffic and provide community benefits
including new travel choices for transit users, cyclists
and pedestrians.
NAVTEQ has been selected by ROUTE 66 to supply the latest
European digital map data for the recently launched
Chicago series -- four, ultra slim designed, portable
car navigation systems. The Chicago series is supplied
with a detailed country map or a pan-European map
and features a 2D/3D view, plus a day-and-night view,
fuzzy search, free safety camera information for most
European countries and advanced infotainment such
as an MP3 player with earphones. The series is one
of the slimmest and lightest widescreen PNDs (personal
navigation devices) currently available. With the
launch of the Chicago series, ROUTE 66 is making a
significant entry into the portable navigation hardware
market.
Earlier
this year, Delcan Corporation won an assignment in
South Africa to develop an ITS road map for the city
of Johannesburg as it prepares for the FIFA World
Cup Soccer 2010. The project involves the review of
ITS technologies for the city to combat day-to-day
congestion problems, as well as dealing with additional
traffic loading during the 2010 event.
UPCOMING
EVENTS
IBTTA’s Transportation
Finance Summit
December 3 to 5, 2006 – Washington, D.C.
www.ibtta.org/Events |
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First
Middle-East ITS Conference
December 4 and 5, 2006 – Dubai, UAE
www.its-arab.org |
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 |
ITS
Canada-AQTR Workshop: Intelligent Transportaton
Systems and Transit
December 7, 2006 – Montreal, Quebec
www.itscanada.ca/montreal2006 |
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| 2007 |
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Congres ATEC-ITS France
January 30 and 31, 2007 – Paris, France
www.atec-tec.net |
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ITS Conference
February 1 and 2, 2007 – New Delhi, India
www.euindia.info |
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ITS
Technology Fair
February
14, 2007 – Washington , D.C.
www.itsa.org/techfair.html
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ANDINATRAFFIC
2007
February 26 to 28, 2007 – Bogotá,
Colombia
www.andinatraffic.com/sa3t/home/index.cfm |
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SASITS e-Transport Conference
March 6 to 8, 2007 – Pretoria, South Africa
www.sasits.com |
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Intertraffic
China
March 15 to 17, 2007 – Beijing China
www.intertraffic.com |
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Le 42e congrès annuel
de l'AQTR
April 2 to 4, 2007 – Montreal, QC
ctasse@aqtr.qc.ca |
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TAC's Spring 2007 Technical
Meetings
April 11 to 18, 2007 – Ottawa, Ontario
www.tac-atc.ca |
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Smart
Moving Conference 2007 / Traffex 2007
April 17 to 19, 2007 – Birmingham, UK
Theme: “SMART Solutions for Today”
www.its-uk.org.uk |
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ITS
Canada Annual Conference and General Meeting
April 29 to May 1, 2007 – Niagara Falls,
Ontario
Call For Abstracts – due January 19,
2007
www.itscanada.ca/niagara2007 |
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CITE 2007 Conference
May 6 to 9, 2007 – Toronto, Ontario
www.itetoronto.ca |
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Intertraffic Istanbul
May 9 to 11, 2007 – Istanbul, Turkey
www.intertraffic.com |
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XVII
Canadian Multidiscipinary Road Safety Conference
June 3 to 6, 2007 – Montreal, Quebec
www.cmrsc.polymtl.ca |
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ITS
America 2007 Annual Meeting and Exposition
June 4 to 6, 2007 – Palm Springs, California
www.itsa.org |
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European
ITS Congress
June 18 to 20, 2007 – Aalborg, Denmark
www.itsineurope.com |
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23rd World Road Congress
September 17 to 21, 2007 – Paris, France
www.paris2007-route.fr |
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14th
World Congress on ITS
October 9 to 13, 2007 – Beijing, China
Call
for Papers deadline for the 14th World Congress
on ITS
The
deadline to submit a paper for the 14th World
Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems is
January 31, 2007. Papers must be submitted through
the website of the 14th World Congress on ITS
at www.itsworldcongress.cn. |
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Newsletter
published by ITS Canada.
Submissions
or comments can be emailed to askus@itscanada.ca.
|
