Consider cost-saving strategies and long term needs when making communications investments.

National experience with making communications investments for incident management.

Date Posted
09/16/2005
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Identifier
2005-L00027

Intelligent Transportation Systems Field Operational Test Cross-Cutting Study: Incident Management: Detection, Verification, and Traffic Management

Summary Information

In 1991, the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) initiated a new program to address the needs of the emerging ITS field. This program solicited and funded projects, called Field Operational Tests (FOTs). The tests were sponsored and supported by several administrations of the Department, including the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). FHWA has prepared several "crosscutting" studies that compare or synthesize the findings of multiple tests within a particular area of interest.

This report presents the results of nine FHWA ITS FOTs and the ITS deployment in Georgia for the 1996 Summer Olympics, and discusses the possible implications of these findings for further deployment of incident detection, verification, and traffic management services, and communications to improve the Incident Management capabilities of transportation and public safety officials. The service will help these officials to quickly and accurately identify a variety of incidents, and to implement a set of actions to minimize the effects of those incidents.

Lessons Learned

Consider cost-saving strategies when making communications investments.

 

  • The most common solution found to reduce the cost of incident management system implementation was to reuse existing resources. Since communication was often half of the total cost of deploying an incident management system, using existing communication resources would be a significant cost saving strategy.

 

  • A second cost saving strategy would be avoiding the intensive investment of cable burial by using wireless communication. Use low-power equipment and solar power when possible.
  • A related lesson is that, when making the communication investment, there can be a great long-term benefit to sizing the infrastructure to handle the eventual bandwidth demand.