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10
NII and Intelligent Transport Systems
Lewis M. Branscomb and Jim Keller
Harvard University
Just as the highway metaphor has driven the vision of advanced
communications infrastructure, so also are advances in
communications pushing the vision of our transportation systems
future. How do these two systems interrelate? What policy issues
does this relationship raise?
Over the past half-century, the U.S. highway system has advanced
regional and national economic development by enhancing access to
markets for goods, services, and people. It has also provided
direct quality-of-life benefits by providing easier access to both
work and leisure. Now the traditional model for surface
transportation is reaching its limit. In many areas systems are at
or beyond capacity. Building new or bigger roads is not the answer
because of space and budget constraints and environmental concerns.
Instead, the focus of transportation experts is now on promoting
more efficient use of existing capacity. The central theme of these
efforts is more efficient integration of existing transportation
components through the use of information technology.
The Department of Transportation's Intelligent Transportation
Systems (ITS) Program is the focal point for coordinating the
development of a national ITS system. The current program was
funded in 1991 under the Intermodal Surface Transportation
Efficiency Act of 1991. In the federal ITS program user services
are broken down into 7 areas consisting of 29 applications (Table
1). Anticipated benefits of ITS include reduced travel time and
pollution and increased traveler safety and convenience. Although
there are clear public-interest benefits to ITS services, the
public-sector role in ITS development will in many respects be
indirect. Consistent with activity in other components of the
national information infrastructure (NII), development will be a
complex mix of public and private interactions.
The federal role in the development of ITS will be primarily
that of an enabler, just as it is for the NII. ITS systems
involving fixed facilities will initially develop locally and
regionally, whereas commercial products for use in vehicles and in
trip planning will be sold nationally and internationally. The
Department of Transportation will need to take a leadership role in
a variety of system architecture and standards development,
deployment, and coordination issues to ensure that all of these
systems will come together smoothly into a coherent national
system. Standards will be needed to address interoperability at
different layers in the ITS architecture and issues of data
compatibility across systems. Data collected locally must integrate
smoothly into national systems, requiring broad agreement on data
definitions and coding. Local system developers will have to agree
on what information is important, what it will be called, and how
it will be recorded.
The standardization issues are complex relative to the
traditional telecommunications environment, as they span a broader
array of technologies and systems. At the same time, the
environment for standardization is relatively weak. Telecom
standards evolved with a common platform and a stable (indeed
regulated) competitive environment, but ITS will consist of
heterogeneous systems and a relatively independent set of players.
As with other areas of computing and communications, players will
face a conflicting set of incentives to seek standardization,
including incentives to differentiate (for competitive advantage
and to lock in market share) and to seek interoperability (to
expand the market for services and to lower the costs for customers
to migrate to their system).
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TABLE 1 ITS User Services
User Service Area
Application
Travel and Transportation Management
En-route driver information
Route guidance
Traveler services information
Traffic control
Incident management
Emissions testing and mitigation
Travel Demand Management
Demand management and operations
Pre-trip travel information
Ride matching and reservation
Public Transportation Operations
Public transportation management
En-route transit information
Personalized public transit
Public travel security
Electronic Payment
Electronic payment services
Commercial Vehicle Operations
Commercial vehicle electronic clearance
Automated roadside safety inspection
On-board safety monitoring
Commercial vehicle administrative processes
Hazardous material incident response
Freight mobility
Emergency Management
Emergency notification and personal security
Emergency vehicle management
Advanced Vehicle Control and Safety Systems
Longitudinal collision avoidance
Lateral collision avoidance
Intersection collision avoidance
Vision enhancement for crash avoidance
Safety readiness
Pre-crash restraint deployment
Automated vehicle operation
NOTE: User services as defined by the National ITS
Program Plan, ITS America, March 1995.
Like standards development, many other aspects of ITS
development and deployment will involve new and complex
coordination issues. The technologies for many ITS applications
have already been developed, but a variety of nontechnical issues
will determine how and when these applications become widely
available. Liability, intellectual property, security, privacy, and
data ownership issues will all influence the commitment of private
firms to deploying ITS services and the interest of users in
adopting them.
Those in government and in industry responsible for planning and
coordinating ITS developments recognize that some of the
communications systems, such as those supporting traffic flow
control and addressing emergency situations, will require
real-time, quick response capability with high reliability. Such
systems will probably have to be dedicated to ITS applications. At
the other extreme, trip planning and many other offline
applications can surely be supported by the nation's general
purpose data networks—the NII. It is unclear, however, where
the boundaries lie and what combination of architecture, commercial
strategies, public services, and regulatory constraints will serve
to define this relationship. In short, is the ITS a domain-specific
application of the NII? Or is ITS a special environment whose
information systems support is specialized and only loosely
coupled, through data sharing, with the NII?
Intelligent Transportation
Systems
The mission of the ITS program is to improve the safety,
efficiency, and capacity of the country's surface transportation
system through the use of information technology. The ITS program
is coordinated within DOT,
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
information infrastructure
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bringing together each of the major program areas within the
department. The systems integration and real-time information
requirements of ITS include not only managing the flow of real-time
information to and from individual vehicles, but also the seamless
coupling of different modes of transportation. In addition, many
commercial applications for consumer motorists are anticipated.
These include traffic management, vehicle tracking, electronic toll
collection, augmentation of driver perception, automated emergency
intervention, real-time traffic and travel information, trip
planning, and eventually automation of at least parts of the
driving process, such as collision avoidance.
Eventually the ITS will call for a high-integrity, real-time
network system. This system will take inputs from highway sensors,
from vehicle global positioning system (GPS) systems, and from
other information gathering systems. This information will be
continuously compiled in a system of databases with a dynamic model
of the local, regional, and national highway system, and will be
used to provide real-time information on optimum routes, based on
such factors as least time and fuel economy. Although there is a
higher degree of homogeneity among ITS applications and data
requirements relative to the NII, the real-time requirements,
security, and scale of some parts of the ITS make it one of the
most challenging NII applications.
The Government Role
Like the NII initiative of which it is a component, ITS is at
the forefront of changes in how the federal government will relate
to the states and the private sector. In the post-Cold War economy,
agency initiatives are being driven by a new set of requirements.
These include an active role for industry in project design,
selection, and execution; reliance on private investment;
mechanisms to ensure commercial adoption; complex management
structures; and a federal role in consensus building.1 ITS fits well into this model. The
ITS program, and in particular the definition of ITS technical
requirements, have been developed with active participation from
ITS America, a broad-based industry consortium, and with the
understanding that ITS will rely heavily on private investment and
state and local deployment.
The ITS program was established by Congress through the
Intelligent Vehicle Highway Systems (IVHS) Act,2 part of the Intermodal Surface
Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) of 1991. This legislation
authorizes the secretary of transportation to conduct a program to
research, develop, operationally test, and promote implementation
of ITS systems.3 Though the
secretary is authorized in these areas, it is clearly indicated in
the legislation that this role is intended to be cooperative and
facilitatory. The secretary is directed to seek transfer of
federally owned or patented technology to the states and the
private sector. The secretary is also directed to consult with the
heads of the Commerce Department, the Environmental Protection
Agency, the National Science Foundation, and other agencies, as
well as to maximize the role the private sector, universities, and
state and local governments in all aspects of the program.4
The management of ITS is conducted by the Joint Program Office
(JPO) in the secretary of transportation's office. The JPO manages
ITS activities in all areas of the department, as well as working
actively to coordinate and build consensus among ITS stakeholders.
As directed by ISTEA, DOT has produced a planning document, the
''IVHS Strategic Plan—Report to Congress" (December 1992),
outlining the program activities, roles, and responsibilities. DOT
is also funding the development of a national ITS architecture.
This development is being conducted by private consortia under the
direction of DOT and is still in process. Currently, the
architecture is loosely defined, identifying ITS system elements
and estimating the communication and information requirements of
each. It does not specify the technical characteristics of
component interfaces that will be required for
interoperability.
To examine federal policy in the development of ITS, it is
perhaps easiest to break down the areas for federal activity. As
ITS is broad in scope, this covers quite a bit of ground and will
vary between different ITS application areas. For example, in the
case of emergency fleet management, technology development will
occur under a more traditional procurement model. Many traveler
information services may be provided by commercial information
services, and onboard capabilities will require the participation
of auto manufacturers and wireless telecommunications companies.
This participation could, in principle, be achieved either through
market incentives or by mandating compliance.
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Opportunities for federal activity in the development of ITS can
be broken down into the following areas:
•
Promoting the development and testing of ITS
technologies and applications. This is an area in which DOT has
been actively engaged. A number of demonstration projects are now
under way, most addressing multiple ITS applications. These
projects should go beyond traditional R&D to include a
diffusion component aimed at assisting future implementors. The
projects should focus not only on feasibility, but also on
measuring benefits and cost-effectiveness.
•
Fostering an environment that will engage state
and local agencies and private firms in the deployment of ITS
services. The availability of ITS services depends largely on
the efforts of state and local agencies and private firms to
implement them. Some ITS services will come about on their own,
based on their commercial viability. In other cases, regulatory
mandates or public-sector procurement will be needed to stimulate
product development and availability. DOT must clearly articulate
its ITS goals to allow systems developers time to anticipate these
requirements.
•
Promoting the development and adoption of
standards and a national ITS architecture that will ensure that
local and regional systems coalesce into a coherent national system
and allow integration of U.S. components into international
systems. Facilitating the deployment of an interoperable set of
ITS implementations represents many challenges. ITS will likely be
deployed as a set of semiautonomous, local implementations and will
involve stakeholders in many branches of the computing,
communications, and transportation industries. For these systems to
coalesce smoothly into a national system, broad consensus will need
to be achieved early on among product and service developers and
local implementors. It will also require a robust architecture that
can expand in both scope and scale to accommodate unanticipated
service requirements.
In pursuit of compatibility between local and regional systems,
DOT has initiated the National ITS Architecture Development
Program. This program was established in September 1993 and is
requirements driven, based on the 29 ITS user services (see Table
1). The architecture seeks to define the systems components and
component interactions for a national ITS. Given the breadth of
interoperability issues related to ITS, such a high level of
coordination will be necessary, but it is not without risk. Key
challenges facing planners will be ensuring acceptance and
conformance and designing a system that will be able to support
unanticipated requirements and applications. To ensure flexibility,
the architecture should be based on information requirements and
interfaces, not specific technologies or the particular way in
which the service is provided. For example, when placing a phone
call, a user is typically indifferent to whether the call goes over
copper, fiber, or any other medium, as long as basic performance
standards are met.
Fulfilling these architectural guidelines will require political
as well as technological prowess. It will be difficult to achieve
consensus in the diverse environment of ITS developers and
implementors. The most important means will be to keep the process
open and participatory. This is the approach DOT has taken so far,
and private-sector participation has been strong. Another
opportunity to achieve conformance will be the procurement lever.
To some degree, DOT will also be able to tie conformance to federal
funding. However, not all local and regional implementations will
receive federal funds, and while it is possible to mandate
conformance as a requirement for general DOT highway funding, these
funds may be shrinking and yield less influence.
Such a top-down approach is interesting to consider in contrast
to other infrastructure development efforts. Part of the success of
the Internet, for example, has been its ability to evolve from the
middle out, to be able to run over unanticipated types of
networking technology and to support unanticipated applications.
The ITS application areas are highly defined at present, but
technology planning is historically an inexact science, and much
will rest on how willing users are to pay.
To the extent that the Highway Trust Fund constitutes a major
source of federal investment that can be tied to ITS objectives,
the ITS is different from the larger information infrastructure of
which it is a part—the national information infrastructure.
However, the states have a much bigger role in ITS than in the NII,
where state roles are largely confined to telecommunications
regulations—authority that will likely be substantially
curtailed in the future. So whereas the NII requires more sensitive
relationships between the federal government and private industry,
the ITS requires a three-way collaboration between a federal
department with significant
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financial resources; states with the major responsibility for
both investment and operations; and private industry, without which
neither level of government can realize its objectives.
•
Identifying and supporting those ITS
application areas that provide clear benefit to the public but
would not otherwise be deployed by the private sector. ITS
represents a broad array of application areas. Some of these are
consumer-oriented conveniences, while others are public goods that
will extend transportation and nontransportation benefits to the
public at large. Federal ITS investment should be made on an
application-by-application basis, based on the anticipated service
benefits and the potential for private investment (with and without
federal support).
•
Clarifying areas of law that may inhibit the
adoption of ITS services, including product and service liability,
data ownership, privacy, and security. The move toward ITS
services brings up a number of yet-to-be-defined areas of law. Some
of these issues are specific to transportation, and others are more
broadly relevant in the emerging information society. One area is
liability. As transportation systems become more complex and new
systems, technologies, and organizations influence the movement of
people and materials, liability concerns begin to touch a larger
array of players. It is currently unclear to what extent
information service and systems providers will be responsible for
failures ranging from inconvenience to catastrophe. Do
public-sector service providers risk liability? These ambiguities
are a potential deterrent to the development and availability of
ITS products.
ITS has also produced concerns about the abuse of personal
privacy. The information gathering potential of ITS is tremendous.
ITS systems may be able to identify where individuals (or at least
their vehicles) are and where they have been. Who owns this
information, and who will have access to it? Will there be limits
on its use? Will service providers be able to sell this information
to marketers?
The DOT role in ITS will differ fundamentally from the earlier
DOT role in developing the federal highway system, and it
anticipates challenges federal policymakers will face in other
sectors in the future. Other areas of federal activity, such as
environmental management, housing, health care, education, and
social services, are becoming more information intensive. ITS
offers a proving ground for federal efforts to coordinate the
development of intelligent infrastructure. A critical factor in
managing this effort will be to maximize the extent to which
systems can be leveraged across sectors. If ITS can be leveraged in
ways that will decrease the marginal cost of developing
infrastructure for other areas, it can help to jump-start these
efforts and offset or reduce ITS costs.
ITS Infrastructure Requirements
Most ITS applications have an inherent communications component,
and in the minds of many, ITS brings a vision of dedicated
communications networks. However, in looking at the infrastructural
elements, the communications element, while pervasive, is generally
not beyond the scope of anticipated NII capabilities. Instead, it
appears that ITS communications requirements may be met largely
through general-purpose infrastructure. Special-purpose
infrastructure needed to support ITS can be broken down into five
general areas:
•
Dedicated networks. This category is
intended to identify those ITS applications that may not be
supported by general-purpose NII infrastructure. The communications
requirements of ITS applications can be grouped into three
categories. The first is autonomous stand-alone systems that will
not be part of a larger network, for example, intersection
collision avoidance systems, which will communicate between
approaching vehicles and intersection-based sensors. The next
category is applications that will likely be supported by
commercially available communications services, for example,
pre-trip or en-route travel information that will be a
low-bandwidth, "bursty" application and that will likely be served
by otherwise available circuit or packet-based wireless or
wire-line services. The third includes applications that will
require the support of a dedicated, special-purpose network. The
dedicated network category will include only this last set of
applications.
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•
Roadside element deployment. Sensors and
broadcast devices that will be required along roadways to sense or
communicate with vehicles. Broadcast devices may signal vehicles
concerning road conditions, speed limit, or other factors.
Roadside elements may also communicate with
central servers managing traffic or freight information, but this
will not necessarily require a special-purpose network.
•
Information/database systems. These systems
will be the heart of ITS. Shared access will be provided to these
systems to manage information storage and retrieval and processing
of ITS information.
•
Service points. These are site-specific
locations at which ITS services will be administered. Examples
include electronic payment, weigh in-motion, and emissions testing
sites.
•
Onboard vehicle components. Displays,
sensors, and communication devices will be installed in vehicles
for the purpose of supporting ITS. This includes both autonomous
systems (route guidance using GPS and onboard CD-ROM maps) and
communications-dependent systems (collision avoidance).
Table 2 maps the 29 ITS applications against these five elements
of required infrastructure. This chart is not perfect, as it does
not recognize the changing requirements within application areas
between early and advanced applications. It also does not recognize
that some applications may be enhanced by access to data gathered
by the traffic control application. Despite these limitations,
Table 2 does point out that a significant component of ITS services
may be provided through general-purpose communications
infrastructure. Only two applications are identified as having a
dedicated network requirement—traffic control and automated
vehicle operation. In particular, the primary need for a dedicated
ITS network will be for automated vehicle operation, perhaps the
furthest out on the time horizon of the ITS applications. Traffic
control is also identified as requiring a dedicated network because
of the large proliferation of sensors that will be required in some
areas. Of course, these dedicated networks may be either owned or
leased by transportation agencies.
Table 2 offers a simplified but practical overview of the
systems that will be required to support ITS. The Information
Infrastructure Project in Harvard's Science, Technology, and Public
Policy Program is currently exploring this area in its project on
intelligent transportation systems and the national information
infrastructure. The project will lead to a workshop in July 1995
that will investigate opportunities for linkages between these
initiatives, including infrastructure requirements.
The conclusion supported by Table 2 that most ITS services will
not require a dedicated network is based on anticipated rather than
available NII capabilities. For many applications there are a
variety of potential technological solutions, including public ATM,
frame relay, or SMDS networks and the Internet. The Internet is a
desirable solution from cost and ubiquity perspectives but is
currently lacking in speed, reliability, and security. It is now a
"best-efforts" network, with no guarantee of delivery. The Internet
technical community recognizes the need to move beyond best efforts
service to provide a variety of quality-of-service levels
consistent with the needs of different groups of users and
applications.5 Efforts are under way
to explore the development of quality-of-service paramaters,
including a reserved bandwidth service. Similarly, a variety of
systems of encryption are now being developed and tested to ensure
secure communications.
In terms of communications services available today, mobile
communications are virtually ubiquitous and are becoming more so.
Mobile phones are virtually free today, and it would be reasonable
to expect that they will soon be bundled with most new cars.
Exploring the provision of basic ITS services through mobile
cellular technologies may offer a low-cost means of developing and
testing their marketability.
The trend so far in the development of ITS services has been
dedicated private network solutions. Cost comparisons made by these
early implementors have heavily favored the use of owned versus
leased infrastructure. However, these estimates may not provide a
balanced perspective. Analysis of owning versus outsourcing needs
to consider customized rates available for multiyear contracts, as
opposed to full tariffs, and anticipate the availability of
advanced virtual network services. The cost differential is also
being driven by the lower cost of capital faced by public agencies.
One means of leveling the playing field in this area is industrial
bonds, which would allow private corporations to float tax-free
bonds to raise money for public sector projects.
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TABLE 2 ITS User Services Infrastructure
Requirements
Infrastructural Elements
User Service Area and Applications
Dedicated Network
Roadside Element Deployment
Information/ Database
Service Points
Onboard Vehicle Components
Travel and Transportation Management
En route driver information
x
x
Route guidance
x
x
x
Traveler services information
x
Traffic control*
x
x
x
Incident management
x
x
Emissions testing and mitigation
x
x
Travel Demand Management
Demand management and operations
x
x
Pre-trip travel information
x
x
Ride matching and reservation
x
Public Transportation Operations
Public transportation management
x
x
En-route transit information
x
x
x
Personalized public transit
x
Public travel security
x
Electronic Payment
Electronic payment services
x
Commercial Vehicle Operations
Commercial vehicle electronic clearance
x
x
Automated roadside safety inspection
x
x
Onboard safety monitoring
x
Commercial vehicle administrative processes
x
Hazardous material incident response
x
x
x
Freight mobility
x
Emergency Management
Emergency notification and personal security
x
Emergency vehicle management
x
Advanced Vehicle Control and Safety
Systems
Longitudinal collision avoidance
x
Lateral collision avoidance
x
Intersection collision avoidance
x
x
Vision enhancement for crash avoidance
x
Safety readiness
x
Pre-crash restraint deployment
x
Automated vehicle operation
x
x
x
*Traffic control can be considered a core
application that provides information available to enhance other
ITS applications.
It appears that there is considerable room for a larger open
network role in provision of ITS services. Realization of this role
will require active dialogue between the telecommunications
community and the ITS community. A shared infrastructure approach
can offer benefits beyond reduced cost. From the perspective of a
national ITS program, expanding the role of public communications
service providers can provide a more stable environment for the
deployment of ITS services. The case for owning versus outsourcing
will of course vary from project to project, depending on the
proximity of the site to existing infrastructure and its value as
right of way.
Page 83
The debate between DOT officials and communications service
providers has often painted a black-and-white picture of the
ownership issue. There are possible win-win solutions that
recognize the value of roadside right-of-way and explore options in
trading access for bandwidth and sharing revenue from excess
capacity.
In most areas, ITS networks have been procured based on a
predefined architecture. Alternatively, states could purchase
services rather than networks. This would allow communications
service providers to determine what network architecture could most
cost effectively meet the service requirements in the context of
their overall business. This might also place expertise in ITS
communications where it would more easily migrate to serve other
areas. If the larger role in ITS network planning is undertaken by
public-sector officials, the resulting expertise and learning curve
benefits will remain local. If this responsibility falls more
heavily on the private sector, other regions may benefit from the
providers' expertise. It may also allow services to roll out
consistent with underlying economics, rather than arbitrary
politically defined geographic areas.
Assuring the maximum benefit from shared infrastructure
opportunities will require an active role on the part of DOT and
other ITS constituents in articulating ITS requirements and in
participating in NII and Internet development activities. ITS has
been largely absent in reports coming out of the Clinton
administration's Information Infrastructure Task Force (ITTF), the
focal point for federal coordination on NII activities. The IITF
offers a high-level platform for DOT to articulate its ITS vision
and seek integration with both federal and private-sector NII
development activities.
Referring back to Table 2, the information component is a
dominant infrastructural element. People, vehicles, and freight
will all move across regions and ITS deployment areas and will
require the integration of ITS information across these regions.
Standardization of data structures will be a critical element in
the success of ITS and needs to be addressed.
Conclusion
Interest in advanced infrastructure is at an unprecedented
level. The Internet and the NII have been embraced by both parties
and are virtually unavoidable in the media. This offers fertile
ground for the advancement of ITS on both technical and
programmatic fronts. To date, ITS activity has occurred almost
exclusively in the transportation domain. The conclusion that much
if not most of the network data communications needs of the ITS can
be met by the NII, if it develops into fully accessible services
that can interoperate with all the specialized ITS subsystems,
suggests an important dependency of ITS on NII outcomes. Yet there
is no formal mechanism, other than participation in the ITS America
discussions, through which federal interests in the NII can be
brought together with state interests. Such a mechanism needs to be
put in place.
A task force launched on April 25, 1995, by Governors Richard
Celeste and Dick Thornburgh is responding to a request by Jack
Gibbons, the director of the Office of Science and Technology
Policy, to examine how federal-state relationships might be
strengthened or restructured in the area of science and technology.
Sponsored by the Carnegie Commission on Science, Technology and
Government, the National Governors' Association, and the National
Council of State Legislators, the task force will be looking at a
number of specific cases, including the intelligent transportation
system. Out of this work, or perhaps out of the President's NII
Task Force, a mechanism needs to emerge for engaging state
governments in the architecture and policies for the NII. If this
linkage is made through the NII Task Force, it follows that the
Department of Transportation, together with other departments and
agencies concerned with the nation's transportation systems, needs
to participate actively in the work of the task force, to ensure
that interoperability, security, and other features of the NII are
appropriate for the national transportation system's needs.
Notes
1. Branscomb, Lewis M. "New Policies, Old
Bottles," Business and the Contemporary World.
2. In the fall of 1994 the IVHS Program
was officially renamed the Intelligent Transportation Systems
Program in recognition of the program's multimodal scope.
3. Intermodal Surface Transportation
Efficiency Act of 1991, Part B, Section 6051.
Page 84
4. Intermodal Surface Transportation
Efficiency Act of 1991, Part B, Section 6053.
5. Computer Science and Telecommunications
Board, National Research Council. 1994. Realizing the
Information Future. National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.,
May, p. 6.
