TRB A3A18 Meeting
Marriot Wardman Park Hotel
Wilson Room
January Meeting Minutes
January 8, 2001
· Tom Urbanik called the meeting to order at 1:30 pm
· Tom reminded audience that anybody could be a friend by joining the list server at the committee web site:
· URL: http://signalsystems.tamu.edu
· Name: member
· Password: valid
· Domain: dtl-nt-webe
· All attendants introduced them selves.
· Minutes from the committee meeting July 2000 were approved unanimously.
Tom announced the following individuals were recommended for committee membership (pending TRB approval)
· 45 Papers submitted
· 28 accepted
· 2 papers were recommended for publications with no revisions.
· 22 suggested revisions
· Only three papers have been received addressing revision requests.
· Deadline for receiving revised papers is immediately to allow time for Larry to send papers out for re-review.
· We had 4 paper sessions and one poster session allocated for 2001.
· A discussion of the poster session format/operation ensued. Generally positive comments were voiced. The following suggestions were made:
o Need better location with tables and power to facilitate demonstrations
o Schedule (author presence and poster presence) perhaps could be more clearly communicated to authors.
Raj Ghaman
· DTA is being test in Anaheim on both freeways and arterials
· Next DTA tests planed for Houston and City of Los Angeles.
· CLAIR expert system that watches freeway or arterial and learns the status of links (congested, non-congested) is under development.
· TSIS 5.0 will be released on or around March 1, 2001.
· RFP for NGSIM will be released in late Summer
· Work on Adaptive Control Lite (for closed loop systems is progressing)
Pam Creshaw
· Millenium Edition of MUTCD will be released imminently (http://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov )
· Hard Copies of MUTCD will be available in Spring 2001
· 511 has begun phase 1 (led by an AASHTO coalition)
· Reviewed the NTCIP handouts that are on the committee web site (NTCIP_Report.pdf)
· Discussed successful deployments with Variable Message Signs
· Discussed successful deployments of traffic signals in central systems with mandatory objects and some features implemented via proprietary objects.
· Gihon Jordan (gihon.Jordan@phila.gov ) reminded committee of the importance of accommodating pedestrians at signals. Offered to be involved in A3A18 activities involving pedestrians.
· Section A was asked to do a self-evaluation this year. Jon summarized the process of providing feedback. (Section A Evaluation, A3 Evaluation, A3A18 Self Evaluation)
· Last years attendance (8300, 80% preregistered)
· 7500 preregistered this year. Estimated attendance is 8500.
· 1800 Papers submitted (up 20 %)
· 75% of papers were submitted electronically.
· 87% of 3000 people surveyed had positive feedback on electronic paper submittal/review.
· All sessions have LCD projectors, switchboxes used to save time switching authors.
· CD Rom is near capacity for preprints.
· Poster Session Feedback from committee
o Restricting authors to 1 hour was appreciated, perhaps needs to be better communicated.
o Need better location for posters
o Need tables (and perhaps power)
o Need delineation between poster sessions that are commingled in poster facilities.
· Rich Cunard indicated that demos are being restricted because of union constraints.
· Rich Cunard indicated power is very expensive and will likely not be provided.
· New HCM is now available (via web site www.nas.edu/trb ) available in either customary units or metric.
· Summarized activities of the committee for the past three years (see links in Item 8)
· Don Dey introduced eleven items on three year action plan (Dey_ ActionPlan.pdf)
· Don Dey deferred to each of task leaders on in the three action plan
o Jim Powell reviewed committee problem state committee and discussed problem statements submitted to date (attachment – link to a3a18 web site)
o Don Dey reviewed committee Adaptive Traffic Signal Control Workshop activities. 95% of reviews came in as very useful or useful. Reviews indicated broad support for all presentations. Tom Urbanik proposed that an end user or two be brought in next year via a program such as the FHWA peer-to-peer program. John Taber suggested that perhaps a synthesis be developed. Jim Powell will look into contacting TRB on how to initiate such a process
o Rick Denney indicated the primer is still underway.
o Tom Urbanik reviewed the last three summer workshops and asked for suggestions for Summer 2002. The following list tabulates the suggestions and votes.
§ (17) Coordination of freeway ramp meters with adjacent signals
§ (24) Pedestrian
§ (52) Sensors/Detection (Dolan)
§ (20) 2070/ATC Controller
§ (47) Communications (Bullock)
§ (2) Parking Management
§ (9) Video surveillance on arterials
§ (3) Traffic Calming
§ (31) Performance Measures (Courage)
o Don Dey suggested that the preliminary workshop leaders be those individuals in the three year action plan.
o Rick Denney suggested that video communication technology be included in the Communication category.
o Tom Urbanik proposed that workshop leaders report back to the committee at the 2001 mid-year meeting.
o Peter Martin offered Salt Lake as venues for either sensors or performance measures.
o Paul Olson will evaluate the feasibility of replaying the transit priority for TRB 2002.
o Tom Urbanik will evaluate the feasibility of replaying the rail priority for TRB 200?
o Les Kelman proposed considering a 3.5 day (instead of 2.5 day) mid-year meeting. About 45 people thought that was a reasonable option.
o Committee tentatively thought Salt Lake City would be a good meeting location in 2002.
· Paul Olson discussed the activity of bus priority.
· Frank Dolan discussed his plans for addressing the vehicle detection task.
· Peter Martin reported that ramp meter algorithms is a new task. He will work with Freeway Operation committee on the coordination of ramp meter algorithms with adjacent traffic signals. Peter will consult with his subcommittee members and deliver a short report at the mid year meeting.
· Darcy Bullock reported that the Traffic Signal Control Handbook is a new task. He has had preliminary discussions with some of his subcommittee members and FHWA. At the mid year meeting the subcommittee will be prepared to discuss how they plan on addressing this task. The following individuals volunteered to serve on the subcommittee.
o Gary Piotrowicz (Oakland County gpiotrowicz@rcoc.org, 248/858-7250) agreed to serve on committee.
o Garry Duncan (Econolite) agreed to serve on the communication sub-committee.
o Paul Olson (FHWA Western Resource Center) agreed to serve on communication committee – particularly fiber.
o Blake Christie (Mitretek, blake.christie@mitretek 202/488-5711) agreed to serve on communication committee (expert in NTCIP standards – does training on interoperability for federal highway)
· Ken Courage reported that performance measures was a new task and one of his first objectives would be to determine 1) what are appropriate performance measures and 2) if/how those performance measures can be obtained.
· Software procurement was eliminated from the strategic plan.
· Les Kelman reported that Future ITS Infrastructure is a new task and he will be developing that idea for the summer meeting.
· Kent Kacir: Testing 400 subjects in a driving simulator of testing flashing yellow arrow against the green ball. Preliminary results indicate similar performance. Formal research in simulator should be complete in the spring. Field deployments tests are still being scheduled.
· Charlie Wallace distributed the McTrans report to the committee. (McTrans_Report.pdf)
· Gary Piotrowicz reported his lesson learned is it difficult for public sector agencies to pay enough to keep good traffic engineers. Considering high level technicians in some of those jobs. Anson Nordby suggested they might be able to do that if it was reviewed by a professional engineer before deploying.
· Anson Nordby provided a handout after the meeting with an update on the Los Angeles signal system (Anson_Report.pdf).
· Walter Craft (with Freeway Operations Committee) briefed the committee on the planned summer meeting and distributed a draft program (ITMS_Conference.pdf).
· Title is “Integrated Transportation Management Systems (ITMS) Conference”
· Scheduled for July 15-18, 2001 in Newark, NJ.
· A3A18 Meeting on Sunday afternoon, Monday morning.
· ITMS Sessions Monday afternoon through Tuesday afternoon.
· Tours on Wednesday
o Freeway: NJ Route I-80
o Signals: Newark New TOC
o Combined: NYC Joint Operations Center TRANSCOM
· Conference Hotel will be Sheraton Hotel adjacent to the Newark Airport (Rate $125 for Government, $150 for non-Government rate).
· Tom suggested perhaps business meeting on Sunday afternoon and a joint session on ramp metering with Freeway Ops on Monday morning.
· John Taber discussed the Access Management Website Library
A list of Committee Members and Committee Friends attending the meeting is attached.
The meeting adjourned at 4:50 pm