Transportation

The next surface transportation author- ization bill should include $1.5 to $2 billion annually in funding for the deployment of large-scale ITS demonstration projects.

ITS will not reach critical mass unless the United States begins to fund large-scale research, demonstration, test and evaluation (RDT&E) projects, as opposed to small “one- off ” projects that currently, collectively, do not comprise a system. Moreover, rather than funding almost all ITS deployments through individual states, it would be better for the United States to also fund larger-scale consortia from the federal level. This would address the problem that ITS deployments in the United States tend to be sporadic, incremental one- off deployments scattered locally around the country and move the United States towards funding demonstration and deployment of large-scale, nationally integrated ITS systems.
To achieve this, the U.S. Department of Transportation should expand the remit of RITA’s ITS Joint Program Office beyond research and development to include deployment. The JPO should be charged with developing, implementing, and managing a number of large scale collaborative RDT&E projects focused on substantive and functional areas related to ITS, including:

1. 
   Development of a nationwide real-time traveler information system;
   
2. 
   Developing large scale platforms to conduct real-time analysis of traffic- related data from millions of vehicles.
   
3. 
   Real-time transit information systems, including “peer-to-peer” transit systems;
   
4. 
   Development and deployment of smart traffic signal systems that respond to vehicles’ presence;
   
5. 
   Improved incident response and traffic
   

operations management systems;

6. 
   Testing to fully prove the viability of a user-miles traveled pricing system;
   
7. 
   Freight monitoring systems (for example, real time weigh stations);
   
8. 
   Model implementations of IntelliDrive in several large U.S. cities.
   
1.