With the current economic downturn and lack of room for new roadways, building additional lanes and roads is no longer a feasible way to accommodate increasing traffic volumes. However, congestion continues to grow, resulting in longer travel times and diminished air quality — all of which affect local economies.

Because building new roadways is not an easy option, departments of transportation (DOTs) and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) are using new technologies, processes, systems and techniques to more efficiently manage the entire transportation network. Many are turning to Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), which enhance communication between operators and traffic agencies, incident and traffic management and congestion mitigation.

ITS uses a "system of systems" approach, in which various function-based elements are joined either permanently or temporarily to meet special sets of circumstances, including extreme weather, accidents, acts of terror or to lessen the impact of large special events. The "system of systems" approach achieves two main goals of multi-regional and multi-jurisdictional integration and system standardization, which were thus far thought to be virtually impossible. With ITS, agencies responsible for different areas of the transportation infrastructure (i.e, roads, transit services, airports, etc.) and from multiple regions can communicate effectively with one another through a standard system to make an efficient transportation infrastructure.

Through ITS, disparate systems that were never designed to be used with other systems can communicate seamlessly with other systems and agencies. That approach ensures that Advanced Transportation Management Systems (ATMS) operators have real-time, predictive data and the tools to make informed decisions to effectively manage transportation systems in any and all conditions. Through increased adoption of ITS, that is now becoming the norm.

The road ahead

As technology continues to speed forward, flaws in older systems that disseminate information to drivers about road conditions from an ITS infrastructure SMS, web and/or Interactive Voice Response (IVR) become obvious. Informing a driver who is sitting in a five-mile long traffic jam about congestion is not really helping the situation.

As a result, the concept of predictive assessment has developed. Predictive assessment takes a snapshot of the current situation, plus short-and long-term historical information to project traffic conditions up to two hours into the future.

While predictive assessment is still not widely used, the demand for making that type of information available is growing. That can be achieved through a number of different options, but they all require a driver to request the information to make an informed, timely decision.

The next generation of ITS will not only inform drivers about traffic delays or an accident ahead, but also offer options of how to avoid delays by using the entire transportation network. Those systems will require a view of the entire network and significantly will increase the data requirements.

In addition, adaptive traffic signal controls have existed for decades but have rarely made the best use of the technology available to effectively control traffic. Software is available that can adapt traffic signals to the flow of traffic, instead of the old standards referred to as "time-of-day, time-of-week," which ran a predetermined timing plan. Unfortunately, today's software is not being adopted quickly because it is cumbersome to set up.

However, with the introduction of full geographic information system (GIS)-enabled systems, and the "system of systems" approach, that type of adaptive signaling with full progressive capabilities could be implemented automatically. Signal timing plans could be selected to maximize flow based on current and future traffic requirements, while taking into account factors such as weather conditions and the yellow-light transition time.