ITS Promotes Regional
Transportation Safety

The increased number of people traveling today leads to traffic congestion, which often jeopardizes travel safety. Regional development organizations are putting safety first by using Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) to manage congestion and shield travelers from congestion related hazards.

Pedestrian Safety

Champaign County Regional Planning Commission (CCRPC) in Urbana, Illinois is upgrading cross walk signals to “accessible pedestrian signals,” an ITS component that visually and verbally notifies pedestrians when it is safe to cross an intersection and can be remotely controlled.

The CCRPC is the region’s designated metropolitan transportation planning organization or MPO. Approached by the Central Illinois Council for the Blind in November 2000 to improve intersection crossings for the blind, CCRPC reviewed the region’s transportation improvement program (TIP) and found that the signal upgrades minimized pedestrian-vehicular conflict. Using a TIP study, the CCRPC incorporated the signal upgrades into a Street Escape Project. Rita Morrocoima-Black, the Program’s Transportation Engineering Coordinator explained, “By making it an MPO project and TIP objective, we obtained local funding to study 20 intersections and the necessary public and agency input to select two pilot locations.”

The two pilot replacements will be completed in Spring 2002 and be accompanied by traffic lane reductions and sidewalk widening to decrease ambient noise, permitting pedestrians to hear the signals.

The accessible pedestrian signal can be programmed with a special message that tells the user which intersection and street they are crossing.

“The accompanying changes will be made to meet state guidelines and federal Uniform Traffic Control Devices standards,” Black said. Meeting these standards means that future signal replacements will be eligible for federal and state funding from the Transportation and Community System Preservation (TCSP) program and Illinois’ “Operation Greenlight.” The estimated cost for each signal replacement ranges from $8,000 to $15,000.

Improving
Emergency Response

Because efficient emergency response can mean the difference between life and death, regions are using ITS to enhance medical transport services. In Virginia’s rural Northern Shenandoah Valley, where the average ambulance ride to a medical facility is about 15 minutes, partners are working to promote and develop an Integrated ITS – Public Safety System. The system will provide ambulances and doctors with crash-data before responding. The data will come from an integrated computer system that receives Automatic Crash Notification (ACN) data, such as OnStar and ATX.

Information such as how fast the car was traveling, direction of impact and crash location, will aid medical responders in predicting the severity of injury and the equipment needed to effectively respond. The medical history of the vehicle owner would also be accessible.

Steve Kerr, Executive Director of the Northern Shenandoah Valley Regional Commission said, “As a partner in this effort, we have been involved in hosting forums, working with state transportation specialists and resource development. I think we have been successful in demonstrating the benefits of ITS.”

This article is part of a series funded under an agreement with the ITS US Department of Transportation.

For More Information Contact: Rita Morrocoima-Black at Champaign County RPC 217/328-3313, email rblack@ccrpc.org FHWA’s Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices 2000 can be accessed online at http://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov; Steve Kerr at Northern Shenandoah Regional Commission, 540/636-8800, email lfpdc@shentel.net.

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