1. NORTH AMERICAN EDITION Vol 6 • Issue 2
June/July 2011
thinkinghighways.com
Advanced transportation management • policy • strategy • technology • finance
innovation • implementation • integration • interoperability
The INTELLIGENTchoice
CREATING AN ITS ECOSYSTEM
David E Pickeral charts the evolution from academic
thought to deployment... and back again
SIGN LANGUAGE
Phil Tarnoff on how to make
signal operations more efficient
INTRANSIT
Changing consumer behaviour
must start with meeting demand
GETWITHTHE PROGRAM
Bern Grush’s 12-step parking plan
INTERVIEWS:WIDER HORIZONS
Bill Sowell charts the evolution of video
detection and Ken Philmus looks beyond tolling
2. www.wavetronix.com/th1102
Leadership isn’t just about getting there first, it’s about doing things bet-
ter. SmartSensor Matrix isn’t the first stop bar vehicle presence detector,
but it is the first intersection device to offer the accuracy and reliability of
high definition radar. Request a demonstration and see why SmartSen-
sor Matrix was named a 2010 Best of ITS award winner for innovation.
INTELLIGENT INTERSECTIONS
4. Vol 6 No 2 North Americathinkinghighways.com2
THINKING HIGHWAYS – NORTH AMERICAN EDITION
ContentsCOVER FEATURE: ITS & EDUCATION
David E Pickeral on how the
academic community must make
the ITS revolution a reality
COLUMNS
04 Nadler & Johnson: Legal Brief
08 Richard Bishop: Connected Vehicles
10 The IRF: Better Roads. Better World
12 Harold Worrall: The Future of
Tolling
64 Rick Schuman: In Other Words
SIGNS & SIGNALLING
20 Phil Tarnoff looks at how self-
assessment and a proactive
approach to signal maintenance
can improve overall operational
performance
INNOVATION
26 Bern Grush’s 12 novel parking
programs
THE TH INTERVIEW
32 Kevin Borras talks to Ken
Philmus, one of the tolling
world’s most popular figures
MOBILITY
38 Cultural change in transportation,
assessed by Randy Salzman
COMMS & NETWORKS
42 Clay Whitehead on the particular
broadband spectrum needs of the
public transit sector
WEIGH-IN-MOTION
46 Ann Reinhart on the benefits
of a remotely controlled weight
enforcement station
THE TH Q&A
48 Dr Bill Sowell answers Thinking
Highways’ questions
WEATHER MONITORING
52 Sue Swenor assesses the sizable
benefits of Mini RWIS
OPINION PIECE
55 Al Gullon examines the continuing
controversy surrounding CO2
emissions and the idea of global
warming
EVENT PREVIEW
60 Looking ahead
to the 18th ITS
World Congress
bonusonlinecontent
Extra articles available in the
digital edition of Thinking
Highways – North America at
thinkinghighways.com
INDIA FOCUS
Kirit Mehta on how India is tackling
its shocking accident statistics
INTELLIGENT VEHICLES
Tom Hayward led a group of British
schoolboys on a mission to create an
autonomous car
FINANCE & FUNDING
Margaret Pettit looks at Latin
America and the Caribbean
ITS & EDUCATION
Andrew Huddart on how universities
are challenging the conventional
thinking of the ITS sector
Academia+industry+user needs
can equal first class results, says
Martin Wylie
l Find the Europe/Rest of
the World edition online at
thinkinghighways.com
16
5.
6. 4 Vol 6 No 2 North Americathinkinghighways.com
JONATHAN JACOB NADLER AND MARK JOHNSON: LEGAL BRIEF
T
he Washington
State Supreme
Court recently
issued a highly
favorable
decision regarding the taxation
of fleet tracking and other
ITS services. The Court
reversed a lower court decision
that allowed State revenue
authorities to carve out the
transmission component of
such offerings, classify it as a
“network telephone service,”
and subject it to same retail
sales and business taxes
as conventional telephone
services. Because the relevant
Washington State tax laws are
similar to those in many other
jurisdictions, this decision
could have nationwide
implications for other ITS
services.
The case concerned a
Qualcomm offering, known as
the OmniTRACS System, which
provides trucking fleets with
detailed information regarding
the location and status of their
vehicles and drivers. The
OmniTRACS System consists of
three components:
• Computer and
communications hardware,
installed on each truck, which
collects vehicle and driver
performance data, such as
vehicle location and routes
traveled.
• Wireless transmission
functionality, which
typically is provided using
satellite technology. This
component is referred to as
the “OmniTRACS Service.”
While the majority of
messages transmitted over the
OmniTRACS Service concern
truck location, users can
purchase an instant messaging
capability that enables
the driver to send both
standardized and “free-form”
text messages.
• Software installed on the
trucking company’s computers
that enables the company to
use the transmitted data for
various purposes, such as to
viewing a truck’s location on a
map or creating invoices.
Each of the three components is
priced separately. Qualcomm
paid sales tax on the hardware
and software, but not on the
OmniTRACS Service.
In 2002, the Washington State
Revenue Department
conducted an audit of the
OmniTRACS Service,
concluding that the Service
should be classified as a
“network telephone service”
because it provides a
“communications or
transmission service for hire,”
and, therefore is subject to the
same retail sales tax and
business and occupation (B&O)
tax paid by telephone
companies. Based on this, the
Department assessed
Qualcomm $900,000 in
uncollected retail sales and
interest, a decision that
Qualcomm contested.
Before the State Court of
Appeals, Qualcomm argued
that the Revenue Department
should have classified the
OmniTRACS Service as an
“information service” which,
under Washington State law, is
not subject to sales tax and is
subject to a lower B&O tax rate.
Washington State law defines an
information service as a data
processing service “by which a
person transfers, transmits, or
conveys data, facts, knowledge,
procedures, and the like to any
user of such information
through any tangible or
intangible medium.”
The Court of Appeals
recognized that the
OmniTRACS Service did
provide some data processing
functionalities, but concluded
that the extent of this processing
was not sufficient to make the
OmniTRACS Service an
information service. The Court
of Appeals therefore affirmed
the Revenue Department’s
decision that the OmniTRACS
Service is a “network telephone
service” and, therefore, is
subject to the sales tax and to
the higher B&O tax rate.
Qualcomm appealed.
The Washington State
Supreme Court, by a seven to
one majority, reversed the
decision of the Court of
Appeals and ruled that the
OmniTRACS Service is an
“information service” and,
therefore, is not subject to sales
tax and is subject to the lower
B&O tax rate. The Court began
by stating that it would apply the
well-established “primary
purpose” doctrine.
This doctrine provides that,
when a user enters into a
transaction that has elements
that are potentially subject to
two different tax rates – in this
case, the higher “network
telephone service” tax rate and
the lower “information service”
tax rate – the proper tax
FleettrackingandotherITSservicesareprimarilyinformation
servicesandthereforenotsubjectto“telephoneservice”taxes
“Thepropertaxrateshouldbe
determinedbasedonthe‘primary
purpose’forwhichthecustomer
entersintothetransaction”
“TheRevenueDepartmentconcluded
thattheServiceshouldbeclassifiedasa
‘networktelephoneservice’becauseit
providesa‘communicationsor
transmissionserviceforhire’”
>>>
8. 6 Vol 6 No 2 North Americathinkinghighways.com
rate should be determined
based on the “primary purpose”
for which the customer enters
into the transaction.
The Court went on to observe
that the OmniTRACS Service
was “useless” without the other
two components of the
OmniTRACS System. The
Court therefore determined that
it should apply the “primary
purpose” doctrine to the entire
OmniTRACS System – not just
to the OmniTRACS Service.
The Court concluded that the
primary purpose for which
Qualcomm’s customers
purchase the OmniTRACS
System is to obtain an
information service that allows
them to locate their trucks on a
real-time basis, ensure their
drivers are following the most
direct or efficient routes, and
obtain additional information
(such as information regarding
the conditions of the truck and
generate bills).
The Court went even further,
holding that, even if the
OmniTRACS Service were
considered as a stand-alone
service, the primary purpose for
which users would purchase the
service would be to obtain an
information service. While the
Court recognized that the
Service contains some
functionality – such as the
instant messaging capability
– that could be classified as a
telephone service, the Court
concluded that this
functionality is an adjunct to the
primary function of the service
– the provision of information
– rather than a substitute for
conventional telephone service.
Although the decision is
limited to its particular facts, it
could have national
implications. The Washington
State law at issue is based on a
model statute adopted by 44
states and the District of
Columbia. Therefore, the
Washington State decision
could affect tax decisions in
other states regarding similar
ITS services. Because emerging
technologies are particularly
sensitive to taxing policies,
subjecting ITS services to lower
tax rates will create incentives to
develop and deploy these
services. This could be
especially important for smaller,
start-up entities, which are often
an important source of
innovation. More broadly, the
Court’s decision represents an
important recognition that ITS
services should be subject to the
“lighter touch” regulatory
regime typically applied to
information services, such as
Internet Service Providers,
rather than the traditional
regime applied to conventional
telecommunications services
provided by operators such as
AT&T and Verizon.
JONATHAN JACOB NADLER AND MARK JOHNSON: LEGAL BRIEF
“Becauseemergingtechnologiesareparticularly
sensitivetotaxingpolicies,subjectingITS
servicestolowertaxrateswillcreateincentives
todevelopanddeploytheseservices”
MarkJohnsonisanattorneyatlawandJonathanJacobNadlerisa
partnerattheWashington,DC-basedlawfirmSquire,Sanders&
Dempsey,LLP
mark.johnson@ssd.com jack.nadler@ssd.com
ForpreviousKelly&JohnsoncolumnsinThinkingHighwaysNorth
America,visitourhomepageatthinkinghighways.comandenter“Kelly”
intheSEARCHbox
fyi
What’s going on in your industry in
Europe and the rest of the world?
Find out at thinkinghighways.com
EUROPE /REST OF THE WORLD EDITION
HBMEDIA
thinkinghighwaysEurope/RestoftheWorldEditionVolume6•Issue2•June/July2011
ZEN ANDTHE ART OF ITS
Advanced traffic management the EasyWay
THE ROAD
OPERATOR’S
DILEMMA
Andrew Pickford
unravels the political
complexities of EETS
STUDY AIDS
Andrew Huddart and MartinWylie
on connecting with academia
MEETTHE NEW BOSS...
Kevin Borras talks to AustriaTech
Managing Director Martin Russ
GRAND DESIGNS
Jean Coldefy on meeting the
needs of the Greater Lyon region
EUROPE/REST OF THE WORLD EDITION
Vol 6 • No 2
June/July 2011
thinkinghighways.com
3
ITS IN EUROPE
CONGRESSISSUE
Advanced transportation management • policy • strategy • technology • finance
innovation • implementation • integration • interoperabilityThe INTELLIGENTchoice
20/05/2011 12:12
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Works with existing fixed or pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras
Provides on-screen alerts for TMC operators or message alerts for remote staff
Easy to use Graphical User Interface that delivers the information you need
NYSE Amex: ITI
Learn more at:
www.iteris.com
Innovation for better mobility
VisitIterisat:
ITSWorldCongressinOrlando
Booth1933
Measure it. Manage it. Improve it.
10. 8 Vol 6 No 2 North Americathinkinghighways.com
O
nce upon a
time, there
was an act of
Congress that
told USDOT
to develop and demonstrate
an automated highway system
by 1997. So, hand in hand
with the National Automated
Highway System Consortium,
we did it. I worked for
the Federal Highway
Administration at the time and
had a hand in it all. Demo ’97
was by all accounts a success,
intriguing the public with a
concrete vision for a long-held
dream, an object of fantasy
for anyone dogged by long,
monotonous drives.
The late nineties and the last
decade saw driver assistance
systems begin to tiptoe into the
marketplace, starting with
“convenience systems” and
then to safety systems, which
are now moving beyond luxury
into mid-range cars – the new
Ford Focus is a prime example.
The obvious conclusion, as
driver assistance systems take
over more and more of the
steady-state driving duties, is
that the active safety trajectory
is arcing towards that long-
envisioned end-state of
automated vehicles.
What is surprising is how fast
the car industry is moving
along that trajectory.
Automation has shifted from
something that will come
“eventually” to having a
discrete place on the roadmap
for car-makers. This was vividly
illustrated by a keynote speech
given by Dr Ralf Herrtwich,
Head of Driver Assistance and
Chassis Systems, Daimler AG,
at the IEEE Intelligent Vehicles
Conference in early June. Ralf
described an elegantly crafted
sequence from driver control
towards automation: All On
(driver fully in control), to Feet
Off (already there with
Adaptive Cruise Control), to
Hands Off (getting there with
Lane Keeping Assist), to Eyes
Off, to Body Out (ability to
drive empty). Eyes Off takes us
to full automation. Body Out
gets into the realm of cars
parking themselves.
What about timing? Here’s
where it really gets interesting.
Ralf sees advanced assistance
(hands/feet off) as one vehicle
generation away. In two vehicle
generations, he expects
autonomous highway driving,
and in one more generation,
autonomy for commutes.
Now, notice what is missing
– the highway side. Demo ’97
offered the public a “concrete”
vision of “automated highways”
– yet the future of autonomous
driving is all about the cars.
On-board intelligence has
taken huge strides in the last
twenty years, such that the
future autonomous car will
handle virtually any road,
untouched by embedded
electronics, albeit enhanced by
V2I communications.
During the post-Demo ’97
doldrums, there was a hiatus in
serious industry or USDOT-
funded R&D. Then US DOD
then took center stage with the
Grand Challenges: amidst
extensive press coverage, the
public was again stimulated
with this dream of self-driving
cars, although the images were
of moon-rover type vehicles.
Then last summer came the
car industry’s re-emergence,
when Google unveiled their
autonomous car, which had
surreptitiously been driving
California roads for months
collecting data for the Google-
base. The public and media,
who could have reacted with
horror, were instead fascinated.
MISSION CRITICAL
The DARPA Challenges
brought vehicle automation
sufficient credibility, and the
Google car brought sufficient
corporate credibility, for the
car-makers to start talking
openly about automated
vehicles again. The risk of
putting this back into the public
eye was taken by DARPA and
Google, and reaction to their
efforts showed a way forward
for car companies. Now that
automation is market-relevant,
the auto companies are taking a
stronger role.
What about the government
role? Several European
Commission funded projects
in automation are underway
now, and the EC Information
Society Directorate has made it
clear that vehicle automation is
a high priority going forward.
USDOT has not taken such a
position, although FHWA has a
handful of automation-related
research projects ongoing. EC
INFSO is driven in part by
enhancing Europe’s economic
competitiveness. USDOT’s
mission, however, is squarely
focused on transportation
objectives. For the most part,
safety can be delivered by
today’s technology. Tomorrow’s
connected vehicles will
improve mobility and safety.
But full automation supports
transportation objectives as an
optimum end state – like the
vehicle platoons in 1997,
traveling safely at minimal
headway, pointing to a future of
vastly increased capacity and
related benefits.
So, for the policy-makers,
we’re back to the vision place. I
am now more convinced than
ever that the car industry, in the
foreseeable future, will deliver
autonomous vehicles to relieve
drivers from the tedium of
driving, thus delivering
individual benefits. The
opportunity is to harness this
technology to enhance travel
for everyone on the road. Some
government bodies will
aggressively pursue this vision,
others may not. Handling
ever-increasing traffic volumes
in the next decade will largely
depend on the result.
14yearsafterDemo’97,theideaofautonomousvehiclescatcheson
RICHARD BISHOP: CONNECTED VEHICLES
“Automationhasshiftedfrom
somethingthatwillcome‘eventually’
tohavingadiscreteplaceonthe
roadmapforcar-makers”
RichardBishopisprincipalofBishopConsultingandAssociateEditorof
ThinkingHighwaysNorthAmericanedition
richard.bishop@mindspring.com;richard@h3bmedia.com
Readmorebythisauthorinourarchivesatthinkinghighways.com/
archives.aspx
fyi
11. WE’VE HEARD YOU.
“MY CUSTOMERS WANT A VISUAL INFORMATION SYSTEM THAT IS MODULAR,
SELF CONFIGURING, EASY TO MANAGE, SERIOUSLY FLEXIBLE AND EXPANDABLE.”
IT’S POSSIBLE NOW. MEET PIXELNET®.
PixelNet is a revolutionary new way
to capture, distribute, control and
display digital and analog video
sources for AV applications.Utilizing
packet-switching technology,PixelNet
delivers high resolution, real time
video and other visual data from any
source at any size to any display.
• A node for every type of input:DVI,
Analog RGB,Analog HD (YPrPb),
HD-SDI
• TeamMate™ output node can
handle either analog or digital
displays at resolutions up to
1920x1200 pixels
• PixelNet nodes are small, silent,
energy efficient,and hot-swappable
• Instantly scalable: Add a node
for any new input or new display,
the system is self-discovering and
self-configuring
• Format conversion, de-interlacing,
scaling and color space conversion
performed automatically
• Inexpensive and easy to use CAT6
cables allow distances between
nodes of up to 100 meters without
signal degradation
• System management through
PixelNet Domain Control™—
an object oriented,drag and drop
user interface
PixelNet. Capture it anywhere. Display it everywhere.
JUPITER SYSTEMS | +1 510.675.1000 | WWW.JUPITER.COM | 31015 HUNTWOOD AVE., HAYWARD, CA 94544 USA
12. 10 Vol 6 No 2 North Americathinkinghighways.com
BETTER ROADS. BETTER WORLD.
A
lthough I
typically do not
cast wagers,
unless it is on
the annual
Oklahoma/Texas or USC/
UCLA college football games,
I would be willing to bet that
very few ITS professionals
began their professional
careers considering intelligent
transport as their potential
life’s work. I would certainly be
included in that group.
While the enhancement of
mobility and preservation of
motorist and pedestrian safety
are worthy life goals, they
are rarely envisioned by the
average 21–25 year old.
GAP INTHE SERVICE
After more than 20 years in the
ITS industry, I have seen
several universities begin to
offer short courses and
graduate curricula in traffic
engineering and professional
traffic operations. While these
may provide a good bridge
from the classroom to being a
traffic engineer or consultant,
they often leave a major gap in
the practicality of requisite
communications engineering
and networking background
that is critical to the operational
success and sustainability of the
intelligent transportation
system.
Most of the innovative ITS
technologies introduced
commercially over the past two
decades have been hatched in
the college environment by
entrepreneurial university
professors that licensed the
technologies developed by
their hard-working
undergraduate and graduate
students. Working on such
emerging technologies
provided the students with
invaluable experience in
‘thinking outside the detection
zone’, and the enterprising
professors with a nice
reoccurring revenue stream.
While the university-based
development of new ITS
technologies, central traffic
control strategies, and more
robust detection systems and
algorithms are critical to the
future of the industry, very few
achieve commercial success
due to the traffic control
equipment manufacturer’s
predominant belief that pure
academics fail to fully
understand the art of design for
standards compliance and
manufacturability.
FEW AND FAR BETWEEN
How many of the new
technologies and innovative
ITS solutions presented each
year at the Transportation
Research Board meeting in
Washington, DC actually see
the commercial light of day in
the hallowed halls of Siemens
ITS, Swarco, Econolite, Tyco,
Peek Traffic or McCain? Too
few.
It would be mutually
beneficial to the ITS academic
community and the leading
traffic control equipment
manufacturers, to create an ITS
EIT (engineer-in-training)
internship program, where as a
required part of a new traffic
engineer’s education, they are
forced to learn what it takes in
the private sector to design and
productize new hardware,
software and applications.
Too few ITS professionals
fully understand what ITS
system or device form, fit and
function is actually required to
meet the needs of the transport
management agency, and they
often have difficulty in
discerning the practical from
impossible, delivered at a
competitive price point. With
this expanded view of the ITS
industry, I believe it would
impart greater appreciation in
the new ITS engineer of the
challenges faced in the private
ITS manufacturing industry.
Conversely, private industry
would hopefully gather new
and innovative ideas that were
not subject to the historical
“Not Invented Here”
Syndrome.
Greater communication,
cooperation and trust are badly
needed in the ITS industry
worldwide between the ITS
academic community and
private industry. Those that are
able to manage these three key
principals will granted the
sheepskin of success far ahead
of their worthy competitors.
Pompandunusualcircumstance–universitiesandtheITSprofession
DrBillSowellisamemberoftheInternationalRoadFederation
(WashingtonProgramOffice)BoardofDirectors
william.sowell@aldiscorp.com
www.aldiscorp.com
ReadmoreaboutthissubjectinourArchivesat
thinkinghighways.com/archives.aspx
fyi
“ItwouldbemutuallybeneficialtotheITS
academiccommunityandequipment
manufacturerstocreateanITSengineer-
in-traininginternshipprogram”
“Workingonsuchemerging
technologiesprovidedthestudents
withinvaluableexperiencein‘thinking
outsidethedetectionzone’”
14. 12 Vol 6 No 2 North Americathinkinghighways.com
HAROLD WORRALL: THE FUTURE OF TOLLING
A
n expansion in
toll facilities in
both developed
and developing
countries has
occurred in the last couple of
decades and is catalyzed by
the fact that it is now much
easier to do so using modern
ETC technology. Tolling is
the dominant transportation
revenue generator and
when one considers the vast
expansion in China, India and
other growing economies, it
is perplexing why the US has
been slow to adopt similar
strategies.
While there is no single
overriding factor, several
have conspired to dampen
the expansion of tolling. The
recent financial crisis and
the reduced accessibility to
transportation capital is no
doubt a contributing factor.
Competition between regional
public authorities, statewide
transportation agencies and
concessionaires has further
dampened the trend. Finally,
the policy agenda of the US
is presently in a state of flux
as Congress considers major
reauthorization bills to fund
transportation for the next six-
year period.
There is little doubt in
developed and developing
countries, that greater
transportation funding is
necessary to ensure that
national economies become
and remain vibrant. The
situation in the US is
particularly amplified because
of its dependence upon
gasoline tax as the primary
funding mechanism, the
perspective that transportation
is a public good and the end of
the capital construction of the
interstate highway system that
was largely funded by the
federal government. The recent
financial crisis changed the
accessibility of funding for
transportation infrastructure
markedly. Not only was the
municipal financial market
impacted but the ability to
attract private capital through
concession arrangements was
also affected. Before the
financial crisis capital for toll
facilities was acquired through
a time-tested underwriting
process. Subsequently, most
major investment banking
operations that concentrated in
municipal finance have been
acquired by large commercial
banks. Those acquired must
become familiar with the more
stringent banking regulations
and devise a strategy adequate
for the fast-moving municipal
bond market.
Investment banking and
commercial banking have
come together in an
uncomfortable forced marriage
in the aftermath of the crisis
and the process of issuing
municipal bonds has been
modified as a result. Bond
insurance has also been
impacted. Previously bond
issuers were able to purchase
bond insurance to increase the
underlying rating of a bond
issue and thereby reduce the
cost of borrowing. The financial
crisis caused many of the bond
insurance providers to either
severely restrict future bond
insurance activity or in some
cases exit the business area
altogether. Many of the
primary bond insurance
providers are no longer in the
bond insurance business.
The financial crisis resulted
in lower toll revenues and
increased risk of default on
outstanding bonds. A few of
the more leveraged private toll
operations have been forced
into financial reorganization
and the investment community
now views the municipal
finance market as having
greater risk, increasing the
reluctance to invest in
municipal bonds. Coupled
with a national monetary
policy that results in record low
interest rates, municipal
securities and other fixed
income investments must
compete with recovering equity
investments to attract capital.
Three years after the financial
crisis, the municipal market
does not provide access to
capital that previously existed.
While it is much improved
from the early stages,
municipal finance is not
showing signs of a complete
recovery. Technological
developments in ETC and the
movement towards Multilane
Free Flow tolling offers great
opportunities for expanded
tolling. The timing is right to
make a connection between
price and use of transportation
infrastructure and supporting
economic development by
providing enhanced revenue
sources, but political resistance,
changes in financial markets
and competing organizational
delivery have all had a negative
effect.
Isexpandedtollingtheresultofanew-found“needs-must”strategy?
HaroldWorrallisCEOofTransportationInnovations
hworrall@trans-innov.com
www.trans-innov.com
ReadmoreaboutthissubjectintheTOLLING/ETC/CONGESTION
CHARGING/RUCsection sectionofourarchivesatthinkinghighways.
com/archives.aspx
fyi
“Thetimingisrightformakinga
connectionbetweenpriceanduseof
transportationinfrastructure”
“Inlightofthevastexpansionin
China,Indiaandothereconomies,
itisperplexingastowhytheUShas
beenslowtoadoptsimilarstrategies”
15. Kapsch TrafficCom
always one step ahead
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For people. For the environment.
For the future.
Kapsch TrafficCom creates intelligent ITS applications for urban, highway and interurban environments.
Road safety is one important aspect. The Kapsch Incident Detection System allows reliable detection of any
events or anomalies within seconds and assures safe operation and traffic flow in tunnels and along roads.
Find out more | www.kapsch.net
Making roads safer is one of the key challenges in transportation today. The tools we use to help us drive will make
her future secure. Kapsch TrafficCom, a leader in innovative electronic toll collection systems, creates intelligent
ITS applications to support road safety. Weigh in Motion, Incident Detection, e-Screening and traveler information
systems all serve to promote a safer driving environment. Find out more. www.kapsch.net
17. from transponder distribution and replacement to violations processing and collection. Innovative lane integration solutions, including Open
Road Tolling (ORT), ease congestion by enabling drivers to pay tolls at high-way speeds. Find out how ACS can help you reduce inefficiencies,
congestion, and pollution—all while increasing revenue.
18. Vol 6 No 2 North Americathinkinghighways.com16
ITS & EDUCATION
A
s I have watched the ITS
industry evolve around
the world from little
more than pure theory to
operational reality over
nearly the past twenty years, academia has
unquestionably played a key role in nearly
every aspect of this development. Many
leaders among major North American
universities – Penn State, the University
of Michigan at Dearborn, the University
of Regina, UC Berkeley, the University
of Waterloo, Texas A&M, and of course
my own alma mater, George Mason
University (to name but a very few)
provided the critical early-stage thought
leadership and technology incubation to
get ITS both onto and, then eventually
off of the drawing board and continue
to innovate and influence virtually every
aspect of ITS development. From the
early stages of hypothesis development,
through system conceptualization and the
initial research, to setup and operation
of many of the test beds and beta pilots
scattered around the world, our academic
institutions rolled up their sleeves with
the rest of the ITS community and rightly
deserve a place second to none among the
true pioneers of our industry.
Now as the implementation of ITS
by any name and segment—DSRC,
V2V, V2I, Connected Vehicle, Smarter
Transportation, CIVIS, CALM—is
engaged in earnest, it is important
that academic institutions continue to
The academic community deserves much of the credit for developing
the concepts and technologies that now stand to revolutionize
transport across all modes – now it faces still greater responsibilities in
making the revolution a reality, according to David E Pickeral
Howtocreatean
ITSecosystem
19. North America Vol 6 No 2 thinkinghighways.com 17
Innovation and implementation
push towards the horizon. It is equally
important that they also remain pragmatic
in their ability to support the enterprise
of ITS as it moves from its incubation
period into its deployment phase and
beyond. The results of such foresight will
provide long reaching benefits to our
increasingly connected, mobile and global
society through those who will become the
next generation of ITS parishioners and
teachers over the next several decades.
THE NEXT GENERATION
In the last couple of generations in most
countries around the world, transportation
has not – as most reading these pages
know – been the career of choice for many
young people coming out of university.
Most students, as they are looking to
begin their careers, have focused on more
general education in business engineering,
etc rather than the very specialized course
for pursuing careers in wings, wheels and
water. Courses at academic institutions
have reflected this as well. Like many
transportation professionals, and indeed
I would say nearly all in the current ITS
community, I largely developed my ITS
skill set over an extremely varied path,
working in transport service provision,
in information and communication
technology (ICT) network operation and
analytics and policy development roles
as a practicing attorney and management
consultant. While this has been an
exceedingly rewarding journey, I would
like to think that as a legacy, future
generations could have an easier and more
clearly definable pathway towards a career
in ITS, beginning in their undergraduate
years. Students could identify and set
study goals towards their place in ITS and
encourage them to develop the diverse
set of skills required. Whether as a trade
school graduate or a new PhD they will
emerge into the workforce well prepared
for either technical or management roles
in ITS – and ideally for both as their
careers progress.
Creating specialized courses and
even entire curricula at the graduate,
undergraduate and even secondary or
supplementary school levels is necessary
to ensure the continued success of ITS.
Far beyond the students who will become
practitioners in the industry, there
is a far more broad and – easily >>>
“I would like to think that as a legacy,
future generations could have an easier
and more clearly definable pathway
towards a career in ITS”
20. Vol 6 No 2 North Americathinkinghighways.com18
ITS & EDUCATION
“The ITS community is on the verge of
being able to collect, analyze and provide
insight on all of this data in real-time and
prescriptively for the future...”
just as critical – role for our universities
around the world to lay the technical and
institutional foundations for the Smarter
Transportation ecosystem. As will be
discussed here, there is a definable pattern
of development that has emerged to guide
this evolution as a discipline of study that
is both entirely new, as well as the result of
a long and successful record of experience.
A SECOND CONVERGENCE
Transport, information and
communication systems have always had
something of a parallel – if not, indeed,
shared – history. From the Royal Mail
coach network established in England
in the 18th century to the telegraph and
then telephone lines built along railroad
rights of way in the 19th century, to the
establishment of national Post Transport
and Telecom (PTT) authorities that still
exist today in many countries around the
world, there has always been a societal
perception that the movement of people,
goods and information together within
the same space was an inherently natural
activity.
Starting about a century ago when
Ford had just begun mass producing cars,
Marconi had fielded the first generation
of operational wireless systems, and when
TJ Watson first led the new Computing,
Tabulating and Recording company – soon
to be known as International Business
Machines (IBM) – the institutionalized
process of managing, compiling and using
data that would ultimately pave the way
for ITS began in earnest. In the latter
half of the 20th century, information
technology (IT) came into its own and
increasingly began to affect both the
transportation and telecommunications
industries through automated call routing,
reservation systems, air traffic control
monitoring, and any number of both
front-line and back-office support roles
– from early email to the Sabre airline
reservations system, now used throughout
the travel and transport industry.
The 1990s saw the widespread transition
of analog to digital equipment within
the infrastructure of established regions,
and in developing areas the deployment
of end-to-end digital networks where
none had previously existed. This began
a 20-year convergence of telecom and
IT into the nearly seamless information
and communications technology (ICT)
enterprise of today. Transportation
technology likewise continued to evolve
along a largely separate, but parallel track
with safety systems, signaling, vehicle and
aircraft movement tracking. The primary
skill set for this domain resided in such
disciplines as mechanical, civil and control
systems engineering, typically focused on
one mode or subset within a mode such
as fleet management, rail signaling, Land
Mobile Radio (LMR) communications, or
avionics.
With the ??????? IIT/Telecom-to-ICT
transformation nearly complete, we are
now on the verge of a second convergence.
Now, these digitized/digital ICT networks
are becoming interconnected with the
physical infrastructure of transportation
assets and equipment to form an
intermodal, interlinked and interoperable
‘system of systems’ with the ability to
concurrently monitor, control, optimize
and deliver transportation services across
each level of the network. This movement
will demand specialized training to
ensure that those who design, build and
operate these connected networks have
the diversified knowledge necessary
to manage these increasingly complex
systems concurrently. Whether preparing
for a career as a bridge builder, rail
car designer, IT architect or software
developer, there will be some essential
concepts, skills and terminology that will
allow for collaboration and understanding
across ITS fields. Establishing this
common ground in the classroom – with
the appropriate academic rigor – will
ensure that students are prepared from the
moment they begin their careers.
This need for synthesis is not limited to
engineering and technical curricula. Just
as ICT and transport evolved on separate
operational and technical paths, so too
have policy and doctrine governing their
operation developed to serve what were,
at the time, very different entitlement
expectations and socioeconomic
objectives. Whilst transport ecosystems,
for example, demand strict liability by
common carriers to ensure safety with
individual privacy being far less of a
concern, ICT network operators almost
by contrast are charged with ensuring
the integrity of personal information as
one of their primary mandates. Clearly
the binding together of these two sets of
objectives within the ITS environment
will require a studied balancing and
even reshaping of policy (and thereby
accompanying legislation and regulatory
oversight) to ensure that the efficacy
and above all safety of these systems are
maintained as they must be.
Having been a fundamental player in
nearly all aspects of the transformation
discussed previously – from civil
engineering advances to software
development to economic modeling and
forecasting – it is now necessary for our
The use of academic institutions to interpret
the mountains of data they helped to make
obtainable will allow them to innovate further
21. North America Vol 6 No 2 thinkinghighways.com 19
Innovation and implementation
academic institutions to drive this second
convergence through targeted research
programs, management curricula, and
public policy forums to name but a few
possibilities.
The results from this synthesis will
manifest – including, but not limited
to, the following key post-convergence
activities:
• Clear business process rules for the
handling of ‘big data’;
• Defined responsibilities as between the
participants in public-private partnerships
(PPP);
• An established process for procuring
interacted ICT-transport systems that
assigns appropriate liabilities as between
operational and back-office functions to
appropriately apportion risk;
• Understanding of how various levels
of government – and the international
community – interact and approach ITS to
balance local/regional responsibilities with
global standards and best practices.
FROM ROADSIDE BACKTO
RESEARCH
The business of transport is all intensive,
24/7 and highly unforgiving – whether
monitoring a highway or airport, serving
as a common carrier of passengers or
goods. One must deal with situations
as they arise, all while anticipating and
responding in an appropriate and timely
fashion to ensure flow of operations and
safety. Few operational practitioners in
transport have the ability to fully interpret
the trends of their own systems’ operation,
let alone analyze the trends across the
industry. And it is difficult to spend on
these types of resources, when there are
many priorities to balance.
It is here that academic institutions
must be directly engaged in interpreting
the probe data streams and other volumes
of data that now flow back from the
operational systems they helped put by
the roadside in recent years. What can be
learned from the terabytes of probe data
streaming in from millions of passenger
vehicles, buses, commuter trains and
subways, and the innumerable tolling
transactions, AFC payments, TIS requests,
or operations-center decision points
that make up the operation of any city
transport operations network at any time
of day anywhere in the world?
In essence, the ITS community is on the
verge of being able to collect, analyze and
provide insight on all of this data in real-
time and prescriptively for the future...
This provides an opportunity for academic
institutes to capture, examine, study and
respond with business practices, design
criteria, and the basis for making the most
of this wave of data while avoiding crush
of information that both systems – and
people – continue to raise as a concern
as the 21st century blasts into its second
decade. The same discipline of objective,
careful, reflective research by academics
that got roadside equipment installed in
the first place will ensure a careful and
logical succession of new systems.
MAPPINGTHE JOURNEY
Lastly, much as the case with all other
modes in the now hundred year
history of information technology, the
nearly two-hundred-year history of
telecommunications, and the several-
thousand-year history of transport,
our academic institutions will be
critical in documenting the story of ITS
implementation. As I have said in these
pages before, the implementation of ITS in
the 21st century will be as fully important
from a socio-economic standpoint as the
steam engine in the 19th century or the
airplane in the 20th century and will have
easily as many important stories to be told
and studied, not just about bits and bytes,
but also inclusive of the pioneering spirit
and excitement which has characterized
the emergence, validation and deployment
of ITS.
DavidEPickeralisGlobalDevelopment
ExecutiveforSmarterTransportationatIBM,
basedinWashington,DC
depicker@us.ibm.com
www.linkedin.com/in/pickeral
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22. Vol 6 No 2 North Americathinkinghighways.com20
SIGNS AND SIGNALLING
T
he evidence is indisputable.
During the past thirty
years (at least) the traffic
community has been
besieged with articles
describing the benefits of efficient traffic
signal system operation. These articles
have repeatedly documented reduced
delays, vehicle operating costs, emissions
and fuel consumption resulting from good
signal timing practices. The Executive
Summary of the 2007 National Traffic
Signal Report Card stated that the Nation
would receive the following benefits if
its signals were operated with maximum
effectiveness (an “A” letter grade in Report
Card terminology)1
:
• Reductions in traffic delay ranging from
15–40 per cent
• Reductions in travel time up to 25 per cent
• Reductions in fuel consumption of up to
10 per cent
• National savings of 17 billion gallons of
motor fuel per year
• Reductions in harmful emissions (carbon
monoxide, nitrogen oxides and volatile
organic compounds) up to 22 per cent
While these conclusions are rarely
disputed, little has been done by the
majority of public sector transportation
agencies to achieve these goals.
The National Transportation Operations
Coalition (NTOC) is an organization
made up of leading US transportation
organizations. Under the auspices of
the Federal Highway Administration,
it conducted two surveys of US traffic
signal operations and maintenance
(O&M) practices, with the objective of
both assessing the adequacy of these
practices and encouraging nationwide
improvements. Designated the National
Traffic Signal Report Card, these two
surveys were conducted in 2005 and 2007.
More than 300 agencies participated in
each of these surveys, whose results are
presented in the figure below.
These results are disappointing,
both because they demonstrate the
inadequacies of existing traffic signal
O&M and because they show little
improvement during the two year interval
between the surveys. Yet a few agencies
(very few) tried to improve their 2005
results. Those that did realized significant
benefits from their efforts. Austin, Texas
is a case in point. Their experience which
resulted in an improvement from a self
evaluation grade of “C” in 2005 to a grade
of “A” in 2007 is described in the following
quote from the referenced text:
“As a result of the 2005 Traffic Signal
Operation Self Assessment, the City
of Austin, TX, USA, has emphasized
a proactive approach to signal timing
PhilTarnoff looks at how self-assessment and a proactive approach
to signal maintenance can improve overall operational performance
Thinkingoutside
thecabinet
1
“National Traffic Signal Report Card 2007
– Executive Summary”, prepared by the
National Transportation Operations Coalition
(NTOC), 2007
TABLE 1
NationalTraffic Signal Report Card – Self-assessment results
SURVEY CATEGORY SURVEY RESULTS
2005 2007
Proactive Management F D-
Signal Ops at Individual Intersections C- C
Signal Ops in Coordinated Intersections D- D
Signal Timing Practices * C-
Specialized Operations F *
Detection Systems/Traffic Monitoring F F
Maintenance D+ C-
Overall D- D
*These categories were not included in their respective surveys
“[Austin] has successfully made
improvements to its overall signal
operation with no additional funding”
maintenance. Instead of spending money
responding to problems calls or complaints,
the City spends money up front by
proactively checking every traffic signal on
a regular preventive maintenance schedule.
This program was shown to reduce
maintenance calls from 5,000 to 2,500 in
one year. The City has successfully made
improvements to its overall signal operation
with no additional funding; instead it
focuses on reallocating existing budgets.”
Why was Austin one of the few cities
to recognize that the survey results
represented an opportunity rather than
a threat? While no one is certain, it is
possible to speculate that some of the
reasons might include:
• Inertia – our bosses have always been
satisfied with the status quo, so why
change?
• Inadequate resources – everyone is
too busy fighting fires to think about
restructuring the existing organization or
changing its procedures
23. North America Vol 6 No 2 thinkinghighways.com 21
Operation and Maintenance
>>>
• Lack of incentives – no personal
or organizational benefits
are anticipated from improved
performance in terms of higher
salaries, increased budgets or other
favorable treatments
• Lack of knowledge – some are ill-
equipped to identify the actions needed
for improved performance. Many assume
(incorrectly) that the only solution is
increased funding.
The Federal Highway Administration
(FHWA), the Institute of Transportation
Engineers (ITE) and many others have
attempted to address the lack of progress
through training courses and publications.
Unfortunately, this material only addresses
the lack of knowledge, but fails to consider
some of the other reasons for inadequate
O&M. Clearly it is time to explore more
creative solutions to the problem.
In all fairness, it must be recognized
that several agencies scored extremely
well on the NTOC self assessment.
The creative solutions discussed
here are certainly not applicable to
these high performing agencies.
A SOLUTIONWORTH
CONSIDERING
Several years ago, while working on a signal
system upgrade project for a Midwestern
city, a major electrical contractor
approached the city manager with a
proposal to privatize their signal system.
The proposed privatization included the
complete transfer of responsibility to
the contractor for system replacements,
upgrades, maintenance and signal timing.
In short, the contractor would assume
total control over the operations and
maintenance of the entire system. The city
manager’s response was that it would be the
“happiest day of his life” if the system were
to be taken off his hands.
The city manager’s response was not
unique. Many non-technical managers and
elected officials are frustrated by criticism
of their signal system because they do not
know how to correct the problem. In fact,
they are not even certain that the criticism
is legitimate. Their staffs assure them that
the system is being operated as effectively
as possible within the available resources.
Yet the public remains dissatisfied and the
national organizations such as the FHWA
and ITE are continually telling them that
they could be doing better.
Privatization is appealing because
agencies can define desired levels of
performance, while blaming someone
else for any real or perceived problems
that might occur. In short, management
and elected officials can define their
expectations in layman’s terms. At the
same time, the privatization contractor
has the flexibility to upgrade the system,
replace aging equipment, and provide
specialty skills on an as-needed basis
rather than being saddled with permanent
staff members within a constrained civil
service system and artificial investment
constraints built around an outmoded
planning process. Perhaps most important,
the contractor can apply appropriate
techniques available for managing
complex technical enterprises such as
maintenance management systems,
performance metrics and staff incentives.
Take maintenance management for
example. How many agencies have a
preventive maintenance program similar
to the one described for the City
CAUTION!IMPROVEMENT INPROGRESS
24. SIGNS AND SIGNALLING
of Austin? How many agencies track the
failure rates of their signal controllers
by manufacturer, model number and
age, so that they can replace unreliable
equipment that costs more to repair than
to replace? How many agencies optimize
the assignments of their maintenance staff
to minimize travel and to ensure that their
activities are appropriately prioritized?
How many agencies have formalized
spares policies based on equipment failure
and repair rates? How many agencies
track staff performance to identify
underperformers who need additional
training or other remedial actions?
The list is endless. Yet all of these items
reflect effective management policies that
should be routinely utilized by an agency
responsible for enormous investments in
equipment as well as the public welfare.
The operations side of O&M is similarly
deficient. In a report on the signal timing
state of the practice, it was reported that
35 per cent of the agencies surveyed had
failed to systematically retime their signal
systems for the past ten years.2
Although
this report was prepared in 2004, it is
unlikely that anything has changed during
the intervening time. It is likely that the
great majority of these jurisdictions have
seen changes in their traffic flow during
the past ten years, with the result that
their signal timing is badly out of date.
Inadequate signal timing is not the only
operations deficiency. As demonstrated
both by the NTOC work and the state-
of-the-practice review, the majority
of agencies fail to routinely monitor
traffic flow, implement signal timing for
emergency conditions, and appropriately
time their signals for congested conditions.
Privatization offers one approach
to overcoming these shortcomings.
Agencies would select an appropriate
private sector organization to assume
full responsibility for the operations and
maintenance of their systems. The contract
requirements would be defined at a high
level. They would specify minimum levels
of availability (acceptable percentages
of time that an intersection is operating
appropriately), and acceptable levels of
travel time and delays.
Another positive feature of this
approach might be the requirement for the
contractor to establish a call center and
website that can be used for citizen reports
of signal outages, burned out bulbs, and
operational deficiencies. This is a feature
that has been successfully implemented by
many agencies, but here again the majority
of agencies accept calls from the public
on an ad-hoc basis, without providing
appropriate feedback to the caller.
The traffic signal O&M contract would
include incentives and disincentives
(penalties) needed to enforce the contract
requirements and encourage superior
performance. For example, periods
of time for which outages exceed the
specified levels of availability would result
in a penalty, while periods during which
outages exceed some maximum level of
availability would result in an incentive
payment. By its nature, the need to enforce
contract requirements for performance
(travel time and delays) would lead to a
requirement for continuous monitoring of
traffic flow, a feature that should have been
included in all signal systems anyway.
PRIVATIZATION IS NOT A
PANACEA
It would be naïve to assume that the
privatization is a smooth straightforward
process. Many issues must be considered
before proceeding. Public sector personnel
who have been involved with the process
offer a litany of complaints, not the
least of which is the contractor’s lack of
familiarity with all of the issues that must
be addressed to effectively operate an
important element of the transportation
infrastructure. These issues can sometimes
be traced to the sometimes incompatible
motives of the public sector (to serve the
public) and the private sector (to make a
profit). On other occasions, they can be
attributed to the lack of understanding
on the part of public sector personnel of
private sector cost structures. On yet other
occasions, the dissatisfaction with
Vol 6 No 1 North Americathinkinghighways.com22
2
Tarnoff, Philip J., “State of the Practice in Signal Timing Practices and Procedures”, prepared
for the Institute of Transportation Engineers, March 2004. >>>
“The contract would
include incentives
and disincentives to
enforce requirements
and encourage
superior
performance”
With some authorities failing to retime their signals for long periods, despite changes in traffic
flow, opportunities for improved operational efficiency are missed
25.
26. Vol 6 No 2 North Americathinkinghighways.com24
SIGNS AND SIGNALLING
the privatization process can explained in
terms of potential impacts on job security.
Yet many of the difficulties
encountered during the privatization
process are legitimate and must
receive serious consideration while
this process is being developed.
Funding: Within existing funding
structures, it is often necessary
to differentiate between capital
improvements and the recurring costs of
O&M. In order to realize the maximum
benefits from the privatization process,
it is desirable to provide the contractor
with the maximum flexibility to replace
equipment as necessary to optimize the
maintenance costs. This flexibility can only
be accomplished through a unified budget.
It may be difficult to blend these two
activities into a single contract vehicle.
Performance Incentives: Performance
contracts have been successfully used
for many different types of projects
throughout the world. Performance
incentives can be readily applied to
measure the quality of the contractor’s
maintenance activities in terms of
equipment availability and maintenance
personnel response times. However, the
application of performance incentives
to operations can be more difficult.
Even an experienced traffic engineer
with an adequate budget has difficulty
maintaining or improving travel times in
areas with traffic growth and changing
travel patterns. Thus performance
incentives must be locations and time
periods during which conditions
are relatively stable. In addition, the
imposition of performance incentives
requires that provision be made for the
extra cost associated with the automated
measurement of travel times in locations
where the incentives are to be applied.
Local Knowledge: It will be difficult
for a contractor arriving on the scene
with a staff of engineers and technicians
unfamiliar with local conditions, to
provide traffic signal operations of
equivalent effectiveness to that which had
been provided by public agency personnel
with many years of local knowledge. A
transition period of three to six months
will be required before the contractor’s
performance can be accurately evaluated.
The impacts of the transition period can
be minimized if the contractor employs
existing agency staff for the project, either
temporarily or as full time employees.
Liabilities: Intersection crashes can be
severe, and in their search for legal redress,
attorneys frequently identify deficient
traffic signal operation as the cause of the
crash. The potential cost of litigation can
be a serious obstacle to attracting qualified
contractors to offer their services for signal
privatization. Those contractors who do
offer privatization services may increase
their costs to provide financial protection
against possible lawsuits. Agencies
considering privatization should whenever
possible, offer legal protection against such
lawsuits provided any settlements that
occur were not the result of a contractor’s
deficient actions.
A privatization relationship that clearly
defines performance requirements,
offers an effective mix of incentives and
disincentives, allows for development
of local knowledge and offers legal
protection can result in significant
improvements in the operation of
the nation’s signalized roadways.
CONCLUDINGTHOUGHTS
Privatization may appear to be an extreme
solution to the problem of deficient traffic
signal O&M, but we are running out of
alternatives. After more than twenty years
of trumpeting the benefits good O&M,
with no apparent impact on the actions of
the agencies providing these services, there
do not seem to be any other solutions. The
public and their elected officials exhibit
a mild dissatisfaction with the operation
of the signals in many jurisdictions, but
their understanding is so limited that they
are readily persuaded by the technical
staff that this is “the best we can do”. In
fact, quite the opposite is true. In the
majority of American communities there
are numerous opportunities to repeat the
Austin experience. Yet few have responded
to this challenge.
Privatization offers an opportunity
for a fresh start. It provides a basis for
communication between the elected
officials and their technical staff;
communication that can be expressed in
terms they understand (travel times and
availability), rather than the cycles, splits
and offsets, actuated controllers, and levels
of service. It also offers the opportunity
to establish new lines of communication
with the public through call centers and
websites. Finally, it offers the assurance
that scarce tax dollars are being used
wisely through the application of modern
management techniques.
“Privatization offers
an opportunity for a
fresh start”
A preventative maintenance program, such as is in operation in Austin,Texas, can reduce
maintenance calls by half
PhilTarnoffisChairmanoftheBoardof
Traffax,Inc
philip.tarnoff@verizon.net
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ANDSIGNALLINGsectionofourArchivesat
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sectionoftheSHORTLISTdirectoryonlineat
thinkinghighways.com/shortlist-directory.
html
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27. MOBILITY THROUGH TECHNOLOGY
Mott MacDonald’s transport technology team is adding value on a host of projects worldwide through
intelligent, sustainable solutions and innovative ideas. Our global experience and professional
excellence save time and money for our customers and help make their investments work harder.
We bring best practice, cutting edge solutions and holistic thinking to each project and its development,
to promote improved transport networks and informed travellers.
Visit us at the European ITS Congress, Lyon, 6-9 June – ITS UK stand C30 and C40
For more information, please contact Ken Cowan:
t +44 (0)141 222 4577
e ken.cowan@mottmac.com
www.transporttech.mottmac.com
Intelligent transport
Managed motorways
Systems delivery
Data analysis
Traveller information
Network management
Traffic control
Project management
28. Vol 6 No 2 North Americathinkinghighways.com26
INNOVATION
Bern Grush shares with us 12 novel parking programs to delight
drivers, reduce enforcement costs, produce revenue or reduce
congestion and emissions—and usually all five!
Cheaperby
thedozen
29. North America Vol 6 No 2 thinkinghighways.com 27
Intelligent Parking
I
live on the east side of Toronto,
about 2 kilometers from a subway
entrance. Recently, I wanted to
lunch with a friend at the far
western end of the line about
20 km away. Taking my car would have
cost about $15 in gas, lease expense
and wear. So it made sense to park my
car near the station and take the train.
It would be faster than fighting traffic,
less than half the price, give me a couple
blocks of exercise, and let me read a book
on the train – four superb and utterly
selfish reasons to leave my car parked.
Pleased with my plan, I drove off to the
nearest the station. As I started looking
to park, the first street was marked one-
hour free parking – with no way to hire
more. Made sense – can’t have tons of
folks like me crowding out residential
parking by leaving my car there all day
while working downtown. So I went to
the next street. One-hour parking. And
the next one, too. So I went up one more
and finally ended up parking about
0.5 km away from the next station over
– in the wrong direction! Because I had
cruised back and forth looking for free
parking I had essentially driven an extra
1.5 km while passing well over a hundred,
empty, one-hour-free spaces. I figured I
needed to park about three hours and did
not wish to risk a $30 citation. But, I got
my free spot!
My city has several thousand one-hour-
free spaces, mostly on residential streets
and many three or four blocks on either
side of our transit lines – and around
other major facilities generally under-
served by parking lots (a local hospital
provides another example). These form
a buffer of parking spaces constrained
to one-hour parking to prevent parking
abuse unfair to the local residents. Makes
sense. Or does it? The majority of these
one-hour spaces remain empty after local
residents leave for work and until they
return home. If left unmanaged, they
would be filled by freeloaders like me
who leave their car in front of a stranger’s
house and take public transportation (or
carpool) to save $10 or $20 in downtown
parking fees. One can see some green
wisdom in having people who live some
distance from a subway station park in
one of these residential areas and take the
train rather than drive downtown. I know
several people who do this.
I would have been happy to pay 50 or
75 cents an hour for a spot 100 meters
from the station – more if the weather
was bad. The city has an opportunity to
manage those spaces for the benefit of
the residents living there, as well as for
the benefit of drivers who live less
close to the subway. >>>
30. 1
2
TRANSIT-ORIENTED STREET
PARKING
In the opening story I described
the problem I had trying to ditch
my car near a transit station. If that
were managed by way of an hourly
payment that would be set low
while local residents were at work,
but higher otherwise, I could have
paid to park there without worrying
about when I would return. Had I
been held up and stayed six or eight
hours instead of only three, I would’ve
paid fairly in that case, as well. The
only enforcement cost for transit-
oriented street parking would
be to drive by in a vehicle or on
a bike looking only for cars without
an operational meter or residential
parking decal. Such vehicles would be
handled as before. As meters become
ubiquitous, the proportion of cars that
need manual payment enforcement
drops saving the city even more
money while better managing street
parking for the affected residents.
GRADUATED PARKING
Probably the most powerful single
value for self-enforced time and
place-based parking meters is the
management innovation of Winnipeg’s
Dave Hill (Chief Operating Officer,
Winnipeg Parking Authority, 2005–
2010). Calling it graduated parking, he
set up a pilot that permitted the use of
on-street parking to extend arbitrarily
past the then-current two-hour limit of
participating parkers who were willing
to pay a gradually increasing fee for
each 15-minute parking time slice.
This even permits the first time
segment to be free, if a city wished
to offer the“one hour free parking”
privilege. With appropriate pricemaps,
parkers who stay beyond a normal
limit would pay a slightly higher fee for
each extra time slice, but being self-
compliant would require no manual
citation. This permits enforcement
staff to manage more square miles
of on-street parking with the same
staff contingent while reducing city
court costs and increasing revenues –
revenues that could be used for local
streets and sidewalks, reducing the
upward pressure on property taxes.
BEST PRACTICE
Unfortunately, many city managers that
see cars in motion as a problem do not
recognize that half of the problem they
grapple with can be attributed to how
we think about cars that are parked or
could be parked differently or elsewhere.
The interchange link between driving
and transit modes is often weak at best.
Parking management, handled very poorly
on the urban streets of many of our cities,
could instead include schemes that:
• Reduce ‘circling the block’ for cheap or
free parking
• Reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMT)
• Encourage transit use
• Generate revenue for local street
maintenance and amenities
• Reduce congestion
• Reduce emissions
• Provide easy, quick and convenient
parking
• Assure residents can park near their
homes
• Assure retail operators reasonable parking
availability for their customers
• Save money for drivers willing to take
transit for part of their trip
• Reduce property tax for residents near
streets that are better managed
Here I will show 12 new ways to address
this management issue.
SAME OLD, SAME OLD
There has been no real innovation in
parking programs since the invention of
the parking meter in 1935. Before that
it was the parking garage in 1918. And
before that, the covered carport for the
upscale homeowner in 1909 – a centenary
that just went by uncelebrated.
Everything else has been incremental
improvement on the parking meter – a
way to have you plug something into a
machine and buy some time before you
go about your business, for which you are
already late because of traffic congestion.
The something you plug in has changed
from nickels to quarters (lots more lately),
then to credit cards and now to 10 digits
on your cell phone.
The reason there is nothing remarkable
about all of the interim inventions such
as pay-and-display, pay-on-foot, pay-
by-spot, and cell phones is that none of
these inventions change the business
rules. Those rules are simple: (1) circle the
block until you find a spot, (2) park and
arrange a payment, (3) do something away
from your car, (4) return, (5) drive off.
Of course there are a lot of variants. You
could get a ticket. You could get clamped.
You could get towed. You could be late for
your meeting trying to find a spot. I knew
someone who circled so long she ran out
of gas and never managed to find a spot,
which is, I seem to recall, how one of my
marriages ended up.
As a business, parking has grown but it
has not grown up. Looking for a parking
spot still consumes time and fuel – and
this is getting worse. Paying for parking
remains a colossal nuisance. Citation-
anxiety spoils your meetings, your lunch,
your shopping, and your indiscretions.
Parking enforcement is an expensive
and tedious activity. Finding, paying,
and enforcing parking is easily the most
absurd and wasteful business activity still
tolerated under 21st-century capitalism.
The use of curbside equipment and
parking officers on enforcement beats
is very expensive in high-traffic areas.
It is prohibitively so elsewhere. In many
cities, you can expect an expense between
40–60 per cent of revenues depending on
a number of factors. Worse is the case of
one-hour-free parking in low-demand
areas. As it is now, one-hour parking areas
must be visited twice to apply tire-marking
enforcement methods – an expensive, pre-
technology ritual – leading to a strategy
of occasional spot-enforcement (I get
Vol 6 No 2 North Americathinkinghighways.com28
INNOVATION
New parking programs may not feasible even with the newest incarnations of the 76-year-old
curbside parking meter
31. 3
4
5
6
7
SELF-ENFORCED PARKING
This is easiest to understand: park in all the places that have posted prices
and the usual parking meters, but simply ignore the curbside meters. The
city can demand the same parking fees as before, and could add a lump-
sum penalty for overstaying a fixed time limit. Alternatively, the city could
ask for overtime to be paid on a prearranged schedule, such as two or three
times the usual per-minute rate, with a ceiling. This is less harassing for the
driver, always collected by the city, and has no additional costs to ensure
compliance. But why get complicated? This is an excellent way to introduce
graduated parking.
VENDOR-PAID PARKING
Retail vendors often dislike paid street parking especially if competitors
who offer free parking could take their business. Appropriately configured
in-car metering systems can include methods to allow vendor-paid parking
to credit a shopper’s parking account.
LOYALTY DISCOUNT PARKING
Some public garages offer monthly parking at a significant discount. Such
monthly passes encourage automobile use even on days that transit, bicycle
or carpool might be more suitable. Switching to loyalty discount parking
for frequent users would remove this problem while still giving garage
operators a method to attract frequent users. This also removes the need to
maintain sufficient empty spaces for monthly parkers who may not show up
on any particular day.
FREE PARKING
Sometimes free parking is appropriate. It would be possible to operate the
‘one hour free’parking rule and give participants the first hour free. The
same idea can be used to give customers 30 or 60 mins of free parking
and then to charge thereafter. Non-customers could then use private retail
lots and would pay after the grace period expires. This eases the spillover
management problem, reduces pressure on the common shortage of
street spaces, and adds more taxable revenue to the retailer’s top line.
ECO-PARKING
By setting the on-board pricemap to reflect the size of vehicle or type of
power train, participants who drive smaller or alternative vehicles could
be given an eco-parking discount. Some financial grade road-use meters
measure driving style (speed, braking, and acceleration) and this can be used
to compute an eco-driving index which can be used to calculate parking
discounts on city streets. While we’re at it, we could add a bonus parking
credit for vehicles that remain parked during peak traffic hours.
“Citation-anxiety
spoils your meetings,
your lunch, your
shopping, and your
indiscretions”
ticketed maybe once in ten for violating
the hour constraint).
HOWTHE NEW METERSWORKS
In order to execute the new schemes
described here, participating vehicles must
be self-metered, self-enforced and self-
paying with privacy-shielding, hands-free,
road-use meters. This will allow the same
contingent of parking officers to manage
three to ten times more spots than now.
Such self-managed meters are already
commercially available. Using a new
technology called “financial-grade” GPS,
they provide a completely private method
of determining the correct parking fee
based on an internal pricemap. Each meter
is unique to a participating vehicle, pays
parking monthly either on a debit or credit
basis, and does not reveal the location of a
vehicle to any party other than its driver.
There is a 100 per cent driver-private
way for the parking operator to audit
the system—no person or machine can
find out where a spouse is parked since
location data does not leave the vehicle.
A driver who wished to use any of the
parking schemes described in the sidebars
would affix a meter, which is the size of
smartphone, to her windscreen behind
the rearview mirror. The meter may be
prepaid or post-paid, as the city chooses.
In fact both could be offered.
A small indicator lamp shows that
the meter is working so that a parking
enforcement officer can safely ignore any
legally parked vehicle (blocking driveways
and fire-hydrants remain citable offenses).
The absence of a lit indicator lamp that
shows a device that is tampered or
nonoperational, and such vehicles would
receive citations exactly as though they
had no meter—no need to get Draconian
over tampering a device you volunteered
to put in your own vehicle!
Parking officers who enforce parking
would do exactly what they always do,
while simply ignoring any correctly >>>
North America Vol 6 No 2 thinkinghighways.com 29
Intelligent Parking
32. RESIDENTIAL PARKING
Many cities control street parking in older residential areas (without
driveways) by using flat-rate parking decals or tags that permit parking in a
certain residential zone. Residential parking using a financial grade road-
use meter applies very low hourly rates (pro-rated to the current annual
pass costs) within the localized zone relative to the resident’s address and
more normal rates outside of that zone. Then residents who may park fewer
hours on their own street because they travel or put their car in a driveway
could pay less. Also, if they visit late or overnight on another residential
street or have a guest who agrees to pay for street parking, they pay for fair
use rather than risk a citation. A similar pricemap could be used to manage
visitor parking for apartments, condominiums and hotels.
RESERVED PARKING
Given a suitable number of participants, it is possible to offer reserved
parking. In-car parking meters permit real-time inventory management
so that sections of surface lots and street spots may be reserved for
participants only. This permits a driver to use a smart phone to reserve a
spot and be guided directly to it. It reduces driver circling and climate-
change anxiety – as well as potentially increasing municipal revenues.
NOSEBLEED PARKING
Similar to seats in a sports stadium that are farthest from the action,
‘nosebleed parking’refers to setting prices on a declining scale depending
on how far one parks from the entrance to a transit station, a stadium, a
hospital, a school, etc. One often sees drivers circling or hovering close
to an entrance while there are spaces at the edges or on upper floors of
a large facility. Differential pricing can be used to better distribute spatial
demand and reduce circling and hovering.
LOTTERY PARKING
Use lottery parking to spread peak travel times. Each day that a driver parks
within the central business district (CBD) but does not travel during peak
hours enters his license plate into a daily lottery. Support the lottery from
parking revenues and give away several significant prizes every day. This
rewards drivers who enter and leave the CBD during off peak hours thereby
reducing congestion and idling.
11
9
12
10
“As a business,
parking has grown
but it has not
grown up”
Vol 6 No 2 North Americathinkinghighways.com30
INNOVATION
Vol 6 No 1 North Americathinkinghighways.com30
BernGrushisCEOofBernGrushAssociates
bg@berngrush.com
www.berngrush.com
ReadmorefromthisauthorinourArchives
atthinkinghighways.com/archives.aspx
fyi
parked vehicle with a correctly operating
meter. Lest the indicator lamp be spoofed,
these meters also emit a “health signal”
declaring whether they have been
tampered, jammed or shielded.
In the sidebars on the these last three
pages are 12 new parking programs that
are not feasible with the 76-year-old
curbside parking meter (regardless of
how incrementally sophisticated it has
become). These represent only a fraction
of the programs possible with this new
technology.
SOLUTIONS FROMTHIN AIR
Parking management by satellite can
improve mobility, municipal finance
and the driver experience. While
managing only parking, this technology
can simultaneously address road and
parking congestion, transit ridership,
and peak-travel. What is most powerful
is that it handles any kind of parking
circumstance with incredible flexibility,
while dramatically reducing the cost of
ensuring compliance. Not only does it
handle street, lot and garage parking, it is
even possible for an individual to hire out
their driveway to a stranger while they are
at work. Since the system can count where
its participants are concentrated (without
knowing who anyone is) the use of
variable message signage, permits a city or
private operator to vary pricing – by event
or demand. The only downside is that the
gradual attrition of unsightly curbside
parking meters over the next several years
means fewer places to chain a bike.
33.
34. Vol 6 No 2 North Americathinkinghighways.com32
THE THINKING HIGHWAYS INTERVIEW
I
’d better explain that before we go
any further. Ken Philmus, senior
vice president of transportation
systems and services at ACS
– A Xerox Company, would
no doubt be very pleased that I’ve
described him as popular. What he
wishes to change is his remit, or more
accurately, the remit of his company.
Ask anyone in the advanced traffic
management field what it is that ACS does
and I’d bet you anything you like that the
answer would contain either “tolling”,
“back office” or a combination of the two.
It’s not that the assumption is wrong, it
just doesn’t cover all the bases. After all,
the company has a distinct history (and
an impressive track record) in the field,
designing, building and integrating some
of the first electronic toll systems, such
as the innovative E-ZPass® system first
used in ETC projects in New York and
subsequently in New Jersey. ACS was also
part of some of the very first US electronic
tolling projects in Georgia and California.
ACS has equipped over 1800 tolling lanes
and hosts some of the largest ETC Back
Office Systems and Customer Service
Centers in the world, processing upwards
of US$4 billion in ETC transactions per
year on average, including over 50 per cent
of all ETC transactions in the US.
With statistics like those, one would
be forgiven for thinking that the idea of
pushing hard to become known for other
traffic-related activities could spectacularly
backfire. In addition, there are divisions
of ACS that also develop and implement
parking systems, red light and speed
camera programs and technology for
public transit fare systems.
However, throw the rarely
underestimated powers of Philmus
into the mix and you can see that the
company hasn’t just added a number of
extemporaneous strings to its bow on the
toss of a coin. With nearly four decades of
tolling experience behind him, Philmus
is more determined than ever to put it to
good use.
“I’ve been at the in the transportation
and tolling business for almost 40
years, with 34 on the public side with
the Port Authority of New York &
New Jersey. In my early years with the
agency I was involved in a lot of different
things – human resources, vehicle fleet
management and airport management
among them. In the last 10-15 years at
the agency I was focused on the tolling
side of the business. Mostly notably
in the late 1980s I was manager of the
George Washington Bridge in New York,
the busiest in the world, used by over
300,000 vehicles a day, and from there I
moved onto manage the Port Authority
bus terminal in Times Square, which
is one of the busiest if not the busiest
in the world. That was a pretty tough
place back then and I was charged with
cleaning it up and getting it functioning
safely for our customers. From there
I became Deputy General Manager of
JFK Airport. A lot of people think of
me as a tolling guy but I have quite a
varied background! It was after these
assignments that I became responsible
for all of the Port Authority’s surface
transportation and tolling as the Director
of Tunnels, Bridges and Bus Terminals.”
But how do these varied experiences
manifest themselves in the tolling and
traffic arenas?
“I was brought to JFK as Deputy
General Manager to integrate the Air
Train. It links the terminals with the
parking facilities and a rail station about
7 miles away. I was also in charge of the
day-to-day operation of the airport from
an infrastructure perspective including
snow removal, maintenance…all that
kind of thing. That was a wonderful job
but I only stayed for a year as the chance
came up to become Director of Tunnels,
Bridges and Bus Terminals for the Port
Authority of NY & NJ. That’s where I got
more heavily involved in tolling. I was
responsible for all the Port Authority’s
tolling activities, which included the
George Washington Bridge, the Holland
Tunnel, Lincoln Tunnel, and three bridges
that link Staten Island with the State
of New Jersey. I got very involved with
tolling policy at that point and as director
I was able to make a direct impact on
the business I loved. I wanted to make a
difference for the travelling public. Those
six facilities now bring in over US$1billion
of revenue per year.”
Which, it can hardly be argued, is no
small impact. It was around that time that
Philmus detected the growing national
trend towards electronic tolling was going
to have a fairly sizeable impact of its own.
“As Director I was involved with
expanding and further integrating and
expanding electronic tolling. We were
not yet where we wanted to be, as was the
case with most authorities. As director,
up to 2006, it was my job to oversee the
expansion of the electronic market share
to something like 75 per cent but I also
had to deal with labor issues as we had 400
or so manual toll collectors. It was some
task to increase the level of electronic
tolling AND work with the collectors
Kevin Borras talks to one of the tolling sector’s most well-known and
well-likedcharacters…notthatKenPhilmuswantsittoremainthatway
“Ilovethis
business...”
“Electronic toll collection was the future
back then as all-electronic is the future now”
35. North America Vol 6 No 2 thinkinghighways.com 33
Ken Philmus, ACS
and the unions. But we never had to lay
anybody off, I’m proud to say. The timing
was perfect. As electronic tolling’s market
share in the US, and of course New York/
New Jersey grew, it happened to coincide
with the impending retirement age of a lot
of our toll collectors, so there was natural
attrition. Electronic toll collection was the
future back then…as all-electronic is the
future now. Furthermore, in 2001 we had
to deal with all the negative effects of 9/11
since the World Trade Center had been
the Port Authority headquarters and, of
course, security concerns very significantly
impacted travel throughout the New
York metropolitan region for an extended
period of time.”
Then, Philmus had his “Damascus”
moment and surprised a lot of people
with a move away from his beloved public
sector and into what was for him the
uncharted waters of the private world.
“I left the Port Authority in 2006 and
moved to the private sector as a consultant
with what was then DMJM Harris, now
AECOM, as national tolls director. I got to
work on some very interesting projects.”
“After a couple of years there I was about
to hang up my spikes, as they say, when I
got a call from ACS and Michael Huerta
made me an offer he said that I wouldn’t
be able to refuse – it was the chance to get
back into operations and he was right, I
couldn’t say no.”
Philmus was appointed managing
director of the group that handles ACS’s
tolling operations and development, a
division that handles over US$4 billion in
electronic tolls across the US from some
of the biggest tolling facilities, such as
the New Jersey Turnpike, the New York
State Thruway, and the facilities he used
to manage for the Port Authority of New
York and New Jersey.
“We also manage San Francisco
and Northern California’s tolling back
office operations as well as New York
Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s.”
Philmus admits that it’s no surprise that
the company is widely regarded as a back
office operator, given its track record.
“We are known as a back office company
outside the tolling arena as well but we’re
not just a back office company, we’re a
technology company too. The technology
behind Maryland’s Inter County Connector
is ACS’s All-Electronic Toll Collection
technology and we recently won the North
Carolina Turnpike and Los Angeles HOT
Lanes contract, for not just the back office
but also the tolling technology.”
The 2009 merger with electronics
giant Xerox is proving to be even more
beneficial to ACS than perhaps even
Philmus envisaged. Far from being
swallowed up and spat out by the far
larger organisation (as is often the case
with big-fish, small-fish “mergers”), ACS
is positively thriving and benefiting from
the technology expertise of its bigger
brother (and that’s saying something of a
company that manages 37 billion transit
fare transactions annually).
“ACS does the work that authorities
and countries don’t want to do but need
to have done, and that can be anything
from call centre operation to healthcare.
Transportation is a fairly big part of
the company, more than US$800m out
of US$6.5billion turnover and in turn
tolling is a part of ACS’s transportation
business. The merger with Xerox has
been wonderful for us as it’s given us
an instantly recognisable brand. At the
moment we’re ACS – A Xerox Company
but slowly but surely we’re moving towards
becoming branded fully with Xerox.
This has meant for us that we went from
being a US$6.5 billion company to being
a US$22 billion company, one of the
largest in the US. As well as the brand
it’s also given us incredible capability
and reach that we never had before,
particularly overseas. We are trying to
take Xerox’s tolling market and expand it
internationally, outside of the US and this
is enabling me to do just that.”
Philmus points to another aspect of
Xerox’s capabilities that he’s been able to
call upon as another benefit of what at the
time seemed quite an unlikely merger.
“Xerox has always spent a lot of money
on R&D, but at ACS, being a tolling
systems developer, we did a lot of the D
but not all that much R as that’s just not
what we were about. Now with Xerox
we have the capability of putting
their research centers in Grenoble, >>>
“A lot of people think of me as a tolling guy
but I have quite a varied background!”
36. Vol 6 No 2 North Americathinkinghighways.com34
THE THINKING HIGHWAYS INTERVIEW
France, Toronto, Palo Alto, CA and
another in Rochester, NY, to work on
some of the knottier problems that we face
in the tolling arena. Helping us do a better
job of image capture is a prime example,
looking at how many passengers are in a
car for HOT/HOV projects is another we
are working on that we wouldn’t have been
able to do without Xerox,” he enthuses.
“Often what happens with mergers is
you have two companies who do more
or less the same thing, you smash them
together and fire half the people. That’s
not what happened here – we are two
very different companies and that’s been
the strength as we’ve been able to market
Xerox capabilities, such as their image
processing systems, to some of our clients
and they’ve marketed us to some of theirs
so it’s worked very successfully so far.”
EVERYTHING’S CHANGED
As someone who spent the first five years
of the 21st Century on the public side of
the fence and the second five years of it on
the private side, I was interested in how
Ken Philmus thought that the industry
had changed over the last 10 years.
“It’s changed remarkably,” he says
without pause. “Cash collection, from
the public side, gave the public agencies
direct contact with their customers. As
ETC started to come in, most agencies
realised that it was the business to be
in. All of a sudden the agency no longer
had contact with its clients. When I took
over as Director of Tunnels, Bridges &
Bus Terminals for the Port Authority
in 1998, ACS was our provider as we
started to expand into ETC in an urban
environment. What we suddenly had was
a third party managing our customers for
us. I visited the E-ZPass office that was
dealing with our customers and I found
that people didn’t mind paying a toll, what
they minded was stopping to pay a toll.
As we moved further into ETC, in terms
of efficiency, tolling had become a tool to
manage the traffic, to manage congestion.
That was a watershed moment – tolling
wasn’t just a way of paying for what
needed to be done, build the roads and
so on, but it was a hugely effective tool to
handle transportation policy.
“We’re also starting to see more
discussion and more internationalisation
of tolling than ever before,” he continues
(for an interviewer, Ken Philmus is nothing
short of a godsend). “US tolling developed
on its own, Asian tolling developed on its
own. European tolling developed on its
own. But now we are seeing companies
and organisations interact and look at the
different geographies and geographical
requirements. What Europe was doing with
EETS (European Electronic Toll Service)
was way ahead of anything we were doing
in terms of interoperability, but I think
we might be edging ahead now. Europe
developed on 5.8GHz and we developed
on 900MHz bandwidth and as a result we
had all manner of different technologies
such as SunPass and E-ZPass…but
with the advent of the Alliance for Toll
Interoperability, what we came to realise
is that in the future lies interoperability.
It has to. The future is moving towards
video tolling and ALPR and we seem
to be closer to that than ever before.
Interoperability is the key to the next
generation of tolling in the US. If someone
told me this 15 years ago I would have
thought they were crazy! It’s remarkable.”
Where in the past companies such
as ACS were tasked with providing the
agencies with technology, they now find
themselves talking about policy.
“That’s not our business but what they
want us to do is not just collect tolls but to
do innovative things with the tolls we’ve
collected for them.Agencies have come to
realize that tolls and pricing can be about
traffic and congestion management.”
A MARKED DIFFERENCE
What does Philmus see as the fundamental
difference between the North American
and European tolling markets?
“It comes down to methodology. In
Europe and Asia it’s always been about
Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) and
for the most part, the North American
market has not. Here it’s been about public
agencies owning the roads and managing
the tolling as owners, directly contracting
for that service. What we see in Europe
and Asia is totally different – we just did
not go down the concession route, if you
excuse the pun.” Pun duly excused.
“But then five or six years ago there was
suddenly a real belief that PPPs in the
US were about to explode but they never
really took off in quite the way that some
people, myself included, thought they
would. That’s where the policy side comes
in – as a former public guy I thought PPPs
were the best thing since sliced bread
because I knew that agencies didn’t have
the money to do the maintenance on their
80 or 90 year old bridges and tunnels.
They needed an injection of private capital
to finance new builds and to me, PPPs
were the perfect way of facilitating that
but it just didn’t take off. I think there
was a fear from the politicians and public
agencies of a PPP in that even though
they still owned the road and they were
implementing a lease, the public wouldn’t
see it that way. The fear is that PPPs would
be viewed as giving away control of an
important public resource to the private
sector and that tolls would be uncontrolled
and maintenance would suffer. The
existing facilities needed the
Working for the Port Authority of NY & NJ Philmus gained experience in many areas that included
managing some of the busiest facilities in the world such as the GeorgeWashington Bridge
>>>
“Tolling... was a
hugely effective tool
to handle
transportation
policy”
