Conferences

• FDOT Exhibits Again at ITS America's 15th Annual Meeting and Exposition
• FDOT District 4 Wins ITS America's Best of ITS Award

FDOT Exhibits Again at ITS America's 15th Annual Meeting and Exposition

Once again FDOT coordinated a successful partnership of public and private agencies to highlight Florida’s achievements at ITS America’s 15th Annual Meeting and Exposition, held at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia. The event began on May 7th and concluded on May 9th. Florida was well represented in the exhibition hall and had one of the largest booths to showcase Florida’s ITS deployments.

The combined efforts of the FDOT District 4 (D4), District 6 (D6), and Central Office, Florida's Turnpike Enterprise, ITS Florida, TEAMFL , and the Miami-Dade Expressway Authority (MDX) brought the first live demonstration of center-to-center communications to ITS America’s Annual Meeting and Exposition.

To set the stage for the booth, imagine a brush fire closing I-95 in central Florida...two highway crashes causing the delayed landing of Air Force One ...and rush hour getting off to a slow start in West Palm Beach with a wreck in a construction zone. Now shift from imagination to reality. These events did happen and were all tracked live over 1,000 miles away at ITS America's 15th Annual Meeting and Exposition!

A team of transportation management center (TMC) staff members from FDOT D4 SMART SunGuideSM and Palm Beach Interim Traffic Management System (ITMS) TMCs, D6 Miami-Dade SunGuide TMC, Florida's Turnpike Enterprise TMC, and MDX developed a "pentagon pavilion" representing a TMC in southeast Florida. Each TMC desk position had live access to real closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras in Florida, plus the TMC software, and direct communication with 24x7 TMC staff back in the actual TMCs. Over 3,500 conference attendees were able to see the live activity at the Florida ITS booth—front and center at the main exhibit floor entrance. An operator from each TMC actively monitored conditions along the freeway and toll road systems between West Palm Beach and Miami.

On Monday afternoon, the live events in southern Florida captured the crowd's attention. Dynamic message signs (DMSs) were activated for the brush fires that closed I-95 in central Florida. Then a multi-vehicle crash tied up traffic on I-95 in West Palm Beach. All eyes then shifted to Fort Lauderdale where two separate crashes blocked travel lanes on I-95 north approaching I-595. A third wreck (called a "secondary incident") occurred in the traffic queue. Conference attendees were treated to many elements of TMC operations and incident management:

• Operators moved CCTVs to monitor conditions and lane closures
• Minute-by-minute incident details were tracked on the SMART SunGuide database
• The free Road Rangers service patrol cleared a secondary accident
• Electronic messages were monitored on SunGuide software and live CCTV
• Traffic delays were tracked with MIST® software and then provided on the 511 advanced traveler information system telephone and Web site
• The Broward County Severe Incident Response Vehicle (SIRV) responded to assist at the incident scenes

To add to the drama, Air Force One's landing was delayed due to the accident on I-95 near the Fort Lauderdale International Airport runway approach. All of this activity kept show attendees entertained while they waited in line for a taste of Philly's famous pork Italian sandwiches from Tony Luke's Old Philly Style Sandwiches.

"This was the first time anyone could see all of the southeast Florida TMCs together—in one place. Our goal is for motorists not to be able to distinguish between one transportation management center and another," said Steve Corbin FDOT D4 ITS Operations Project Manager.

The support of the public/private partnerships was also a win for the Florida ITS booth. Thanks to the following companies for their support: Transcore, DMJM Harris/AECOM, PB Farradyne, Miller Electric, Daktronics, Fortran, HNTB, Jacobs Engineering, MG2, RuggedCom, SIM, Sunshine Towing, Vanus, and VBrick.

The following staff made up the great team that pulled off this significant endeavor (in alphabetical order): David Alladin, Palm Beach ITMS; Tracey Allen, Palm Beach ITMS; Christopher Amour, Florida’s Turnpike; Dong Chen, FDOT4; Alphonso Clay, FDOT6; Steve Corbin, FDOT4; Will Corchado, Florida’s Turnpike; Jerry Cosme, SMART SunGuide; Wady Cruz, MDX; Ivan DelCampo, MDX; Steve Dellenback, Southwest Research Institute; John Easterling, Florida’s Turnpike; Jim Effantis, Florida’s Turnpike; Arturo Espinosa, FDOT6; Guy Francese, FDOT4; Erika Garcia; SMART SunGuide; Michael Grant, Palm Beach ITMS; Peter Hugene, Florida’s Turnpike; Janice Hughes, Florida’s Turnpike; Rowdy Kemnitz, Washington Group; Gregg Letts, SMART SunGuide; Jesus Martinez, FDOT6; Tom McGrath, Loren Communications; Dee McTague, SMART SunGuide; Mike Millard, SmartRoute Systems; Bob Murphy, Palm Beach ITMS; Oriol Nunez, SMART SunGuide; Nur Parwaiz, Palm Beach ITMS; Alex Ramos, Sunshine Towing; Dave Reese, Florida’s Turnpike; John Scarpellino, Palm Beach ITMS; Carl Smith, SMART SunGuide; Hugh Stetter; SMART SunGuide; Craig Vahle, SMART SunGuide; Mike Washburn, Florida’s Turnpike; Helena White, Palm Beach ITMS; Ranzy Whiticker, Florida’s Turnpike; and Dan Wye, Florida’s Turnpike.

The details, cost benefit and performance of each TMC was highlighted with ITS program information distributed in SunGuide/FDOT tote bags to nearly 1,000 attendees.

The meeting and exposition was well attended and the Florida exhibit attracted its full share of attention. Plans are already underway for a strong presence in 2007, scheduled to occur in Palm Springs, California, June 4 through 7.

FDOT District 4 Wins ITS America's Best of ITS Award

FDOT District 4 was extremely honored to receive ITS America’s Best of ITS Award for 2006 for its ITS Public Outreach Program. According to ITS America, the Best of ITS Awards is the only program in the world that recognizes the best and brightest of the intelligent transportation community.

FDOT District 4 is responsible for managing the surface transportation infrastructure within five counties along the southeast coastline. The SMART (Systems Management for Advanced Roadway Technologies) SunGuide Transportation Management Center (TMC) is a “world class” 24/7 facility that enables FDOT District 4 ITS staff to actively monitor Broward County’s freeway network and ITS infrastructure while coordinating and managing incidents with the Road Rangers service patrol, Florida Highway Patrol, and other TMC partners (i.e., FDOT District 6, Florida’s Turnpike Enterprise, SmarTraveler, and Broward County Traffic).

The SMART SunGuide TMC staff was concerned that the motoring public and public agencies are relatively uninformed about what TMC services are available, how well they function, and the direct and indirect benefits gained from these services. This limited understanding could have a negative impact on potential benefits. Subsequently, the TMC developed an ITS Public Outreach Program to organize communications and promote the TMC’s services with its internal and external customers.

FDOT is very proud of its proactive approach towards educating the general public and regional public agencies regarding ITS and its benefits and is honored to receive this prestigious award.

To learn more about the SMART SunGuide TMC , or to schedule a tour, please visit here, or contact Erika Garcia at (954) 847-2783.