During the workshop and interview process the following six consistent themes emerged:
• Operations and Maintenance (O&M) Issues
• Interoperability Issues
• Standards Development Issues
• Procurement and Contracting Issues
• Education/Demonstration of Benefits and Training Needs
• Grass Roots Public and Political Support
• Air Quality Issues
Each of these issues is discussed in the following subsections. In addition, potential recommendations to address some of these issues were noted by transportation stakeholders in the workshop and interview process and are noted under the
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Page 3-4 appropriate issue. These recommendations represent the potential solutions noted by stakeholders early in the development of this plan. Recommendations are primarily noted here as it was felt that they would provide useful suggestions and information to the users of this plan. The recommendations do not necessarily reflect the views of all the stakeholders in the region. They are simply suggestions noted during the outreach process.
3.4.1 Operations and Maintenance (O&M) Issues
LA/Ventura transportation stakeholders have identified the lack of available funding, particularly in cities, to operate and maintain ITS projects once they are constructed and on-line. When operating and maintenance costs are competing with other needs that are ordinarily funded through either transportation funds (e.g., street repairs) or General Funds of a city (e.g., social projects, basic city services), this is a significant concern.
Implementing agencies identified the need to improve their ability to estimate the on-going costs of operation and maintenance (life-cycle costs) so that short and long-term funding options can be developed and presented to local decision makers. Concurrent with this, agency staff felt that they need to be better equipped to demonstrate and explain the benefits of ITS to their superiors and public representatives.
Stakeholders have displayed general agreement and concern about the financial burden that ITS operations and maintenance will impose upon cities. To the extent possible, trying to obtain ITS funding from city General Funds should be avoided due to the diminishing availability of this source and the broad range of popular competitive projects such as police, fire, street maintenance, etc. It was noted that it is hard to sell constituents a project such as ITS when there are so many unmet social and educational needs in most communities.
It was agreed that operations and maintenance of ITS project of all types is going to be a growing problem for public agencies, especially with regard to obtaining and maintaining the necessary level of skilled staff. Privatization of the operations and maintenance function was viewed as a reasonable alternative to performing this work in-house. It was noted, however, that many public agencies do not have prior experience in the proper administration of operations and maintenance contracts.
Recommendation: Identify long-term O & M funding at the beginning of the project, before systems/improvements have been implemented. One question raised was how to get funding from different levels of government specifically earmarked for O & M. It was noted that funding sources should be identified early on to enable local agencies to effectively participate in ITS deployment.
Recommendation: Establish on-going funding advocacy expertise to secure funds to be dedicated to short and long-term operations and maintenance costs.
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Page 3-5 Recommendation: Encourage resource sharing, to the extent practicable, under the four different ITS Strategic Planning Efforts underway in the Priority Corridor.
Recommendation: Support for Conditions on Receiving ITS Funding. This discussion centered on conditions to ensure that agencies receiving ITS funding cooperate and coordinate their efforts with the regional effort to develop, in the long-term, a seamless system of ITS applications that will facilitate the more efficient operation of the regional transportation system. It was recommended that applicants for ITS funding be required to be consistent with this Plan in order to receive funding.
Recommendation: Prioritize funding needs. The region needs to be able to prioritize its needs from various funding sources (e.g. Federal, State, MTA, counties sales tax) in order to successfully compete for funding and to advance the ITS strategic plan in a systematic manner.
3.4.2 Interoperability Issues
Not all transportation stakeholders in the region are fully convinced that full regional integration needs to occur. Some have indicated that they believe that corridor specific integration may be all that is required.
In addition, many agencies are cautious about a fully integrated operation because of concerns over relinquishing local control. Previous experience has shown that different agencies can be persuaded to be involved in an integrated system if the benefits are clearly defined. Stakeholders expressed concerns that past ITS efforts have focused too much on technology application and not enough on operational integration and impacts. They noted system designs should start with an operational policy that defines the requirements of the systems then technology should be mapped to those requirements. Stakeholders generally agreed that the ability of different agencies to use the same facilities can increase the efficiency of systems and decrease the cost needed for operations. Inherent in co-location is the perceived risk of losing local control.
Liability was a major concern. It was noted that with the implementation of ITS initiatives that provide real-time information, agencies will be liable to effect a response.
Concerns related to relinquishing control of local coordinated systems to another agency, as well as each agency’s role and responsibility were indicated. Generally stakeholders felt that this is an issue that can be satisfactorily addressed.
Recommendation: Establish focus groups to discuss and address concerns of agencies, reviewing the pros/cons of integrated vs. autonomous operation, as well as hybrid options. As part of this effort, establish the degrees of integration possible so that agencies can understand their options.
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Page 3-6 Recommendation: Develop an integrated Operations Policy to determine the technical requirements of the system. Once the policy is established, existing systems will have to be evaluated to determine if they meet the operational needs. If not, these systems may require retrofits.
Recommendation: Perform a cost/benefit analysis on any co-location plan.
Recommendation: Agreements should be worked out among agencies through a sound education exercise so that the fear of losing control over local systems is eliminated.
Recommendation: Develop Operations Protocol Manuals, with input of all players, such that participants are involved in the development rather than having protocols dictated to them.
3.4.3 Standards Development Issues
Stakeholders noted that the adoption of general standards that apply to all agencies is often opposed. Costs of compliance are usually a major factor in explaining why agencies oppose adoption of universal standards. While it was recognized that the foundation for integrated systems requires the establishment of some fundamental standards, these standards have yet to be agreed upon and established. Once standards have been established there is a concern about the project costs for migration of legacy systems to the standards.
Configuration management (CM) is the process by which systems are documented and modifications to systems are regulated. The CM identifies and records functional and physical characteristics of components of a system, audits the components to verify conformance to specifications, controls changes to said components and their related documentation, records and reports status of proposed changes and the implementation status of approved changes. CM is essential to ensure the operability of each agency’s system as well as the interoperability between systems. Once standards have been set, CM will ensure that the standards are maintained.
There was a lack of consensus amongst stakeholders that CM is crucial toward ensuring Interoperability. Also, there was a misconception amongst the groups as to when CM should begin with most of the group thinking that CM should start once the completed systems are in place. However, it is generally accepted by the systems including that CM should start before the deployment of the systems.
Recommendation: Develop procedures and assign responsibility for setting and controlling standards.
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Page 3-7 Recommendation: Enlist the cooperation of vendors of proprietary systems, endorse those with “open systems”.
Recommendation: Develop a hierarchy of standards for different levels of integration based on needs and costs (e.g. Federal, State, regional, local) which would be applicable to all implementers of ITS at the lowest organizational level and as system sophistication requirements increase, then require adherence to a higher level of standards. There was consensus that standards need to be developed with sensitivity to local situations in smaller implementing agencies.
Recommendation: Establish guidelines for Software Deployment. It was recommended that guidelines be established for software deployment to deal with the issue of proprietary software which has been a historic problem and barrier to regional coordination and sharing of information necessary for effective integration of systems and information.
Recommendation: Establish a regional CM team which is responsible for negotiating consensus and setting, documenting and maintaining standards. Identify a structure for the regional CM team and funding for its implementation.
3.4.4 Procurement and Contracting Issues
Stakeholders generally agreed that existing public procurement requirements are outdated with respect to their application to ITS technology procurement. Issues such as low bid requirements, evaluation practices for procurement (e.g., how to assess risk), and the lack of turn-key or the design-build options were discussed.
The flexibility Caltrans was granted immediately following the Northridge Earthquake was cited as a good example of how Caltrans can get things done more cost effectively and quickly when not hampered by certain State contracting policies and procedures.
Stakeholders generally agreed that standardization of equipment is an important objective because of potential long term cost savings in maintenance and the more demanding operational requirements of ITS, but that traditional low bid procurement requirements make equipment standardization difficult to achieve.
It was suggested that substituting a Request for Proposal procedure for the low bid procedure should allow for achievement of the greater degree of standardization required by ITS. Some examples of why this is so were given, but it was noted that the Request for Proposal procedure does generate disputes regarding the fairness of the evaluation and selection process. Such disputes could lead to significant delays in the procurement of ITS equipment.
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Page 3-8 Recommendation: A review of procurement requirements and policies of affected agencies should be conducted and specific recommendations should be developed to address procurement issues before they become a problem in the implementation of the ITS Strategic Plan.
3.4.5 Education/Demonstration of Benefits and Training
Many of the participants noted that education of public officials, decision makers and the public is critical to the ultimate success of the ITS project. In addition, training for traffic engineers, planners, and public works staffs is vital to their ability to maintain and operate ITS technologies as they come on-line.
It was the consensus of stakeholders that they would likely not have the specific expertise required to maintain and operate the facilities. While many local agency personnel associated with traffic signal systems have a basic understanding of ITS operations, very few have sufficient training to handle the day to day operational responsibilities. Generally this is due to the limited time they have available to work with the system, let alone take time out for training. Also, the group noted that there needs to be more emphasis on transportation at the University level, both in terms of curriculum and University support. The group also suggested cross-training of highly skilled technical personnel working in other areas of expertise, such as the aerospace industry.
Finally, stakeholders noted that managers are often unfamiliar with the technical requirements of integrated systems. Due to their unfamiliarity they often underestimate these requirements, such as: 1) added costs and complexity of maintenance activities, 2) additional and ongoing training requirements, 3) the need for specialized staff, and 4) the need for different procurement strategies.
Recommendation: Educational efforts should be undertaken to describe the benefits that ITS can bring to the region, how ITS can help both small cities and larger agencies manage the transportation system in the region, and why ITS applications should receive funding and support from the various agencies involved in traffic management and improving the efficiency of the regional transportation system.
Recommendation: Training projects should be developed for practitioners who need to work with ITS projects and applications. This should be a priority so that they are equipped to operate and maintain systems as they come on-line. In addition, planners and others who input investment decisions need to understand the potential of ITS applications in various circumstances in order to truly mainstream thinking about ITS as a tool to help solve transportation problems.
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Page 3-9 3.4.6 Grass Roots Public and Political Support
Stakeholders noted that effective marketing of ITS requires a demonstration of benefits.
A significant barrier was cited in the ability to market and mainstream ITS into the transportation planning and programming process due to a lack of clear and relevant information on benefits to the public.
Another risk mentioned was the creation of the perception that ITS was analogous to
“Big Brother” with its cameras and other traffic surveillance equipment. ITS could become viewed as intruding on a citizens’ right to privacy.
Recommendation: Set aside funds in ITS budgets for marketing the project to the general public. It can be expected that explaining ITS services to the public for purposes of increasing their usage will also result in building support.
Recommendation: The participants felt a long-term, “Big Picture” view of ITS is needed in order to demonstrate to public officials that ITS technologies can be effective in resolving transportation problems.
Recommendation: Educate local decision makers on the benefits of ITS to gain support. Throughout the development of this Plan, these priority problems and issues have played a key role. Many of the issues summarized here have been documented in this Plan for easy reference, as resolution of these issues must become part of the on going ITS deployment effort.
3.4.7 Air Quality Issues
Stakeholders noted that the overall air quality impacts of ITS deployment are difficult to measure and predict. There was some concern that ITS, by making travel more efficient, may induce further traffic growth or land development. This was especially a concern to some when considering the possibility of Automated Highway System (AHS) applications. Some stakeholders noted that increasing mode splits to less polluting modes such as transit for people and rail for freight is more advantageous than simply decreasing travel delay. Also, some stakeholders indicated that certain “high or gross emitter” technology applications might be helpful in reducing emissions.
Recommendation: Deployment efforts seeking to reduce emissions should focus on mode shift possibilities. The land development and induced traffic demand potential of ITS projects should be considered when ITS projects are planned, designed, deployed and operated. Stakeholders noted that weekends are now the worst air quality days, and that the potential application of ITS to recreational and non-work trips should be considered.
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Page 3-10 Recommendation: The potential application of ITS technology to detecting high emitter vehicles should be considered.
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