LEVELS OF ITS PROVISION

When planning an ITS deployment for the first time, the classical approach – as with any new investment – is to determine the user's needs. For example, there may be a need to improve safety, or to manage congestion, or a combination of both – or some other traffic issues which needs managing for policy reasons.

The next step is to determine the extent of the ITS requirements that provide the control capability that meets the needs and manages the traffic appropriately:

• what locations are affected?
• what functionality is required?
• what ITS applications are best suited to these situations?
• how much investment is required?

From this assessment a business case can be developed through an analysis of costs and benefits. (See  Understanding the Costs and Benefits of ITS) This is essential to ensure a healthy rate of return on the investment to justify the project – and ensure that the investment compares favourably with other transport investments. (See Project Appraisal )

GENERIC BUSINESS CASE

Where a programme of ITS projects is envisaged, covering a number of highways and urban locations (such as a network of road intersections), developing a business case repeatedly, for each project, is time-consuming and expensive. In general, highways of the same type, that carry similar volumes of traffic – and have similar safety and congestion issues – will usually merit similar investments in ITS equipment and infrastructure to achieve a common level of service. In these circumstances it is possible to develop a “generic” business case, based on a common level of ITS provision – one that has been shown to satisfy the identified “need”, meet operational requirements and importantly, demonstrate a positive benefit/cost ratio (BCR).

Once that business case is proven, it is possible to establish a common requirement for ITS deployment on roads and highways of the same (or very similar) type. The traffic and other site-specific parameters that justify this level of provision can be quantified and applied as a check-list or formula (for example, by measuring traffic flow data and accident and congestion records).

Through sensitivity testing, the range for each parameter – where the business case remains positive – can be determined to establish minimum qualifying criteria. Any road meeting or exceeding the prescribed criteria would justify having the same level of ITS provision as the project for which the business case was first developed showing a positive BCR. That level of ITS provision can then become the accepted requirement for highways and locations of the same type.

UNIFORM DEPLOYMENT

Having a common level of provision on roads of similar types and with similar levels of traffic has other benefits besides the time and expenditure savings arising from not having had to undertake a cost-benefit analysis or develop a business case for each project:

• it creates a uniform deployment of ITS wherever it is justified, regardless of who is tasked with designing each project
• it allows the required roadside equipment to be standardised, which means:
  • the requirements from a number of separate ITS deployments can be grouped together to provide economies of scale
  • the design task for each project is considerably reduced – delivering significant savings
  • by standardising equipment, a smaller range of spares need to stored for maintenance replacements

Adopting a policy to specify uniform levels of ITS provision has the advantage of reducing project design and preparation costs and other savings. It is essential to avoid technology lock-in (becoming tied into the current generation of technology). This can be avoided by specifying functionality and performance and making use of non-propriety (open) interface standards.

FIRST-TIME AND EARLY DEPLOYMENTS

Where ITS is being deployed for the first time there is unlikely to be a Traffic Management Centre (TMC). In these circumstances the first ITS project will be the commissioning of a TMC of such a size as neded to cover the expense of its operation:

• where a programme of ITS projects including a TMC is planned - the costs of the TMC can be amortised or discounted across all the projects to justify the TMC business case
• subsequent projects do not need to take account of the TMC's operating costs unless the functionality of an existing TMC is being changed or increased
• where there is no additional TMC expense the generic business case to establish a common level of provision need only include the equipment, telecommunication, installation and infrastructure costs

EXAMPLE

In the UK, when incident detection and automatic signalling were being added to an existing inter-urban traffic management system, a cost benefit analysis was undertaken based on accident and delay saving benefits - to produce a generic business case. Sensitivity testing of the cost/benefit model gave a traffic flow figure for motorways above which, the probability of accidents meant that the accident and delay saving benefits exceeded the cost of installing incident detection. In this case, the criteria derived to justify adding incident detection to a section of motorway, came in the form of a traffic flow-rate per lane of motorway. This standard of provision prescribed that all motorways with more than 20,000 vehicles per lane per day justified the addition of incident detection. A study ten years after the first installation confirmed that the criteria being applied – and the generic business case – were correct.

Regional Deployment Strategies

The full benefits of ITS can be realised only if the many stand-alone traffic and travel information systems are integrated within a region. However, integration is not as straightforward as some might expect.

Scope

The first practical issue in regional deployment has to do with its scope. In order to define a “region” in which ITS applications are to be integrated, one has to consider integration at different levels – domestic integration within a country, international integration with trade partners or with geographical neighbours. For example, Mexico has problems of domestic integration among its seven regions because standards for ITS-related subsystems and levels of available information are very diverse among these regions. Internationally, Mexico has faced problems integrating with its trade partners within NAFTA on the one hand because Canada and US have more developed ITS technologies, and integrating with other Latin American states on the other hand because their ITS are less developed.

The size of the region will determine the level of interoperability that is required. The appropriate scale of deployment depends on specific applications. International cargo identification and freight transport can benefit greatly from interoperability among nations for the sake of efficiency and security. Standard toll collection devices for a region are more important for trucks moving freight across a sub-continent than for passenger vehicles that stay in the same metropolitan area most of the time. This has led to the suggestion of ETC - based on GPS for trucks, and DSRC for cars. Cross-border traffic information has become important in Europe as many vehicles frequently travel between countries. Other ITS applications work best on a smaller scale - such as local traffic management and control.

Solutions

People and organisations have different objectives, motivations and attitudes - and their diversity is greater the wider the region to be integrated. Although most institutional problems could be alleviated by legal and contractual arrangements, building consensus requires seed funding. Conditional funding for regional deployment - as often provided in Canada - has been found to be beneficial where no money is available from government unless and until consensus is reached.

If used appropriately, system architecture can help high-level decision makers to understand the functioning of ITS and to cooperate in its deployment. (See ITS Architecture) Ideally, where an architecture is used - a regional architecture should be developed to support regional deployment in a way which is consistent with the national architecture. In the absence of a national architecture, the development of a regional architecture at a lower level may be sufficient. Using this bottom-up approach, a regional architecture can evolve from either a “concept of operations” or from technical specifications based on regional objectives.

Voluntary harmonisation and interoperability can also be achieved by specific regional ITS projects oriented towards this goal - and involving "all" regional partners. Good examples include the European EasyWay action, which has, with European Commission support, produced ITS Deployment Guidelines for many ITS services - and the Asia-Pacific ITS Guidelines aiming to harmonise the national ITS Master Plans for sustainability. (See Deployment Guidelines and Asia-Pacific ITS Guideline) 

Research and Development

Research and Development goes hand in hand with deployment and is a major tool in strategic planning.

Firstly, research, development and innovation activities provide technology development and new solutions for ITS infrastructures and services. These new solutions need to be considered in strategic planning in terms of whether, when and by whom they should be utilised.

Secondly, research evaluating the impacts of ITS on behaviour, traffic, the economy, transport policy objectives and society as a whole, provides knowledge on the effectiveness of the new solutions, and paves the way for full-scale deployment and standardisation efforts. An ITS Strategy together with its action plan can be assessed during its development process - particularly when prioritising objectives and the actual actions.

Thirdly, research can provide the foundations of ITS Strategies or Framework Plans - by studying user needs, likely technology developments (technology foresights) and possible future scenarios.

Finally, an ITS research strategy should ideally accompany an ITS Deployment Strategy. This has been the case, for instance, in the USA where a specific ITS Strategic Research Plan was  produced at the same time as the ITS strategy (See ITS Strategic Research Plan). The research plan should reflect the priorities of the medium-term and long-term ITS strategies.

Steps in Policy Framework Analysis

The process of developing an ITS Strategy or Framework Plan with multi-stakeholder cooperation contains a number of steps, which are described below.

Step 1: Establish User Needs

Step 2: Make an Inventory of Existing ITS

Step 3: Review the Plans of Key Stakeholders

It is likely that a number of different organisations will need to ‘buy in’ to the overall vision for ITS and the implementation process to make the vision a reality. Harmonising the positions of the principal stakeholders is probably the most important aspect for the deployment and operation of ITS. The successful development of new services will be much easier if stakeholder's individual motivations and interests can be aligned. Close contact with the key actors is needed throughout the planning and deployment process.

The list of organisations which might be involved can be extensive but only a few will play a leading role. The ITS service providers will naturally need to be involved. Almost certainly the list will need to include the agencies involved in operating the major highways, the local authorities responsible for the main arterial roads and local roads, the traffic police and other traffic management agencies. Depending on the specific ITS application, the operators of commercial vehicles, public transport operators, and the motoring organisations representing private motorists, may also need to be involved. 

Experience shows that ITS services involve an increasing number of organisations as the full potential of the new technologies is realised. The table below illustrates this point with examples of the more common objectives for investing in ITS - showing the varying degrees of complexity and stakeholder groups. Senior officials of public agencies and chief executives of  private sector companies will often be involved in the definition of the ITS Framework Plan - because of the level of commitment that is required to make the plans become a reality.

The body of stakeholders which will need to be consulted during the decision-making process depends on the local situation and the issues at hand. It is important to be aware and sensitive to potential issues at all times - in what may be an evolving situation - as ITS services develop. Even apparent minor stakeholders can introduce issues which must be recognised and dealt with. Generally it is better to uncover and address any issues early on in the planning stages, so proper adjustments can be made. An effective communication strategy with the stakeholders provides the opportunity to develop contingency options.

Figure 2. Examples of Stakeholders for ITS Projects

Step 4: Build Consensus on Priorities and Requirements

Step 5: Analyse Roles and Responsibilities

Step 6: Document the Strategy Framework

Roles and Responsibilities

ITS services are the result of specific value chains varying according to the specific service - but with the same basic functionalities. The figure below presents a generic value chain for travel and traffic information services - but it applies to most ITS services. Each of the functions in the value chain specifies a responsibility for carrying out a specific task - and that responsibility is assigned to one or more of the organisations involved.

Traffic information service value chain by TISA Lohoff, Jan 2013.TISA WG Quality: Quality criteria and methods. Presentation at the European ITS Platform WP 3.2 and 3.3 Kick-Off Meeting. Brussels, 27 November 2013.

The roles of road authorities and other public sector stakeholders differs depending on the ITS service in question. Typically, road authorities have a more prominent role in services related to their core business of network operations, such as freeway management, traffic management, and incident management. They do not, though, have any major role in most vehicle based systems - such as driver support systems. In addition to the roles in the value chain, the public sector is always responsible as the regulator for any regulations or legislation setting out the legal framework for ITS service provision.

The roles of different stakeholders - and the borderline between public and private stakeholders - varies depending on national organitaional cultures and traditions. In some countries, the public sector stakeholders have responsibility for most parts of the value chain - such as real-time traffic event information services - whereas in other countries, the public sector is only involved in providing data for these services.

There is no single correct model of division of responsibilities for ITS services. Each ITS service has its own value chain or network, and the roles and responsibilities are determined by the local organisational cultures, tradition, conditions, markets and economic situation. Sometimes, the public sector needs to take a more active role than expected - such as when the private sector will not, by itslef, provide a socio-economically beneficial ITS service in areas of the public sector's jurisdiction.

Business Planning

ITS covers a wide range of systems and services. Different stakeholders are involved - and their roles and attitudes, as well as legal and institutional issues - vary in each ITS deployment. Whilst there will be wide variations between different applications and individual institutions - three broad groups of stakeholders investing in ITS can be distinguished:

1) Users and consumers of ITS (corporate or individual): require systems and services that meet their real needs. They have high expectations of service quality, reliability and availability (dissemination channels). The willingness to pay for ITS systems and services strongly depends on the actual and perceived utility of the service as well as on its image. The acceptable price may not correspond to the actual costs of service generation and delivery

2) The public sector: will adopt ITS to deliver various public services, objectives and strategies. Where these are made explicit - public interests in ITS service development are usually justified by positive impacts on traffic management and modal shift, road safety, sustainability, economic development, business location, image and social inclusion. Public authorities then seek to involve the private sector so as to mobilise the enterprise culture, limit public expenditures and increase efficiency

3) The private sector: share the objectives of marketing their products/services through ITS, entering a future growth market - and/or developing a new profitable business area. In this, the private sector depends heavily on the framework conditions established by the public sector - which they soemtimes perceive as an obstacle to the free market. On the other hand, differences between various private sector stakeholders leads to different orientations and priorities when defining new ITS service delivery models. These differences need to be recognised in the strategic agreements with the public sector.

Three very different business model evaluation systems come into play - as these groups consider whether to allocate their budgets to ITS.

1) The consumer (any individual or organisation that is the end user of an ITS system or service) evaluates the utility of ITS in relation to the buy-in cost and any recurring fees and charges that have to be aid.

2) The public sector usually has to justify investment in ITS on the basis of public service criteria or the benefits to the community - including affordability of the initial capital spend and any maintenance and long-term operating costs. There are several alternative evaluation methods (See Project Appraisal and Monitoring and Evaluation).

3) The private sector is concerned with the forecast return on the investment needed to bring ITS equipment, products and services to market - and the extent and reliability of any revenue streams

The interactions between these very different requirements are shown schematically below. ITS projects will frequently require justification against at least two, if not all three of the underlying business models. Failure to meet one or other of the investment tests will produce a classic “chicken and egg situation” – who goes first, the supplier or the purchaser in making a commitment to the system or product? Experience shows that this dilemma has been resolved in countries like USA and Japan by the public and private sectors jointly developing a strategic plan - including an ITS architecture that clearly defines the institutional responsibilities. When starting up cooperative system deployment in Europe - the Amsterdam group (See Amsterdam Group) consisting of vehicle manufacturers, road authorities, cities and private road operators - agreed on a road map with specific milestones reinforced by a common Letter of Intent signed by all, and a dedicated Memoranda of Understanding between the relevant local, regional and national stakeholders involved in different local deployments.

Interdependencies between the public sector and consumers.

Road Map for Deployment

Resolving the institutional issues needs to proceed in parallel with the technical aspects of ITS project planning. The specific ITS development must be assessed for its feasibility and desirability in the local context - from both a technical and non-technical perspective. There is usually more than one way to implement an ITS project - for example:

• rapid versus gradual introduction
• home-grown versus imported systems
• public versus private initiatives

The type of implementation chosen will be governed by many factors. Some key inputs are listed in the figure below.

Figure 5. Checklist for use in developing a road map for ITS deployment

The ITS Road Map is a means of translating concepts and plans into reality. It assigns roles and responsibilities and specifies how stakeholders can organise themselves to implement the recommendations of the Framework Plan. The following is a checklist of topics which will need to be addressed:

Human Res​ources

• Confirm and secure the private and public sector roles, define their areas of control and influence
• Identify who will be the leaders and champions
• Develop the required organisational and institutional capability
• Put in place the means of coordinating the key actors, perhaps by adapting existing coordination methods
• Introduce professional development and training requirements in ITS project planning and related skills

Contractual and Legal Requirements

• Secure the necessary ITS communications infrastructure and support services
• Develop common locational referencing rules and build the local “infostructure” of location-referenced databases and geographical information
• Resolve data ownership, locational referencing, quality control and exchange issues
• Address privacy and security issues

Coordination Mechanisms

Effective dialogue between the main stakeholders is the key to transforming organisational arrangements from concept into reality. A task force of the major players can help to develop voluntary agreements and Memoranda Of Understanding (MOUs) on matters of common concern. For example, in Europe, MOUs on cross-border data exchange and on the provision of the language-independent Radio Data System / Traffic Message Channel (RDS/TMC) on FM radio were agreed in fora which provided the opportunity for all interested parties to work together to discuss problems and agree on practical solutions.

The body which is made responsible for the high-level coordination of ITS developmen must have sufficient standing to be able to influence the decisions of key stakeholders on issues such as conformance to ITS architecture, data exchange formats and the use of standards. A good example is the European ITS Directive (See ITS Directive) which determines the specifications which specific ITS services must follow for deployment in Europe. The roll-out of ITS services may also require voluntary cooperation agreements.

A national or regional steering committee with high-level political backing can be very effective in bringing together all the main stakeholders to focus on achieving a common goal. It requires the support of a dedicated interagency coordination unit or some kind of technical panel drawn from the participating authorities. International, national, and regional public/private partnership organisations - such as ITS America, ITS Canada, ITS Europe (ERTICO), ITS United Kingdom, ITS Australia, and ITS Japan (VERTIS) - can play a useful part in setting up this consultation machinery.

In parallel, at the national or regional level, it may also be useful to create an advisory panel of other major stakeholders in ITS - including any significant private-sector actors - for advisory purposes. The Minnesota Guidestar Program14 in the USA follows this practice. In Paris, there is the Consultative Committee on Road Information Broadcasting for service providers. In Japan, the VICS Coordinating Council, has responsibility for planning the VICS advanced traveller information system. In Europe, the ITS Advisory Group (See ITS Advisory Group), performs this role in relation to the ITS Action Plan and Directive.

Operating Agreements

Inter-agency and inter-company cooperation requirements may need to be formalised. Public/public, public/private, and private/private collaboration agreements and contracts are often needed. These agreements can range from informal agreements to cooperate on day-to-day operational tasks - to more ambitious and formal contracts and Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) which involve sharing of common systems. Midway between these two are the agreements on data exchange - specifying the agreed data formats and minimum data quality requirements (such as accuracy, timeliness, and extent of data consolidation or editing).

The contractual relationships and information flows involved in delivering ITS-based information services can be quite complex. For example, a private sector service provider may need to secure contracts at five levels:

• with the public data provider
• with the transport network manager and service operators (where these are different)
• with another private data supplier (if one is present)
• with the telecommunications operator who will transmit the data and information to users
• with the end user or an intermediary who supplies information to the user (such as a motoring organisation)

Much of the groundwork will have been completed at the ITS Framework Plan stage. If the ITS architecture analysis has been planned effectively, the requirements for exchange and transmission of data, information, and other electronic transactions between agencies can be specified in fairly precise terms. This practice is recommended to ensure that the operational requirements of all the parties will be satisfied. The main steps are as follows:

• Identify the strategic links and specify the nature of the cooperation needed to deliver the required ITS service
• Identify any institutional gaps and develop options for bridging them
• Trace the data exchange, information flows, and operational links that will be required
• Narrow down the specification of the inter-organisational interfaces that will be needed
• Develop an operational agreement or Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) amongst the key players

It is likely that no two stakeholders will have precisely the same set of requirements - since each has individual needs and resources. If it is appropriate - the detailed requirements and responsibilities can be formalised in contracts or formal agreements - so that the receiving party can rely on a minimum performance specification from the provider, and there is a means of redress if this minimum is not achieved.

Communications Plan

A good communication and public information strategy is very important - and needs to be kept up to date during project management. Neglecting the communication strategy and not implementing it in a timely way, can lead to the failure of projects - whilst paying proper attention to the communication strategy and its implementation can foster their success. In the 1990s a pioneer project in electronic payment, the Trondheim Toll ring, gained public support, partly because of the positive publicity it received. Similarly the original California Smart Corridor is another example of a successful project supported by an effective communication strategy. The outcomes might have been different - because of the number and the level of bodies involved - but all parties cooperated around a common mission.

Where possible, a Programme Manager should be appointed to bring communication, attention to detail, and energy - to overcome institutional problems. The Programme Manager can provide drive and co-ordination from project start through to deployment.

Quantifying the Costs

During the planning of ITS deployments, the costs to be considered are capital costs, equipment unit costs, whole system costs – and lifetime costs which include maintenance costs, operations costs and the cost of periodic upgrade, refurbishment and replacement. Estimates must be made in the local context to support local project decisions.

Cost data for ITS installation and operations are often difficult to assess. For example, there can be substantial cost reduction through effective integration of ITS components – so care needs to be taken when using any unit cost data. It would be a mistake to add up the unit costs without considering possible cost savings that could be provided by integration and/or good system design. Some products, particularly electronic products, have widely varying prices across the world. Economies of scale can mean that significant discounts can be obtained in large scale procurement projects – and through group purchasing.

Several other factors can have a major influence:

• the location – site access and terrain may be difficult or easy
• the cost of civil engineering work – will be a factor in many ITS installations
• communications links – may already be in place or they might be a special requirement
• the availability of suitable software and hardware and the installation skills to commission the new systems – may vary considerably
• what investment in ITS technology already exists – adding new features into an existing traffic control system may be cheaper than installing an entire new system
• equipment procurement – for example, the purchase of 500 CCTV cameras will have a lower unit cost than five cameras

Careful monitoring of lifetime costs is needed to build up information on the real costs of ITS maintenance and operations. These will give those planning or implementing ITS an indication of the aggregate cost of a specific ITS deployment.

Operating and Maintenance Costs

Accurate operating and maintenance costs are notoriously difficult to obtain because they have to be disentangled from the general running costs of an organisation. Maintenance costs can be quite high with ITS, in comparison with, for example, roads and bridges. The equipment may be sensitive and is often exposed. The costs of refurbishment and replacement (including an allowance for obsolescence and upgrade) should be forecast and planned in the initial budget.

Installation Costs

Installation costs will vary between regions, depending both on the terrain and the availability of skills to work on and manage the project.

Software development

The time and effort involved in software development, testing and installation can be substantial and costs can be difficult to predict. There is an advantage in using well-established products. Similarly the task of developing databases and data dictionaries for ITS is very labour intensive. A pre-existing data dictionary and database will save on development costs – but only if data quality is adequate for the purpose. This means that data has to be accurate, up-to-date and coded in sufficient detail. Repairing a database that is populated with obsolete, inaccurate and unreliable data can be more expensive than starting afresh.

Further Information

Comprehensive unit cost data for planning purposes are described in the USDOT database of ITS costs and benefits. The unit cost is broken down into capital and operations and maintenance (O&M) components. See http://www.benefitcost.its.dot.gov

Users of the USDOT database should be aware that cost figures quoted in a rapidly developing field such as ITS can quickly become out of date – figures for each ITS product and service should be used with caution. In particular, the costs can be very different for different regions and countries.

Valuing the Benefits

Many of the benefits of transport investment are initially measured in terms of improvements in journey times, in reliability, in reductions in emissions, and other physical quantities. The process of economic appraisal requires these physical changes to be expressed as monetary values in order to weigh benefits against the costs.

Some of the benefits of ITS – such as savings in vehicle operating costs through better management of traffic – are expressed in monetary terms. Others – such as travel time savings – are initially expressed in terms of the number of hours saved per typical day, compared to the “do-nothing” reference case. Methods have been developed to convert time saving, reliability and accident benefits into monetary terms – so that a single metric can be used to compare the majority of the impacts of the scheme. (See Appraisal of ITS road schemes in UK using the INCA traffic model)

Time Savings

Reliability

Road Accidents

Local pollution

Noise

Carbon

Journey Ambiance

Further Information

Examples of current values and values used for changes in reliability are contained in the annex to an international comparisons paper prepared by the UK Department for Transport. See https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/international-comparisons-of-transport-appraisal-practice

Weighing the Costs and Benefits

In order to help decision-makers weigh up the positive and negative impacts of an ITS proposal, many of the impacts are expressed in monetary terms. The monetary evidence is captured from market research based surveys or from the behaviour of transport users – for example by valuing time savings based on people’s preferences when faced with the choice of saving time by using a faster tolled route.

For specific projects, modelling and simulation techniques may be useful in estimating likely benefits. A transport model will often be used to provide an initial estimate of the majority of the benefits of an ITS application. Outputs from the model are typically expressed in terms of:

• savings in time
• savings in fuel consumption
• reductions in the variance of journey times
• fewer and less damaging accidents
• other measures of road user satisfaction

Most transport models also provide estimates of changes in carbon emissions – because of the relationship between traffic speed, fuel consumption and vehicle emissions that forms part of all formal transport models. (See Traffic Models)

Cost Savings

Travel time savings

Discounting future costs and benefits

Benefit-cost ratios

Further information

The context is always a key determinant of both costs and benefits. Specific benefits and costs can vary greatly from one country to another, depending on economic, cultural and social factors as well as transport priorities.

US Guidance

The US Federal Highway Administration has developed the ITS Deployment Analysis System (IDAS) that can be used in planning for (ITS) deployments. State, regional, and local planners can use IDAS to estimate the benefits and costs of ITS investments – which are either alternatives to – or enhancements of – traditional highway and transit infrastructure (http://idas.camsys.com/).

The US Joint Program Office for ITS has developed a useful reference for current costs and benefits which gives detailed unit costs and benefits – largely for specific ITS in the USA – as well as case studies of whole system applications:

• cost database: http://www.itscosts.its.dot.gov
• benefits database: http://www.itsbenefits.its.dot.gov/

These data are useful as a guide, but cannot be adopted without first checking that they are relevant to local conditions and circumstances. Similarly the benefits data may not transfer to a different context.

The USDOT website also offers lessons learned – including estimates of the lifespan of each type of system. This has important cost implications. If something needs to be replaced every five years, then the costs associated with that must be considered against the benefits gained. Technological advances may mean rapid obsolescence of ITS hardware and software, which will require more frequent replacement and higher costs. See http://www.itskrs.its.dot.gov/

European Guidance

A source of information on values that have been used in transport appraisal in the European Union is the HEATCO study. It reviewed the different approaches used in Member States with the objective of developing guidelines for the harmonisation of these methods for use when appraising cross-border schemes. See: http://heatco.ier.uni-stuttgart.de

UK Guidance

A more recent review of appraisal methods used in a selection of countries which have been active in researching these techniques, is published on the UK government’s Department for Transport’s website at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/international-comparisons-of-transport-appraisal-practice

Appraisal Methodology

Many countries and other institutions have published guidance on transport appraisal. All follow similar principles and the main variations due to differences in the economic circumstances of countries – impacting on values assigned on criteria such as travel time savings, safety benefits and improvements in reliability.

Appraisal starts from the identification of a problem that requires an intervention. Problems on the highway network are usually well understood by highway engineers who interpret the information they collect about the performance of the network. This information includes data on speeds on each link in the network – and data on the variations in speeds across the day and over longer periods, as an indicator of levels of congestion and of reliability. Accident data provides a further information on the safety of the network. Stakeholders will also have views about the performance of the network. Evidence of the poor performance of the network supports the case for making a change.

Appraisal helps to provide policy makers with the information they need for different types of decision. In many cases the choice is about incremental investment in existing ITS applications – such as upgrading or extending a network of intelligent traffic signals. Appraisal can also inform policy makers about new options which depend on ITS – such as the implementation of a managed motorway scheme as an alternative to new construction. New policies – such as options for managing traffic through pricing or for funding inter-urban roads by tolling – also rely on appraisal to help decision-makers understand the likely effects of introducing the policies.

Appraisal methodology involves a number of factors:

Option selection

Forecasting Road Traffic Growth

Time Horizons and Discounting

Metrics and the decision-making process

Unquantifiable costs and benefits

Presentation of the Options

Traffic Models

Road traffic models provide a representation of the highway network in terms of the capacity it provides and the volume of traffic using it. Road networks have finite capacity and the function of the traffic (or transport) model is to show how the outputs of the network – in terms of traffic speeds and in some cases the variance of journey times around their mean – are changed when the volume of traffic changes:

• traffic models are used to estimate the benefits, in terms of increases in speeds and reliability – of changes in highway capacity
• traffic models can also be used to estimate the impact of policies to reduce demand through pricing or other restrictions

By integrating the supply of road capacity with demand from road users, a model can show the relationship between costs (in terms of travel times and other elements of generalised cost) and traffic demand. It also shows the point at which equilibrium is reached (a balance between traffic demand and available capacity).

The model forecasts the responses made by road users in response to better traffic management or investment in road capacity improvements:

• it is assumed that drivers will choose their route in order to minimise the generalised costs of travel (or in some models their travel time)
• on congested networks, an increase in capacity will generally result in a reduction in road user travel costs
• lower costs will result in additional traffic being attracted to the improved route or network – so that some of the initial cost advantage is eroded

In order to reach a position in which road users are assigned to the routes that provide them with the lowest generalised cost option – the traffic model has to be run several times to reach equilibrium.

There are important differences between road traffic models in the way in which they represent capacity:

• models used for inter-urban schemes generally represent capacity in the form of a speed flow relationship – which shows, by the number of carriageways, the relationship between the number of vehicles in a typical hour (or day) and the average speed of that traffic. As traffic volumes increase beyond the free flow uncongested level – speeds fall, gradually at first and then more rapidly until stop-start conditions prevail
• in urban areas “at grade” (same level) junctions provide the main constraint on traffic flows. Models have been developed which take into account the capacity of the major junctions and the likelihood of the queue at one junction clearing before more traffic builds up behind. Drivers in dense urban networks face a greater choice of routes than is usually the case on the inter-urban network and so – despite the need to cover a smalller geographical area – the network detail in an urban model is often greater

Many highway authorities have access to traffic models set-up to cover the networks from which they are responsible (See Appraisal of ITS road schemes in UK using the INCA traffic model).

Choice of traffic model

Assessing the Impact of ITS

Further Information

Many textbooks on transport modelling have been published. A general introduction to transport models and their use is provided as part of the UK Department for Transport’s WebTAG transport appraisal guidance at http://www.dft.gov.uk/webtag/documents/expert/unit3.1.php.

The UK Department for Transport has also developed a method of estimating changes in the standard deviation of travel times on the urban road network, where there are many more alternative routes, from changes in journey time and distance.

See: TAG Unit A1-3 section 6.3 available for download at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/370878/WebTAG_A1.3_User_and_provider_impacts_May_2014.pdf

The Evaluation Cycle

The evaluation cycle uses the principles and values that underpin the development of any community – those of Learning, Evaluation and Planning (LEAP), which are often summarised as: analyse – plan – do – review. The evaluation process is cyclical – positive results can be built on, and less positive results can be analysed to determine what went wrong, what can be done to remedy the situation – and what can be done to improve the results of similar applications in the future. This cycle is illustrated below and shows that evaluation is a key part of the process of implementing ITS. It is not an optional ‘extra’. The diagram shows how monitoring and evaluation can provide both short-term feedback to improve current operations and also results that will feed into the ITS development and investment strategy.

The ITS evaluation cycle

After deployment, post-implementation monitoring and evaluation of an ITS scheme is used to assess whether the system – as installed and operated – is meeting project objectives, delivering the expected performance and matching user requirements (which themselves may change over time). ‘User needs’ are not necessarily those of the driver of a vehicle. They might be the needs of the road authority or network operator to improve system performance and deliver better safety or traffic flow, the needs of the environment, the needs of the wider integrated transport network – or the needs of the communities affected by other people’s travel.

The results of post-implementation analysis should be fed into the evaluation cycle, improving operations and monitoring – and influencing ITS strategies for the future. The feedback provided by the evaluation informs future investments and their design. If the ITS is not performing as expected, feedback can help in understanding how to adjust or adapt the scheme.

A carefully constructed evaluation plan is key to this cyclical process and is an essential part of any programme for developing ITS. (See Evaluation Plan)

Significance

Evaluation is significant for any ITS deployment, but especially for a scheme which is innovative or deployed into a new situation. It shows the contribution that the scheme can make to meeting transport policy and everyday operational objectives, and can be used to improve and fine tune ITS operations –providing feedback for subsequent rounds of deployment. Without an adequate evaluation, organisations cannot be certain that they have obtained the properly functioning scheme for which they have paid. Evaluation results can also be used to inform future ITS policy and strategy. (See Improving Performance)

Pre-implementation analysis

Another use of feedback from ITS evaluation is to improve the process of appraisal prior to deployment of a future scheme. (See Project Appraisal) The results of real life evaluation impacts – which include the costs of building, maintaining and operating ITS schemes and the benefits achieved – can be used in future investment decisions, to make sure that systems selected meet specific user requirements.

Role of Road Network operators

Road network operators have an important role throughout the evaluation cycle. They are involved in developing the operating strategies for their networks, identifying ITS project objectives, pre-implementation analysis to inform investment decisions, scheme selection and analysis of user requirements. As scheme ‘owners’ they gather monitoring data during implementations of ITS. Increasingly, ITS includes features that provide the basis for monitoring patterns of traffic demand and the behaviour of road users. (See Network Monitoring) Road network monitoring data is used by operators for pre-implementation analysis and for monitoring traffic, safety, incidents and other performance criteria on the network – after an ITS implementation has been deployed. It provides vital input to the evaluation. Road network operators will often commission independent evaluation and use the results to feed back into future strategies and investment decisions. (See Operational Activities)

Monitoring Performance

Monitoring in conjunction with evaluation is used to learn lessons and improve future performance. It addresses issues such as: does the ITS meet the objectives and are the outcomes as intended? It can identify the range of benefits achieved which can then be quantified with data from internal monitoring. Careful monitoring of costs helps identify the operational and maintenance costs for a specific service – which can be separated from wider organisational costs.

The performance of the relevant elements of the transport system should be monitored to provide the benchmark against which the added value of the ITS scheme is measured. Performance monitoring can be used to improve operation of the ITS, provide data on the impacts and benefits and demonstrate whether the anticipated benefits and impacts have been realised.

The focus of the monitoring activity is likely to vary with the scale and maturity of ITS deployment. For example, for an area where ITS is relatively new and the number of applications is limited – such as cooperative driving based on Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communications – monitoring is likely to focus in depth on the performance of individual applications. Where deployment is extensive – such as electronic payment or non-stop tolling – the main focus is likely to be on monitoring the overall presence and performance of ITS in the transport system at a strategic level – in addition to the individual applications. These different approaches have different evaluation requirements.

For example, the US Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has taken a strategic view of progress with ITS deployment through the use of “a few good measures” that are monitored each year. This is illustrated by its “Intelligent Transportation Systems Benefits": 1999 Update”.

The performance criteria defined in the evaluation plan (See Evaluation Plan) should be monitored both before and after implementation. Depending on the ITS implementation, it may be necessary to monitor ‘control’ sites as well as the implementation site.

Performance monitoring covers the services delivered as well as the technologies used. It involves:

• measuring technical performance against the technical and functional specification to assess whether the supplier has delivered the ITS specified in the contract
• optimising operation of the system
• providing the data to measure the effectiveness of the ITS in achieving the objectives established by the organisations and operators before implementation (an evaluation input)
• providing the data to identify positive and negative impacts, including aspects that were not part of the scope of the scheme – which is also used as an evaluation input

Indicators should be selected which are easy to understand and measure, and are clearly linked to the performance requirements and objectives of the scheme. Where possible they should be common indicators, which can be used across a variety of schemes. (See Indicators)

Where possible, the ITS scheme should be designed so that it automatically provides data for performance monitoring. For example:

• road network operators have network monitoring technologies and applications which support long term monitoring of the network’s performance. ITS can help the network operator to assess how well the network serves the road user. For example, aggregations of individual journey times for road sections are an indication of levels of congestion (See Network Monitoring and Operational Activities)
• fleet operators benefit from in-vehicle and roadside systems to improve operational performance. For example, the automatic vehicle location data in a real time bus information system in Izmir in Turkey is used for fuel monitoring (See World Bank Case Study: Izmir, Turkey)

Improving Performance

Monitoring and evaluation are key elements for a learning organisation. An important part of the evaluation cycle is to feedback results from evaluation to inform ITS strategy, ITS operations and the requirement for monitoring. (See Performance Measures)

Strategy

At a strategic level, the results of monitoring and evaluation can be used to:

• justify national and local investment in ITS
• demonstrate the financial, socio-economic and environmental benefits of ITS
• demonstrate progress towards policy goals and inform future strategies
• increase understanding of the impacts of ITS services – and their contribution to future strategies

Operations and Monitoring

Evaluation results are also used as feedback to improve operations and monitoring – for example to optimise performance of the ITS during day-to-day operations. The ITS will often need to be adjusted on the basis of evaluation results in the early stages of operation. These adjustments should increase acceptance of the ITS by travellers operators and other users. Even if evaluation results show the system to be working well, there may be scope to optimise it further. Any adjustments made in the early stages, after implementation, will need to be recorded carefully so that they can be taken into account in the evaluation. The full scale evaluation should be carried out after adjustments have been made and the system has ‘settled down’ – and its effects have stabilised.

Meeting Requirements

Monitoring data can be used to assess the extent to which the ITS meets operational requirements, for example, by:

• measuring performance and service delivery
• defining payment milestones in contracts
• meeting targets for future performance improvements

Performance measures can be used to define payments in contracts – to provide incentives for meeting performance targets and to provide the basis for penalty charges if targets are not met. Where payments for completed work depend on meeting performance targets, specialist advice on risk management and performance measurement is suggested.

Performance measures can be also used to look towards the future. They can, for instance, define targets for improved performance as part of a process of continuous improvement. More widely, they can be used to provide recommendations for future operations.

Funding programmes may have put in place established processes for monitoring and reporting performance to obtain approval for payment. For example the Asian Development Bank has ‘Guidelines for Preparing Performance Evaluation Reports for Public Sector Operations’.

Organisational capabilities

Monitoring and evaluation data can be used to assess operational effectiveness – identifying whether the ITS is readily incorporated into day-to-day operations and whether there are additional training needs in an organisation. This is one of the aspects addressed in a World Bank Case Study on monitoring and evaluating ITS for automatic bus location, bus scheduling and real time information.See World Bank Case Study Mysore, India

The US DOT’s ePrimer discusses organisational capabilities and refers to work by AASHTO in the US that provides guidance on how to evaluate capabilities and prepare an action plan. This includes capabilities for performance measurement.(See ePrimer Module 12)

Appraisal Prior to ITS Investment

Evaluation results also improve the quality of appraisals carried out before investment decisions are taken (See Project Appraisal) – by providing feedback on the performance of ITS options – such as, what did they achieve, what impacts did they have on user demand and the use of other modes. Useful tools are databases and websites which bring together evaluation results from a range of applications in different areas and contexts. This emphasises the value of reporting results and making them widely available.

Practical Aspects

There are practical aspects which should be considered before starting an evaluation. In addition to the overall budget for implementing the ITS scheme, a budget should be allocated to evaluation – which will involve work before and after implementation. In some cases this will be considered as part of the implementation. In other cases the evaluation budget will be treated separately. In either case, the evaluation budget represents an investment in planning for future projects. It is important to consider:

• what budget will be needed for the evaluation?
• where will the funds come from and when can they be made available?
• who requires the evaluation and why?
• what effect will any changes in the timing of the deployment programme have on the resources and budget needed for evaluation?

Focus of the evaluation

The evaluation should focus on measuring the key aspect that the scheme is planning to change – not to pick up some general statistics or ‘feel good’ measures that may bear no relation to the effect of the ITS. For example, an evaluation of a real-time journey time information service which just asks users whether the ITS has had an impact on the quality of their journeys will only provide an indication of user satisfaction. Unless traffic flows and journey times are measured on the main route and alternative routes when incidents occur – the evaluation will not be able to determine the extent to which the ITS reduces the impact of incidents by spreading out traffic onto alternative routes. Nor will it be able to identify any detrimental effects to other roads, caused by diverted traffic.

Where possible, the ITS should be programmed to provide data which can be used to monitor its impacts. For example, real-time information at bus stops provides information on bus headways. Storing this data gives a record of intervals between bus services, which, for passengers, is a key aspect of reliability. In the case study on demand responsive transport in Prince William County USA, the service data was used to monitor performance automatically, reducing the cost of data collection and analysis. (See ITS for Demand Responsive Transport Operation, Prince William County USA)

Stakeholder requirements

Specific stakeholder groups may have particular requirements from a scheme – which influences the methods of evaluation, the budget, timing and scale of evaluation. It is important to understand these requirements and constraints at an early stage in planning the evaluation to determine to what extent they are met. The evaluation should be designed so that it is possible to identify how the benefits and costs of the ITS are distributed between the different stakeholders – who gains and who loses.

For example, as well as evaluating the impacts of ITS on the travelling public (the ‘end’ users), evaluation should consider the requirements of the operators and other staff of the organisations involved in delivering the ITS. These impacts can be evaluated by interviewing staff – and in some cases by using data on work patterns and completed tasks.

Who should do the evaluation?

Evaluation is specialist work. Some road network operators, road authorities and other organisations tasked with implementing ITS have limited capabilities within their organisation for monitoring and evaluation of ITS. However evaluation is not always complicated, and does not always have to be carried out by specialists. If there is a need to collect data, this can be done in-house, provided that it is done credibly using an objective approach and sound methods.

For most evaluations it is a good idea to use specialists the first time one is undertaken – so in-house staff can learn how it should be done. Formal training should also be given to enhance the learning experience. It is also worth employing specialists from time to time afterwards so that up-to-date methods can be introduced to in-house staff. In some circumstances it will be important that the evaluation is carried out by an independent organisation – to ensure that the results are credible (for example, in reporting back to funding agencies).

Affordability

Affordability is often an issue. Whichever evaluation method is used, there may be insufficient budget to answer all questions related to the ITS. It then becomes necessary to decide which aspects of the evaluation have the highest priority. A Critical Factors Analysis can be useful at this stage. It looks at the different goals that a scheme is expected to address – and the key indicators needed to measure the extent to which they have been achieved. This is illustrated in the figure below.

Template for Critical Factors Analysis

Managing evaluation

Evaluation management includes planning and monitoring the work of evaluation to ensure its technical quality, cost-effectiveness and timeliness. Key elements in managing a successful evaluation are:

• forming an evaluation team which is independent (where possible) of the ITS implementation, with a project manager (possibly also a project director), clear objectives and appropriate resources
• reaching agreement with stakeholders and an understanding of what they need from the evaluation process
• developing an Evaluation Management Plan covering resources, timing, coordination with other activities, data management – reviewing and updating it at key points in the project
• establishing a risk register to identify any risks to delivering the evaluation as planned – with measures to minimise or mitigate each risk. This should be reviewed and updated when appropriate
• preparing interim monitoring reports to inform stakeholders of progress and interim results
• defining the format and content of evaluation reports in consultation with stakeholders

Data protection and privacy

Information is a key element of ITS. ITS applications collect, combine, store and communicate data about the transport network, its users – and the stakeholders involved in providing services. In addition to operational data, monitoring and evaluation also requires data collection on individuals and organisations, their views and responses to the ITS. This can raise concerns about privacy. (See Legal and Regulatory Issues)

Those involved in planning, conducting and reporting on evaluation and monitoring activities need to ensure that data protection and privacy issues are considered and addressed – and that any requirements of data protection legislation are met. The US DOT’s ePrimer discusses data protection for ITS at some length and sets out strategies for mitigating privacy issues – which apply to monitoring and evaluation as well as operational data:

• prepare formal data sharing agreements if data is to be shared between organisations
• create a formal policy on data including procedures for disclosure
• collect only personal information that is needed
• use the least sensitive personal information necessary
• set clear and reasonable limits on the time period that data is retained
• if information is required which enables individuals to be identified, this needs to be explained to those taking part in the evaluation. They need to be aware of what is being collected and how it is being used – and individuals should be asked for their consent to their data being used in this way (See ePrimer module 12 )

Specific Issues for Developing Economies

Funding Requirements

External Funding agencies are likely to have specific requirements which must be met by evaluation work, in addition to following best practice in designing and carrying out evaluations. These might relate, for instance to:

• the scale of evaluation – which may be determined by the scale of the deployment (specifying the proportion of the total funding to be devoted to evaluation)
• independence of the evaluation team from the deployment
• governance arrangements for overseeing the evaluation
• requirements for involvement of local representatives within the evaluation team
• requirements for periodic and end-of-project reporting including the format, structure and content of reports
• financial accountability

Learning from other Schemes

Evaluation results from other schemes are helpful when planning an evaluation. They may:

• help identify the likely impacts to be measured – and the indicators to be used
• provide indications of the scale of change expected – and the amount of data that needs to be collected to obtain statistically robust measures of the impacts

Care needs to be taken when considering the methods used and results obtained from elsewhere. The number of case studies of ITS evaluations in developing economies is limited and the temptation will be to look at results from developed economies which are more numerous and readily available – but they may not be appropriate to the context. User reactions and benefit valuation contexts can differ widely between different countries and regions with different social and economic profiles. The key issue to be addressed is whether the planned scheme is similar to the case studies in terms of its context, objectives and user base?

The Evaluation Plan

ITS evaluation must be well thought through and properly targeted if it is going to be useful. The methodology should take into account: the ITS scheme objectives, user needs and stakeholder expectations. It should make use of quantified and qualitative measures that match the needs of decision-makers.

At an ‘overview’ level, the evaluation should identify both the impacts that were planned and the unintended impacts – establishing qualitatively the nature of the changes which have occurred and their possible causes. At a more detailed level, the evaluation should quantify the changes after the scheme is implemented, assess the scale of those changes and the level of confidence in them – and identify the mechanisms leading to significant changes. (See Guidelines and Techniques)

Why Plan?

A systematic approach is needed for the monitoring stage of the evaluation cycle to ensure that different types of impacts (benefits, disbenefits and costs) are identified and measured. Developing an “Evaluation Plan” is key to this. It is a technical document – separate to an “Evaluation Management Plan” which covers resources, timing, coordination with other activities, and data management. (See Evaluation Methods)

When?

The evaluation plan should be drafted and agreed before the scheme is implemented, so that the data needed to measure the situation prior to the deployment can be defined and collected in advance. The time frame available for collecting ‘before’ data may also influence the timing of some of the ‘after’ data collection needed for comparative purposes.

What is included in an evaluation plan?

Consider the ‘Checklist’ of issues that need to be addressed when preparing an evaluation plan. (See Evaluation Methods) Useful input may come from the evaluation plans used for other studies – or other guidelines – in determining all the elements that need to be addressed.

STRUCTURE OF AN EVALUATION PLAN

An evaluation plan needs to be well specified:

Objectives of the Evaluation

Base Case

Study Area

Timing

Expected Impacts

Indicators and Data Sources

Evaluation Methods

Experimental Design

Data to be Gathered

Confounding Effects

Performance Criteria

Reporting the Results

Principles

The following key principles are useful to follow in reporting the results of monitoring and evaluation.

Audience

Consider the audience for the results. Separate reports may be useful for different stakeholders. Policy makers may require an overview of results and a summary of the implications. Practitioners may benefit from a more detailed technical report. It may be appropriate to develop an information leaflet, web page or news article to summarise some of the main impacts of the ITS for the general public.

Transparency

Make sure that the results are reported in a transparent way, easy to understand and easy to compare with other studies. Include details of the statistical confidence in quantitative results – where this is appropriate. Provide background supporting information about the context of the scheme (perhaps include references to other sources for further background information) to help users transfer the results to other contexts.

Balance

Include both positive and negative impacts to provide a balanced report. Ensure that both qualitative and quantitative impacts are reported – and avoid giving the impression that more value is placed on indicators than can be readily be quantified. For example, some impacts can be converted into monetary values and combined with others to provide an overall ratio of costs to benefits. This will not be possible for all indicators – but those that cannot be measured in this way should also be reported. Frameworks such as ‘planning balance sheet’ and ‘multi-criteria analysis’ can be used to summarise results.

Dissemination

Make the results widely available so that decision makers and practitioners elsewhere can learn from them. This will help to build a knowledge base for evaluating ITS and help to reduce the time and effort involved in planning, implementing and evaluating other schemes.

Results can be published through journals, presentations at conferences, webinars, or by submitting reports to web sites that publish case study. Potential platforms include the:

• journal ‘ITS International’ – which includes a regular feature on evaluation results from around the world
• US DOT database of benefits costs and lessons learned, synthesises reports from ITS implementations in the US and elsewhere
• European ELTIS database – provides case studies of results from urban transport schemes
• European Transport Information and Research Portal (TRIP) - synthesises results from research projects across Europe

Content

The following topics are useful to cover in any technical report of evaluation results (which may also include further information as appendices:

• overview or Executive Summary
• description of the problem
• description of the ITS
• description of the evaluation
• results: technical performance, user acceptance, impact assessment, financial assessment
• comparisons with experiences of similar ITS – if possible in similar contexts
• transferability of results: local issues and factors which may affect whether similar results can be achieved in other schemes

Sources of guidance on evaluation planning and reporting.

There are several sources of guidance on writing evaluation plans and reporting results:

• the UK Department for Transport’s ITS Toolkit includes advice on planning evaluation and reporting results in the section on ‘Feeding back results’
• the EasyWay Handbook on Evaluation Best Practice includes guidance on planning evaluation with an evaluation checklist, relevant impacts and indicators for different ITS services, recommended indicators and a structure for reporting results. See EU ITS Portal
• the EasyWay Project Evaluation Guidelines for ITS on European road networks include guidance on planning and conducting monitoring and evaluation, with details of how the recommended process has been applied in a specific project – and a diagram summarising the approach to the evaluation. See EU ITS Portal
• in Finland, the guidelines for the evaluation of ITS projects provide guidance on different types of indicator and evaluation methods. It includes four summary evaluation reports and describes the stages involved in applying the approach
• in the Netherlands, the guidelines for ITS evaluation include an outline of the contents of an evaluation plan
• a collection of papers from the Victoria Transport Policy Institute in Canada provides examples and guidance on evaluation in transport (not specifically ITS)
• the World Bank’s guidance on evaluation includes planning the evaluation, developing performance indicators and reporting results. It includes evaluation questions on institutional issues such as governance, partnerships and financing

PerfoRmance Indicators

Indicators for measuring the success of an ITS scheme are directly linked to the objectives that it is aiming to achieve. ITS, like any other investment, should contribute towards solving a problem or delivering a vision. The measure of success is how far the problem is solved or the vision delivered within the available budget. It is important to define indicators which can be used to measure whether the ITS scheme has met its objectives.

Template for Critical Factors Analysis

The template above for Critical Factors Analysis shows how measures (or indicators) are linked to goals. The same approach can be used for establishing indicators to evaluate the extent to which objectives are met. It provides a systematic way of expressing the outcomes being sought and the visible results or measures expected – if the ITS has the desired effect. These outcomes will not necessarily be entirely within the public sector, as the example above – of efficiency measures, shows. An evaluation may include indicators measuring the extent to which private sector objectives are met, as well as the extent to which public sector objectives are met.

This approach can be applied to the full range of objectives for ITS. In addition to those illustrated above, safety improvements might include benefits – such as, perceptions of personal safety. Environmental benefits will often include noise reduction and might include community benefits – such as a more pleasant neighbourhood. Efficiency benefits can go beyond the supply-side measure of traffic flow or throughput – to efficiency gains for industry from access to information, knowledge and control over fleet movements. In each of these cases, it is possible to define a ‘goal area’ or ‘outcome’ and to agree the ‘measures’ by which progress can be monitored.

At the more detailed evaluation planning stage, this sort of table can also be used to summarise the sources of data which will be used to provide evidence on the indictors. (See Monitoring)

Common indicators

Where possible, indicators should be based on commonly used measures, so that evaluation results can be compared between schemes. For example network performance may be measured using indicators such as change in journey times at peak hours and change in variability of travel time. If there are agreed definitions of these at a national level – or within a road authority – it will be easy to compare the outcomes of different schemes aimed at improving network performance.

Types of indicator

Indicators must be defined in quantifiable terms. In evaluating ITS, many of the indicators used are quantified measures. For example, an indicator for the impact on safety is the number of road accident fatalities – which can be measured from accident records. Another important indicator may be the impact on users’ perceptions of safety. This is a qualitative measure but it can be quantified in various ways. Examples include: asking users to compare safety before and after using a 5-point/7-point rating system – and measuring the proportion of users who say they think a system is safe, or measuring the proportion who say they think safety has improved.

Advice to Practitioners

It is helpful to review other evaluation projects when deciding on the indicators to be used. They may help identify common indicators that have been used nationally or even internationally in comparing scheme results. They will also help inform which indicators are most suitable for measuring performance against different types of objective – and potential sources of data for each indicator.

A critique of an evaluation of transport performance in Canada provides an example of some of the pitfalls involved in defining and using indicators. Of the 23 indicators used, a few were found to be appropriate and widely used, some were found to be ambiguous and biased – and others were found to be illogical. The ways in which comparisons were made between areas was considered inappropriate due to geographic, demographic and economic differences.

Evaluation guidelines are also a useful source of indicators:

EasyWay Project Evaluation Guidelines

CONDUITS – Key performance indicators for traffic management and ITS

Transport Analysis Guidance

US DOT ITS Knowledge Resources

United Kingdom ITS Toolkit

Guidelines and Techniques

Evaluation Methods at different stages

During the lifecycle of any ITS deployment or a field trial – the most appropriate evaluation method will vary:

• checklists – for concept development and prototypes
• simulation and modelling – for prototypes
• laboratory or off-road tests – for prototypes and pilot tests
• field trials – for pilot tests and large scale demonstrations
• impact monitoring – for large scale demonstrations and full scale deployments

Checklists

The Code of Practice for the Design and Evaluation of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems – developed for evaluating prototype is an example of a checklist for concept development and prototypes. See Advanced Driver Assistance Systems

Simulation and Modelling

Simulation and modelling are relevant to project appraisal. (See Project Appraisal)

Field Trials

The FESTA handbook provides information on planning and organising Field Operational Tests (or trials) of driver assistance systems. Many of the principles apply equally to other ITS.

Evaluation Guidelines

National Guidance

Guidelines on evaluation methods for ITS have been produced in several countries and are available in English:

• USA – the ITS Joint Program Office
• United Kingdom – Department for Transport’s ITS Toolkit
• Netherlands – Evaluation of ITS in the Netherlands
• Finland – Guidelines for the Evaluation of ITS Projects  
• European inter-urban roads – EasyWay Handbook on Evaluation Best Practice See EU ITS Portal 
• European pilots and demonstration projects in transport – the MAESTRO guidelines.

Guidance from Funding Agencies

The World Bank provides guidance on monitoring and evaluation methods with information identifying the usefulness of each technique, advantages and disadvantages, costs, skills and time required – and sources of further information. See World Bank Report on Monitoring and Evaluation 

The World Bank also provides a guidance resource on how to design influential evaluations. See Influential Evaluations

Evaluation techniques

Many techniques are used in road network evaluation. Several are also suitable at the appraisal stage when planning ITS investments. See Project Appraisal There are a wide variety of approaches:

Gut Feeling / Common Sense

Qualitative Methods

Travel Surveys

Generalised Cost Modelling

Utility Models

Customer Satisfaction Surveys

Contingent Valuation / Stated Preference / Conjoint Analysis

ITS Internal Evaluation/ ITS Impact Evaluation

Data Regulation and Security

Most ITS implementations generate, use and store quantities of data which are enormous by the standards of even only ten years ago. Much of this data is highly personalised and very sensitive. Many countries recognise, in law, the of individual citizens not to be excessively surveyed, monitored, recognised, and recorded.

Legislation to regulate data is cast to cover a variety of scenarios. It applies to drivers and passengers just as it does in other areas of life – such as voters and bank customers. Those handling ITS data (traffic control centre operators, electronic payment back-office operations, information service providers, for instance) will be subject to the regulations in place in their countries. Data collected and processed in a control room for instance, must be kept secure from unauthorised access and misuse. The principles behind data regulation should apply easily across sectors. ITS practitioners should bear in mind that digital camera images (such as images captured for traffic or payment enforcement) are classified as data.

Data Control Room (Copy ITS United Kingdom)

ITS practitioners processing data should have access to simple and clear codes of practice, drawn up by their employing organisations on the basis of advice from those with suitable legal expertise. These codes should ensure that national legislation is followed but also add a layer of good practice relating specifically related to ITS. Training and monitoring of staff is essential to ensure that any code of practice is understood and adhered to. It should form part of the management culture of all ITS workplaces where data is processed or stored.

One reason why people distrust the collection of data by – by and for – ITS systems is the suspicion that the principles of personal data protection are overlooked or deliberately ignored. For example, if a request is made by the police or security agencies for access to personal data on journeys and locations, will the ITS data owner provide it? Are there requirements in place that govern how police and security requests are handled?

There have been examples where location data from an ITS source has been used as evidence in civil and criminal proceedings to prove that a defendant was present at a specific location and at a specific time. There are also cases where the defence has challenged the legality of the data capture, its accuracy and even its use. If the data is inaccurate, should have been destroyed or made anonymous under data regulation legislation, it may be ruled as inadmissible.

Data Security

The best way of keeping personal data secure is not to expose it to the risk of theft or misuse – by minimising and making it anonymous it wherever possible. Where sensitive data has to be kept, it is essential to ensure it is stored and handled in compliance with legal requirements and good practice.

There will almost certainly be national legislation affecting how personal data should be stored and kept safe. Complying with legislation alone though, is not likely to optimise data security. Expert advice should be sought from specialists or by retaining expert capability in-house. While external, malicious attacks from hackers aimed at financial gain or disruption are often seen as the most likely security risk, organisations should also be aware of the possibility of attacks from staff who may, for some reason, misuse or misappropriate data to which they legitimately have access at work. There are also potential risks from staff who are incompetent, unlucky, or badly supervised, and who can do as much damage as an external hacker without intending to.

Data security threats evolve and renew daily. The security regime in place must be designed to recognise this so that the defensive measures keep pace with threats.

Advice to Practitioners

Good practice in ITS data security can be summed up as:

• always work to minimise how much sensitive personal data is kept. If the data are not held, there is no possibility of misuse
• comply with all relevant national or regional legislation, irrespective of whether it was written for transport/ITS or other purposes
• use accredited data security experts – and check regularly that they are up to date with the latest developments in the field
• have a simple and clear code of practice for staff handling data – and ensure that a training regime is in place to refresh and update staff in principles and procedures
• ensure that staff are supervised by competent management which consider data security a priority
• carry out regular quality checks to make sure that procedures at all levels are functioning well, to minimise the risk of a data security breach
• ITS developers should explore technical solutions that eliminate or minimise the holding of personal data – for example, by making the data anonymous

Privacy

The growth in the amount of data used and created by ITS and the increasing depth and coverage of this data – often personalised and with reference to time and location – make privacy considerations increasingly important in ITS. The capabilities for collecting and storing personal data are very well developed. For example, when using public transport the use of an electronic ticket and the deployment of CCTV cameras at stations, stops and on vehicles gives access to data such as a person’s name, address, date of birth, gender, bank details, place of work and other places regularly visited. The data may be combined with the use of software that recognises faces, a way of walking or other types of movement such as running.

A driver of a private vehicle may have a similar level of detail recorded about themselves and their vehicle – such as driver licensing and insurance arrangements, the payment of vehicle taxes, fees and tolls , and monitoring of the vehicle for traffic management purposes, parking enforcement or tolling.

Definition of Privacy

There are a number of definitions of privacy from that offered by Google to Article 12 of the UN Declaration on Human Rights (1948):

“No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.”

Sensitivity to privacy varies greatly between countries and cultures and this is one area of ITS where local knowledge of, and understanding what is acceptable and what is necessary is necessary for each deployment. For example, in the UK the prevalence of closed-circuit television (CCTV) surveillance in towns and cities, buses and trains, means that the average Londoner appears in camera shot 300 times a day – the figure below provides an example. Some people find this unacceptable; others accept that being observed and even actively monitored is a consequence of travel in this day and age. One person’s privacy can be another person’s danger. CCTV monitoring of motorways (See Network Monitoring) may be regarded as a loss of privacy for drivers, but if the operator spots a “ghost driver” travelling along a motorway in the wrong direction, it can save lives.

Street scene in London showing CCTV camera above VMS for Olympic Games (copy ITS United Kingdom)

Camera technology provides the basis for many ITS application such as enforcement of traffic laws and electronic payment in tolling and ticketing. Vehicle licence plate recognition and facial recognition software depend on the capture of digital video images. Enforcement notices rely on camera images to identify the offending vehicle and – in some cases – the driver. A photograph of the whole front of the vehicle may remove any doubt about who was driving the vehicle at the time of the offence but in some countries this is considered an unacceptable intrusion.

One general principle is that privacy can be traded for benefits – such as correct fares or safety. The technology allows the traveller to be charged the amount to use public transport, and may increase personal safety or ensure that traffic information provided is relevant. If the intrusion into the individual’s privacy is seen as benign and fair, public concerns are also lessened. For example, in the event of a serious road accident, eCall (the European Union’s collision notification system) automatically initiates a 112 emergency call from an in-vehicle device to the nearest emergency centre with details of the vehicle’s precise location. (See Driver Support)

Another principle concerns the storage of information. Digital images and other personalised data (for example details of a journey or a transaction) may be stored and held in a computer’s cache memory for the benefit of the police, road authority or transport operator – but the individual may not benefit from this directly. Good practice requires that data is made anonymous or reduced (by discarding the data elements not needed for a specific purpose) and eventually deleted (by setting a sensible deadline in terms of the purpose of use, after which the data will be destroyed).

The practice of making data anonymous may to help to allay suspicions about potential misuse and concerns about data security, criminality and identity theft. Payment transactions that involve details of credit card accounts are especially vulnerable. For instance, when a person passes through a ticket-operated barrier to use public transport it is not necessary for the operator to know the name of the user or their credit card details – only that the ticket is valid. Once this has been recorded, all personal data relating to the ticket holder can be discarded – retaining only data that is essential information for transport management purposes, such as trip origin, destination, fare paid and timing.

Advice to Practitioners

As camera and other sensing technology become more sophisticated, privacy will increasingly be at risk. Undertaking a proper impact assessment of privacy issues for each camera deployment can mitigate the risk. Any formal or informal assessment of risks to privacy must take account of national laws, regulations or codes of practice and factor in variables such as what may be acceptable to data subjects, what is socially desirable (for example for law enforcement or road safety) or commercially attractive such as a product loyalty card. Proper consideration of privacy issues must be based on reaching a consensus on the acceptable balance between loss of privacy and the achievement of objectives – such as seamless journeys.

Open Data

During recent years, the concept of Open Data has been widely promoted in Europe and North America. The basic principle is that if the data has been collected at public expense, it should be made available to anyone to use. This policy has been adopted by governments in the interests of transparency and accountability and to stimulate innovation and the development of added-value services and products. In Europe, the EU is a strong supporter of Open Data as a principle, and similar trends can be seen elsewhere in the world. Open Data is a concept, which particularly applies (but not exclusively) to public sector information. The transport sector includes major datasets owned by the transport industry in the public and private sectors (datasets such as timetables and real-time running information). To deliver a comprehensive open data policy for transport, these bodies need to come together to support the agenda.

An open data policy raises many challenges – such as privacy and personal data, commercial confidentiality, data quality and accuracy, and – not least – the cost of making data available. Many public sector data owners across the world have developed workable solutions for dealing with these. This includes making anonymous or removing personal data and implementing policies on charging for re-use of data in line with local/national policy or practice.

Intelligent Transport Systems are a “data-rich” and reliant on data and information. ITS needs data to operate, it creates data as it operates, and retains data after operations are complete. It includes data about transport networks (such as roads) and data about transport movements on the network (traffic counts, bus timetables, passengers and freight).

There is strong public interest in transport information – which can be used to inform travel choices, to improve performance and to hold operators and Government to account. Many organisations or individuals, other than the original data owner, can see value in the data – to create services or undertake research – for both commercial and non-commercial purposes. For them, a “data warehouse” provide a wealth of information. An example is Transport for London’s , London Datastore website, which provides access to large data holdings about London – as the figure below, showing its homepage, illustrates. (See Case Study: Open Data UK)

London Datastore (Source – homepage of http://data.london.gov.uk/)

It is widely accepted that the data owner should not be expected to carry out a lot of work or incur a lot of expense to process the data to make it is more useful to those who wish to use it under Open Data arrangements. The data owner’s duty is usually limited to making the data available in its original state, when it was collected or used. The data owner may make its data holdings accessible through a dedicated website or by providing contact details for requests and may charge the data re-user for access to recover the cost of making data available.

Data owners often require those accessing the data to provide basic details of who they are and their intended purpose of use (to prevent inappropriate use). It has also become common for the original data owner to require data re-users to accept liability (See Liability) for any damage or loss sustained as a result of the service or product they create using the data. This may be achieved through a simple disclaimer tied to the accessing of the data. It is essential that no personal data is made available without being made anonymous.

Advice to Practitioners

The principles behind access to Open Data in ITS are gaining ground, and major users of data for ITS applications and services – such as Google and TomTom – see value in more and more countries adopting the policy.

Once a decision has been taken to embrace the Open Data concept, simple principles of good practice should be followed:

• released data must be anonymous and not commercially or security sensitive
• keep records of those authorised to access the data and the purpose of re-use
• transfer liability for anything that may go wrong as a result of the re-use of the data, to the re-user, whether in a formal licence or through a simple disclaimer

Equipment Certification

When using ITS equipment for enforcement purposes, the equipment must be certified according to the regulations of the country. It would not otherwise be workable to prove the integrity of the equipment each time the evidence it produces is used in court. The certification process allows the whole court to accept that the evidence is truthful and reliable. It removes what would otherwise be a standard defence: that the equipment does not function accurately or within the law being applied. (See Case Study: Type Approval (UK))

Different, un-harmonised, national certification regimes are not popular with equipment manufacturers who have customers in more than one country with different traffic laws within which the equipment has to operate effectively. There has been some work within the EU towards achieving agreement on issues of certification – and it may be that in the future the situation will become less fragmented within the EU and more globally.

When using evidence in court, produced by an ITS application – such as parking monitoring systems, speed cameras, or an ANPR camera at a bus stop (as shown in below) – the images or data produced as evidence must be tied to the date, time, location, and vehicle. The purpose of the certification process is to ensure that the design and construction of equipment is fit for purpose. In other words, if the certified equipment has recorded that a vehicle was in a certain location at a certain time, this is beyond question, provided that the equipment is installed and maintained correctly. Information has to be recorded accurately and stored securely, so that it cannot be corrupted or changed. The authority may need to demonstrate that they have adhered to the maintenance and calibration regime laid down during the certification process.

ANPR enforcement camera at a bus stop (Copy Zenco Systems)

In courts where uncorroborated automated evidence is not allowed, an officer will need to attend to testify that they observed the activity captured by the system, at the time recorded by the system.

Advice to Practitioners

The legal processes and equipment certification connected with using ITS equipment for road traffic law enforcement can only be successfully assessed by collaborative working of legal and technical experts. It is very rare to find all the expertise needed in any one individual – whether it be the technical expertise relevant to camera lens grinding, the data management expertise needed for secure data transfer, or expertise in road traffic law.

There are examples from different countries of how this may be achieved. In some countries, a national transport research facility undertakes this work and advises practitioners. In others, the national police force has the research facilities to do so. Another solution is for the Justice Department (or its equivalent) to be the provider of this expertise. Informal forums where equipment suppliers, users, and legal experts can come together are also very useful. These groups may be run by police forces, equipment manufacturers, or national ITS associations.

Anyone considering introducing automated enforcement into a country for the first time should seek informal advice from colleagues in countries where it is established practice to use ITS for enforcement. It will never be possible to simply transfer systems across borders, due to different national legal frameworks – but it will be invaluable to find out how others have ensured that their systems are legally and technically robust. Contacts at government, police force, or national ITS association level can help with this.

Futures Methodology

Visions of the long-term future of transport are not new. Numerous studies have been published. Concern about the continuing growth in the volume of road traffic, global warming and environmental sustainability has highlighted the need to think and plan further ahead. In many countries building more and bigger highways is no longer seen as the answer to tackling the problems of road traffic congestion and pollution. Transport authorities and road operators need a vision of future mobility and the part that the road network will play, so they can identify their investment priorities and develop a “road map” of how to get from here to there.

Finding the way forward is not easy when social and economic changes are fundamental and profound. Many regions have exhausted the possibilities for fine-tuning their existing transport systems. There is increasing evidence that new ways are needed to think and act. Visioning and scenario planning are techniques to help organisations to look ahead in an uncertain future.

VISIONING AND FUTURE SCENARIOS

Visioning is a valuable tool for strategic planning. It encourages active local involvement by looking at:

• where are we now?
• where are we heading?
• what are the users’ needs?
• what functionality is required to meet them?
• where do we want to be – what are our aspirataions?
• what are the practical first steps of how to get there?

Visioning is widely used by nations, individuals, businesses and community groups. It is a structured way to look ahead. With a clear vision of where we want to be, we can identify exactly what we should be doing now.

To encourage new ways of thinking about future prospects many organisations engage in scenario building as part of future visioning, to feed into the strategic planning process. Scenarios are tools for helping organisations to take a long-term view in a world of great uncertainty. Scenarios are specially constructed stories about the future. Each story will offer a different perspective on how transport can serve society and the economy without being limited by what exists today, or excluding options that may be unpopular or unthinkable today.

Future scenarios are not exact predictions of the future but provide a means of thinking through the implications of a given development strategy if it was taken to its logical limit. For example, three very different future scenarios were used in the Vision 2030 project for the Highways Agency for England, as summarised in the box below.

Scenario planning can challenge traditional thinking by requiring planners to imagine multiple futures – each one very different from that experienced today. Each scenario will present a different image of the future – not an extension of the past.

EVALUATION

The next stage is to evaluate whether the planning issues and concepts that emerge from a visioning exercise are worthy of further refinement. Each emerging theme should be tested against several criteria to identify those ideas and concepts that offer promising directions for business development. Evaluation criteria include:

Credibility

For each concept or major issue, how much of what is hypothesised or forecast to occur is almost certain – or is it highly speculative and uncertain? What is felt to be the most likely outcome, based on today’s perspective? How useful would it be to keep track of, and manage, that uncertainty? See Challenges and Opportunities

Relevance to Urban and Inter-urban Travel

What are the implications of the issue for urban and inter-urban transport, and the strategic inter-urban network in particular? What kinds of risks are implied – technical, political, organisational? How might these risks be managed and contained? See Integrated Operations, Purpose and Objectives and Context for Deployment

Potential for Opportunities

Does the concept offer opportunities for developing synergies with other key players – or for developing new business opportunities that would benefit future operations on the network? See Inter-Agency Working

Potential Threats

Does the issue suggest a potential disaster scenario that should be analysed so that mitigation strategies can be developed in good time? What might be the consequences of failing to plan for these ”worst case” scenarios? Are there obvious response strategies that should be explored? See Security Planning

Future Propositions

If these methods are applied successfully a number of propositions will emerge. The propositions that feature in more than one future scenario should be developed in depth. Others that are specific to one scenario may justify attention because of the scale of their consequences.

Each proposition will focus on a different aspect of the future of inter-urban travel, whether by road or other modes, and can be mapped on to the road operator’s business. These propositions may have important implications for the transport authority and road operator – whatever the future may hold.

For each proposition further work is needed to develop short-term and medium-term business development goals that are attainable and credible and which contribute to the achievement of the long-term proposition. The technique of “back- casting”, illustrated in the figure below is useful here.

Backcasting to identify the steps involved in reaching a desired goal.

Rather than using forecasts and trends, the “back-casting” methodology takes as its starting point that the goal has been achieved. The analysis then concentrates on identifying the factors that contribute to achievement of that result. Based on this analysis, pathways from the present day towards the long-term goal can be mapped and specific intermediate goals and stepping stones can be identified.

The combination of scenario building, visioning and “back-casting” are ways of “thinking out of the box” and challenging the outcome of more conventional planning methods and assumptions. In this way, future propositions can provide a starting point for new research and development and can influence the longer-term strategy for managing the strategic road network in times of uncertainty.

By way of example, here are twelve propositions that emerged from considering the three different future scenarios for the Vision 2030 project mentioned above. These propositions were goals that the Highway Agency of England could work towards in setting its business development priorities and long-term plans.

THE Green Highway

Freight First

Zero Accidents

Averting Gridlock

Managing Demand

Institutional Change

Favouring Public Transport

Understanding the Customer

The Connected Customer

Easy modal Interchange

Co-operative Driving on the Automated Highway

Land Use Planning

Demographic Changes

The greatest impact on transport demand arises from population growth, the increase in number of households and their location and associated levels of economic activity. A key challenge is to predict likely changes in living and mobility patterns. An elusive goal - in the interests of transport demand management and environmental sustainability - is to try to decouple the close link between economic growth and increased transport demand. Possible ways of doing this, which futures work needs to address are:

• making best use of existing road transport capacity – for example to facilitate 24/7 use of infrastructure and facilities;
• innovation to promote and support alternative forms of connectivity for people in their social and economic activities and for businesses in delivering goods and services.

This may involve looking at areas such as:

• integrated multimodal transport networks supported by flexible, intuitive and comprehensive travel information, ticketing and payment options;
• travel demand management tools such as pricing and regulation;
• alternative forms of working and shopping (homeworking, tele and video conferencing, cloud computing, telepresence, e-commerce, just in time delivery);
• alternative forms of car ownership combined with personal and workplace mobility planning.

Population changes

In June 2013 the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs at the United Nations published its predictions for World Population until the end of the 21^st Century (See Figure below).The medium range forecast was for an increase of over 50% by the end of the century (7.2bn in 2013 to 8.1bn in 2025; 9.6bn in 2050; 10.9bn in 2100).

Forecasts of World Population 1950-2100 (Source: United Nations, 2013. World Population Prospects: The 2012 Revision, New York)

Population growth is estimated to be highest in developing economies at over 60% (5.9bn in 2013 to 9.6bn in 2100), whereas the population of the developed world is thought likely to remain fairly static, with an increase of less than 3% (1.25bn in 2013 to 1.28bn in 2100).

The characteristics of the profile of the population, in terms of age, gender, ethnic and cultural composition, personal mobility, where and how they live – will be affected by migration and seasonal fluctuations – and will all impact on transport demand, mobility patterns and preferences, infrastructure needs and services. The number of people of core working age (25-59) in developing economies, for example, is predicted to increase by 57% in (2.6bn in 2013 to 4.1bn in 2100). In the developed world, the corresponding population is predicted to peak in 2013 and reduce by 17% by the end of the century (608m in 2013 to 504m by 2100).

Further Information

Further information on population changes is available in the report for the United Nations’ Department for Economic and Social Affairs ‘World Population Prospects – The 2012 Revision’  This presents the UN’s updated population estimates and projections – and synthesises them with the findings of recent demographic surveys from around the world.

Urbanisation

A key trend in the distribution of the world’s population in the 21^st Century is greater urbanisation. A report commissioned by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) showed that for OECD countries, by 1950, the urban population was already larger than the rural population (See below). Wider world trends towards urbanisation - reached the same milestone in 2006. The UN predicts that by 2050, 70% of the world’s population and 86% of the population of OECD countries will live in cities. Today there are 33 ‘megacities’ with populations in excess of 10 million people, 11 of which have more than 20 million people.

Urban and Rural Population Forecasts 1950-2030 (Source: Trends in Urbanisation and Urban Policies in OECD Countries: What Lessons for China?, OECD).

This huge growth in urbanisation increases the demand for housing, associated utilities and services including transport infrastructure, public transport, vehicle parking and better integration between the urban, inter-urban and national transport networks. In turn, this leads to increased pressure on land use and development within or around urban areas contributing to land shortages, urban sprawl and decline of the agricultural sector in rural areas. The issues will be how to service accessibility and mobility for these communities - or find solutions which reduce travel dependency.

 

Further Information

Useful information on urbanisation is provided in the OECD report ‘Trends in Urbanisation and Urban Policies in OECD Countries: What Lessons for China’ It synthesises trends in urbanisation and urban policies in OECD countries – and one of its key messages for China is that a successful urban development strategy should build upon an urban region’s own characteristics - not simply its infrastructure, but also the knowledge and skills of its workers.

The Green and ITS book (edited by SWECO-ITS) describes how Stockholm is using ITS to reduce environmental impact from transport and the development of a true sustainable transport system.

Ageing population

Advice to practitioners

The demographic changes will require efficient management of large, urban transport networks and their connections with national networks and international gateways. Quick to implement ITS technologies provide flexible solutions to rapid change and have a key role to play alongside the lengthier process of planning, implementing and adapting large infrastructure projects (such as major roads, metros, railways and airports). This provides opportunities for market-driven ITS applications for consumers. For transport authorities, the key consideration is to be aware of anticipated changes in travel patterns in the short-to-medium term (the 10 to 15 years which mirrors the typical lifecycle of ITS technology) and to design transport management systems around those changes.

Information and control systems must serve, and be understood by, all sections of the population if they are to be effective, inclusive and acceptable. They also need to be adapted to the needs of travellers with disabilities. Presentation of information in appropriate sensory forms (audible, visual, tactile) should therefore form a key element of the design of future ITS systems (See Human Factors).

Environmental and Resource Issues

Road transport is a major consumer of energy and has profound environmental impacts. The effects of transportation are complex and widespread. Air, water, land-use, animals and habitats are just a few of the domains affected at the local, regional and global level.

Transport is the third largest contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions (14.3%) - with road transport alone responsible for almost three quarters of that (10.5%) according to the World Resources Institute. In Europe, whilst emissions from other sectors have declined, transport emissions increased by 36% between 1990-2007 - despite improved vehicle efficiency – as a result of the overall increase in use of personal and freight transport.

Although transport provides many positive benefits for the individual as well as the economy and society as a whole, it is also one of the greatest obstacles to sustainable development. Unrestrained growth in traffic will continue to exacerbate the problems of traffic congestion and pollution.

People are becoming increasingly concerned about this and a new transport consensus is emerging that recognises that building more roads to meet increasing demand for road transport is not a sustainable option. Instead the focus is on making more effective use of existing infrastructure through better operational management and publicly acceptable ways of reducing demand and increasing capacity. This requires a comprehensive approach to transport and land use planning - fully integrated with policies, measures and technologies which support more sustainable transport. ITS has a key role to play in this new integrated approach.

Raw materials

A major challenge facing resource-dependent countries all over the world is to secure reliable and undistorted access to the raw materials needed for manufacturing and the economy as a whole. This includes rare earth elements that are widely used in road transport and ITS applications such as catalytic converters, flat panel displays, petroleum refining, permanent magnets and rechargeable batteries for hybrid and electric vehicles. The main threat is vulnerability of supply - arising from their rarity, the cost of extraction, supply and transformation, and political factors compromising security of supply, all of which may act to increase costs.

In June 2010 the European Commission published a report that analysed 41 raw materials and identified 14 as being critical to the European Union’s (EU) economy. The figure below shows the concentration of their production across the world. They are just as relevant to other industrialised and developing economies in terms of supply and demand. Several form key components of emerging technologies and ITS applications. Of particular concern are the raw materials below used in the production of the following technologies and transport applications:

• Gallium – for thin layer photovoltaics (used for solar charging), integrated electronic circuits and white light-emitting diodes (used in variable message signs);
• Neodymium – for permanent magnets (used in electric motors) and laser technology (used in laser scanners for vehicle classification and very accurate distance measurements);
• Indium – for displays (used in integrated circuits and light emitting diodes) and thin layer photovoltaics;
• Germanium - for fibre optic cable (essential to road network telecommunications) and infrared optical technologies (used for toll road sensors for electronic payment);
• Platinum - for fuel cells and catalysts (used in electric vehicles and catalytic converters);
• Tantalum – for micro capacitors (used in portable telephones, personal computers and automotive electronics);
• Silver - for Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags (used for vehicle identification and tracking) and lead-free soft solder (for less toxicity in electronic components);
• Cobalt - for lithium-ion batteries (electric/hybrid vehicles) and synthetic fuels (used as a catalyst to remove sulphur impurities in refining petroleum);
• Copper – which plays a critical role in vehicle components including wiring, electric motors, anti-lock breaking systems and RFID tags;
• Niobium – for micro capacitors and ferroalloys (used to high strength low alloy steels widely used for structural components in cars and trucks);
• Antimony - for Antimony Tin Oxide (used for flame retardant applications on automobile seat covers) and micro capacitors.

Shortages of the specific raw materials for ITS components and applications may not have been a major cause of concern in the past. However, today, it is becoming increasingly important with any technology, to factor in future dependencies on the supply of raw materials when developing or deploying applications - whether it be sensitivity to price, rarity or political instability affecting supply. The EU’s 2010 report on defining critical raw materials is recommended to be updated every 5 years. There will be other reports on these issues for other regions of the world which could provide a useful source of information source when making assessments of ITS dependency on raw materials.

In the past, technological progress in exploring, mining and processing raw materials has helped supply to keep up with demand and reduce the costs of extraction and transformation. The value of these scarce resources puts pressure on countries to adopt industrial strategies and measures which distort international trade and investment in the raw materials market. This can involve the imposition of export taxes, quotas, subsidies, price-fixing or restrictive investment rules. Where measures are at odds with international trade agreements - such as those of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) – arbitration and formal dispute procedures may offer a remedy to signatory governments.

Production of Critical Raw Materials (Source: Memo/10/263, 17 June 2010, European Commission)

Further Information

The European Union’s 2010 ‘Report of the Ad-hoc Working Group on defining critical raw materials’ aimed to develop a methodology to assess criticality and apply it to a selection of raw materials to determine which were the most critical to the European economy.

Energy and fuels

Climate change

There is increasing scientific consensus that global warming is under way, linked in part to human activity. If atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases are to be stabilised, efforts to reduce them will need to be sustained over many decades at a global scale. To meet the challenge of reducing the carbon dioxide emissions, new forms of propulsion for vehicles are being introduced (electric, hybrid and fuel cell drives) whilst traditional petrochemical engines have become more efficient.

Since climate change cannot be prevented entirely, it will also be necessary to adapt to it. For transport this will mean finding new ways to plan for, detect and respond to extreme weather events – smart transport, energy and communications infrastructure, materials and vehicle components, smart detection and maintenance technologies, new organisational models. ITS technologies have a role to play.

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the leading international body for the assessment of climate change. It was established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1988 to provide a clear scientific view on the current state of knowledge in climate change and its potential environmental and socio-economic impacts. Its 2014 report highlighted the threats posed by weather-related events to critical infrastructure (energy, communications and transport).

Danish Strategy for Adapting to Climate Change

Part of a future transport strategy could be to assess the impact of changing weather patterns on transport infrastructure and put in place plans to improve the resilience of the transport networks to changing weather patterns and severe weather events. An example of this is the Danish Road Directorate’s strategy for adapting to climate change, which was developed in 2013.

The IPCC also develops scenarios to predict the impacts on global temperatures and weather patterns - of increases and decreases in greenhouse gases. Particular attention is focused on carbon dioxide, as one of the major gases produced as a result of the use of petrochemical and other carbon-based fuels in transportation networks.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

Climate Summit 2014

The 2014 Climate Summit announced that a shift towards more sustainable transport is essential to achieve the internationally agreed goal of a maximum rise of 2 degrees Celsius in average global temperature. The alternative was a doubling of transport’s greenhouse gas emissions by the middle of the twenty first century (2050). The International Energy Agency estimated that a shift to sustainable, low-carbon transport in the same time-frame, could save governments, companies and individuals up to US$70 trillion. The IPCC announced several initiatives to put the transport sector on track towards a low-carbon future. These included one on Urban Electric Mobility - to increase the number of electric vehicles in cities to 30% of all new vehicles sold annually by 2030, whilst simultaneously developing the enabling infrastructure for their effective use.

Further Information

Further information on climate change is available from the IPCC’s website.

Air quality and noise

Advice to practitioners

The ability to adapt to environmental threats, without causing major impacts, is often based on the level of resilience of the networks under threat. When planning ITS deployments it is good practice to undertake scenario planning to try to understand how the deployments will be affected in different and sometimes extreme circumstances. These may point to a need to put in place backup systems for power and communications for elements of the ITS infrastructure. An example might be systems to divert travellers away from flooded parts of the transport network.

In the future there may be restrictions on when and where certain types of vehicle can be used. Low emissions zones have been introduced in some cities for different types of vehicles – and ITS play a role in monitoring and enforcing them. Similarly the use of ITS to manage vehicle speeds and reduce them can result in a reduction in the amount of fuel used by vehicle and its consequential levels of carbon dioxide emissions (See Speed Management). The introduction of electric vehicles has led to new forms of refuelling infrastructure as well as the development of e-mobility management systems for vehicles - due to the shorter range of pure electric vehicles and the need to efficiently manage that range.

From an ITS perspective technology can be used to monitor air pollution and manage transport emissions in the following ways:

• enforcement of low emission zones by ITS technology;
• implementation of specific operational measures when air quality is poor;
• management of traffic speeds and flows to reduce emissions;
• enabling greater use of lower emission vehicles and modes of transport with enhanced integrated information systems.

New Forms of Mobility

The global demographic and environmental challenges are forcing us to consider innovative and sometimes radical approaches to travel and transport – making best use of information, new technologies and applications.

The expectation is that accurate and dependable information will allow transport users to choose travel options that match their needs, modify trip departure times, or even reschedule events to take advantage of better travel conditions and travel times. Putting information in the hands of consumers is critical in managing metropolitan-wide traffic volumes and congestion. The more pressure that can be taken off congested periods and locations, the quicker it will clear and allow traffic to flow. Using data analytics, a clear and complete view of the traffic conditions can be obtained helping to optimise its management.

The need to achieve a more environmentally sustainable and efficient transport system is driving developments to achieve reduced carbon emission targets and make better use of road capacity.

Social Media

Eco-mobility

Eco-mobility is a general term to cover vehicle technologies, driving techniques, traffic management and other policies and measures that support more environmentally friendly transport of people and freight. Many of the emerging concepts make use of ITS to achieve carbon reduction targets through reduced air pollution and more efficient energy use. Promising developments are in smoothing traffic signal operations and lane management to optimise traffic throughput, alongside regulatory and policy instruments to help travellers to make “green” travel choices and reduce their environmental impact.

Eco-Traffic Signal Timing

This ITS application is similar to current traffic signal systems but the objective is to optimise the performance of traffic signals for the environment. Data from vehicles (vehicle location, speed, and emissions data) is obtained using connected vehicle technologies. This is processed to develop signal timing strategies aimed at minimising stop/start conditions thereby reducing fuel consumption and overall emissions at the intersection, along a corridor, or for a region.

Eco-Traffic Signal Priority

This ITS application, illustrated in the figure below allows public transport or freight vehicles to request signal priority at an intersection taking account of vehicle’s location, speed, type (such as hybrid or alternative fuelled vehicles). It assess associated emission data to determine whether priority should be granted.

Source: Eco-Signal Operations Concept of Operations, US Department of Transportation, 2014)

Eco-lane Management

This approach is similar to High Occupancy Vehicle lanes (HOV lanes), with dedicated freeway lanes optimised to encourage use by vehicles operating in eco-friendly ways. The lanes may support variable speed limits, eco-cooperative adaptive cruise control and vehicle platooning applications, and wireless inductive/resonance charging infrastructure embedded in the roadway.

Electro-mobility

Electro-Mobility, also known as eMobility, refers to clean and efficient transport, using electric road vehicles powered either by batteries or by hydrogen fuel cells. Some may have an auxiliary internal combustion engine (hybrid) for extended use or to maintain the battery’s charge. Battery powered electric vehicles are gaining in importance with automotive manufacturers investing in the technology. Those leading the innovation range from small two-man teams to major multinational corporations and automotive companies.

In Europe, electric vehicles are increasingly being deployed in the market – but their large-scale adoption relies on investment in a networked charging infrastructure to extend their range. This requires investment in the development of ‘intelligent’ electricity distribution systems - or smartgrids - upgraded electricity networks, with intelligent metering and monitoring capabilities. Both the vehicles and infrastructure required for electro-mobility offer opportunities for further development of ITS in support of sustainable mobility.

An example of a concept for infrastructure development is wireless inductive/resonance charging (illustrated below) which uses magnetic fields to wirelessly transmit large electric currents between metal coils placed along the roadway several feet apart.

Inductive Resonance Charging (Source: James Provost ©IEEE)

Roadside charging infrastructure can also support static charging capable of transferring electric power to a vehicle parked in a garage or on the street and vehicles stopped at a traffic signal or a stop sign.

Alongside market opportunities is the issue of the role of governments. They can leave things to market forces or take measures to promote electric vehicle deployment in support of wider societal goals such as sustainability and urban livability.

Connected Vehicles

Data and Communications

The consumerisation of technology has had a massive impact on the transportation industry. Smartphones, and their companion data plans, are now widely available and increasingly affordable to a greater proportion of the population. The phones themselves, become information sources as well as a platform for pushing out travel information messages or as a means for making electronic payments.

Understanding the challenges and the opportunities posed by the explosion in data, and the value that data analytics can bring is fundamental. The use of natural language processing, graph analytics, distributed computing, machine learning, and predictive analytics - makes it possible to realise its latent value. The data can help inform the provision of better, more targeted services at reduced cost by making better use of the available infrastructure. However the data has to be extracted and aggregated or translated into information from which it is possible to identify new patterns and trends, increase automation, optimise business processes, improve efficiency or productivity.

The transportation industry is no newcomer to the world of business analytics or the collection of data, but, until recently, the data sources were not connected. Data collection, its analysis and its communication are major tools for planning and managing transport networks and services. Road network operators have been able to monitor traffic on the network and specific roads for decades but did not necessarily know anything about the individual user. For instance what were the journey origins and destinations? Was it a regular route – and how regular? The road network operator was missing access to this type of information that could help improve traffic management plans or monitor the effects of demand management schemes. Each transport and network operator used standalone systems, which did not communicate with each other.

Concern for the future of the environment has put the spotlight on energy conservation and pollution control. By using analytical data to understand driver behaviour, it has proved possible to put in place measures to persuade drivers to adopt different travel habits such as eco-driving or using public transport. The aim is to reduce roadway and parking congestion and protect the environment, while offering more convenience to customers.

Key issues in the future will include how to:

• develop further the multiple uses from a data source;
• develop and improve the various monitoring systems for network performance;
• integrate the various existing disparate ITS systems, especially for managing and controlling traffic;
• manage communications and data in a city or region in an open and seamless way.

Crowdsourcing Data

Real time Data

Wireless and cellular Communications

Communication Technologies

Vision of Smart Network Operations

As towns and cities expand, pressure to rationalise competing priorities for road-space will grow. It will be vital to harness ITS for a variety of transport management measures. In metropolitan areas integrated public transport operations that interface with traffic management systems will become increasingly important. They will provide reliable public transport services as well as reducing the traffic load and environmental burden. The needs of cyclists, pedestrians and other vulnerable road users have also to be considered and integrated. See Safety of Vulnerable Road Users and Vulnerable Road Users

In Road Network Operations ITS helps to improve decision making in real time by transport network controllers and other users – thereby improving the operation of the entire transport system. In future, self-recognition systems will have a part to play in traffic management, travel substitution and “smart” access controls, taking account of the individual characteristics of the vehicle, the load and the journey purpose.

On our highways, better logic, connectivity and knowledge of the spatial requirements is needed for the dynamic allocation of traffic priorities in time and space. This is the case also for journey planning, goods distribution and freight logistics and for demand-responsive collective transport modes. The automated highway or a “smart” intersection will also require a kinaesthetic capability.

Traffic management tools aim to optimise the operation of transport networks in time and space. Although there are clear benefits from “smart” traffic management, it also introduces the risk of gridlock and a “superjam” in the event of system failure, making things much worse. Future systems need to be robust and intelligent enough to deal with worst case scenarios. This is particularly so if the vehicles themselves are automated.

There are other reasons for incorporating more intelligence into integrated road transport and mobility management systems.

First, today’s traffic management and control systems show limitations when facing critical traffic conditions and widespread congestion. This is an almost permanent problem in many metropolitan and urban areas and is often caused by a locally conceived analysis of traffic behavior – when more strategic, high-level control methods, such as demand management, are required. See Demand Management

Secondly, the role of human operators in traffic management centres is still crucial in day-by-day operations. No matter how sophisticated and advanced the traffic control technology is, the “person in the loop” paradigm still prevails today in most centralised traffic control systems. See Human Performance and Traffic Control Centres

Thirdly, the introduction and progressive integration of extended monitoring and management facilities in the new generation of ITS architectures (for example improved road condition monitoring, traffic monitoring, incident detection, collective and individual route guidance systems) has prompted demand for increased, on-line operator support tools. These are to help cope with the complexity of the data to be managed and the resulting, integrated traffic management schemes. See Network Monitoring

Intelligent traffic management systems need to be capable of analysing traffic behaviour and its evolution in a similar way to an expert traffic controller. These systems – for example, self-learning autonomic management systems may replace human operators in the future – and will certainly act as intelligent assistants that cooperate in defining and applying traffic control decisions. Several techniques are being applied in this context including evolutionary algorithms, knowledge-based systems, neural networks and multi-agent systems. See Traffic Management Strategies and System Monitoring

Future dynamic traffic management systems will be required to support network-wide, pro-active traffic management and to replace locally-oriented, reactive traffic management that is common today. Improved intelligence is also needed to deal with the huge amount of real time traffic data generated from detectors and other sources (for example probe vehicles that are equipped to report their position and traffic conditions in real time). The data needs to be interpreted and analysed by the operators to support the decision making process.

Vision of Smart Travellers

Quite how users will embrace and respond to the plethora of emerging new technologies in the transport arena is difficult to forecast. There is a risk of over-dependency with a corresponding loss of skill, and this can be unsettling if systems fail. While choice is often promoted as a desirable objective, many people are overwhelmed by the reality of too many options. See User Centred Design

We need to consider the impact of technology on people, in a world of increasing complexity and change, of seamless near-ubiquitous connectivity, pervasive monitoring and information processing.

What if things slow down because people refuse to take up new technology? Worse, what if a “luddite” mentality takes hold or new under-classes emerge who protest against the systems because they are unable to benefit? Will more bureaucratic control be required in setting rules and protocols to ensure that everything functions smoothly? Transparency in the regulation and certification of these systems may be central to securing public confidence.

ITS is destined to play a key role in vehicles and for travellers using a variety of platforms: smart phones, tablet computers, information kiosks, in-vehicle displays, hand-held or wearable devices. These different platforms offer the potential for real-time information on inter-modal connections and guidance for the traveller to navigate through an unfamiliar interchange. Other developments include navigation for blind and partially sighted pedestrians.

Traveller information systems

Timely traveller information is now regarded as a key feature for a successful transport system. Today’s transportation consumers must manage their time effectively. Significant uncertainty associated with waiting for a bus or train is unacceptable to most people. 

“Smart travellers” expect to have comprehensive information about multiple modes, including traffic information, available to them quickly, in one place or from one source, and on a variety of media. See Traveller Services. Artificial Intelligence techniques have much to offer:

• improving the data that provides the basis for traveller information systems;
• integrating completely traveller information systems with other traveller information, particularly traffic and location-based destination information;
• providing more customer-focused and personalised information, such as individualised bus stop–level schedules and route maps;
• providing real-time information that is reliable and available over a variety of dissemination media.

Many consumers are unaware of all of their transport options. The use of personalised information-based technologies can expand traveller choices and facilitate delivery of more convenient services, potentially increasing public transport patronage. Personalisation, if it is to be of value, requires the development of a spatial logic and connectivity that is adapted to the particular user.

Predictive, personalised systems

Intelligent Navigation

Integrated Services

The vision of a smart traveller goes beyond the provision of accurate route guidance and reliable travel information to a vision of a “seamless journey”. As well as the need to move from point A to point B, a number of other services and facilities are used. The mobile Internet has brought about a revolution in how these services are sold and marketed. On-line booking has changed the way we plan our journeys. Travel and other location-based services are being integrated into single packages, but more can be done. The figure below shows a vision for seamless journeys.

Vision for Seamless Journeys (Source: European Commission Rosetta Project, 2003)

On-line, location-based information, concierge (yellow pages), tourist and entertainment services are now widely available - whether the user is on foot, a passenger on public transport, or driving. With an abundance of information available, the need for context- specific and user-specific selection will grow. There will be commercial value in applying successful Artificial Intelligence methods to filter out the unwanted data and capture value and relevance.

Vision of Smart Vehicles

The automobile will remain the most important traffic means in everyday life for the foreseeable future. The increase of vehicle safety is therefore one of the most important needs to be addressed by ITS technologies. The distinctive feature will be the awareness of the vehicle, of its environment and its driver’s behaviour. For instance, emulating the diverse functions that drivers perform every day: observing the road, observing the preceding vehicles, steering, accelerating, braking, and deciding when and where to change course.

The push to develop “smart cars” using Artificial Intelligence is part of a wider effort on the part of automotive manufacturers to respond to environmental requirements. Safety technologies already available include traction control, adaptive cruise control, intelligent speed adaptation, collision warning and avoidance systems, driver drowsiness detectors, night and bad weather visions systems, truck roll-over warning systems (See Driver Support).

Critical applications include driver and vehicle surveillance. Accidents are caused by driver inattention or from following the vehicle in front too closely. Ambient Intelligence will offer the opportunity to monitor the driver’s physical condition, diagnose signs of incapability to drive, warn the driver and intelligently influence his behaviour. An important limiting factor may be the reluctance of the driver to accept external control.

In the USA, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has established an official classification system:

• Level 0: The driver completely controls the vehicle at all times.
• Level 1: Individual vehicle controls are automated, such as electronic stability control or automatic braking.
• Level 2: At least two controls can be automated in unison, such as adaptive cruise control in combination with lane keeping.
• Level 3: The driver can fully cede control of all safety-critical functions in certain conditions. The car senses when conditions require the driver to retake control and provides a "sufficiently comfortable transition time" for the driver to do so.
• Level 4: The vehicle performs all safety-critical functions for the entire trip, with the driver not expected to control the vehicle at any time. As this vehicle would control all functions from start to stop, including all parking functions, it could include unoccupied cars.

We are on the threshold of the first age of fully automated motoring. The future belongs to innovative driver-assistance technology. See Warning and Control Systems. Sooner or later, these systems will revolutionise active vehicle safety - much in the same spectacular way that electronic stabilisation programs (ESP) have done. Their objective is to prevent accidents using control technology such as an automatic emergency brake assist or the attention control feature that prevents drivers falling asleep at the wheel.

There is some opinion that increasing automation may not necessarily lead to improved safety in the longer term due to effects sometimes described as “risk homeostasis”. This is counterproductive behavioural adaptation when drivers start behaving in riskier ways as a result of a perceived increase in safety provided by ITS (or any other) devices. These effects have not been extensively researched and are often speculative.

Eventually people may prefer automated control to human control in a growing number of situations. However increasing automation raises many issues of risk and investment management. There will be major issues about the rate of deployment of these vehicle control systems once it becomes clear that major reductions in accidents can be achieved using these systems compared with leaving the drivers in control. Testing, responsibility and accountability of intelligent systems are also major issues. Who will guarantee the collective behaviour of multiple vehicles?

Vision of Automated Highways

The first-generation of vehicle-highway automation envisages automated vehicles operating on existing roads with no extensive infrastructure modifications required. Most of the required intelligence will be built into vehicles rather than the infrastructure. These vehicles will operate at spacings closer than commuter flows of today, with traffic flow benefits achieved through vehicle-cooperative systems as well as vehicle-infrastructure cooperation. See Coordinated Vehicle Highway Systems

Automated vehicles may cluster in 'designated lanes' which are also open to normal vehicles, or may be allowed on high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes to increase their proximity to one another – to realise the benefits of cooperative operations. Stabilisation of traffic flow and modest increases in capacity are seen as the key outcomes.

Once this level of functionality is proven and in broad use, a second generation scenario comes into play which expands to dedicated lanes, presumably desired by a user population with a high percentage of automation-capable vehicles.

With growing use, networks of automated vehicle lanes would develop, offering the high levels of per-lane capacity achievable through close-headway operations where vehicles are closely spaced. However, this type of evolution may take a while. First generation automation for passenger vehicles and trucks is already here, with estimates for second-generation implementation in prospect.

The key technical challenges that remain to be mastered involve software safety, system security, and malfunction management. The non-technical challenges are issues of liability, costs, and perceptions. See Legal and Regulatory Issues, Contracts and Engagement with ITS. It is also important to recognise that automated vehicles are already carrying millions of passengers every day. Many major airports have automated people movers that transfer passengers among terminal buildings. Modern commercial aircraft operate on autopilot for much of the time, and they also land under automatic control at suitably equipped airports on a regular basis.

In the long term it seems unlikely that technological difficulties will hinder the widespread introduction of intelligent vehicles and highway systems. It is more likely to be a sceptical and wary public that is the barrier to acceptance. How will humans cope with increased automation of the driving task? Who wants to share the road with a convoy of 40-tonne driverless lorries? Or are we heading towards the time when human driving will become a form of extreme sport to be allowed only within controlled areas?