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Intelligent Transportation Systems and the NII
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Date: Wed, 15 Feb 1995 16:17:24 -0500
From: "James Keller"
John A. Volpe National Transportation System Center, Department of Transportation
Science, Technology and Public Policy Program, Harvard University
with
Center for Technology, Policy and Industrial Development, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS AND THE NATIONAL INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE
Workshop Announcement and Call for Papers
The Volpe Center and the Science, Technology and Public Policy Program's Information Infrastructure Project, on behalf of the Office of the Secretary of Transportation, are seeking papers and proposals for papers for a workshop to be held at the John F. Kennedy School of Government in July 1995. The workshop will explore the relationship between Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) as defined by the Department of Transportation and the National Information Infrastructure (NII). We are seeking papers which address the programmatic, organizational, and technical aspects of ITS and NII as a means of understanding the cross-implications and opportunities for coordination between these two efforts. The goal of the workshop is to frame the issues where departmental action is needed. With this in mind, we are seeking policy papers, which will be accesible to a non- technical audience.
Profound changes are underway in how the federal government relates to both the states and the private sector. As in the case of the Internet, much of the investment, innovation, and decision making in these initiatives will made by industry, and by state and local government. The federal government's ability to control the environment will be reduced, creating new challenges in realizing public policy goals of equity, ubiquity and interoperability.
Background
ITS can be regarded as a component of the more broadly articulated NII initiative. Both the ITS and the NII in which it will be imbedded, offer visions of highly complex, network and information oriented systems. Both will require the facilitation of yet to be defined federal-state-commercial relationships to achieve ambitious technological and public policy objectives. In many ways, ITS and NII are the two most complex public/private developments in the country.
Despite the similarities between these two efforts, there has been little exploration of the relationships and potential synergies which may exist. Better understanding of these relationships may yield cost savings on R&D and infrastructure investment, and potentially common standards.
ITS includes special purpose infrastructure, for which unique services or facilities may be required, but it also depends on the general purpose infrastructure provided in the NII. As applied infrastructure, ITS may offer important lessons for NII architects and developers, who will be faced with similar questions of driving interoperability among separate systems and how to coordinate development and deployment plans across sectors and industries.
ITS
The mission of the ITS program is to improve the safety, efficiency, and capacity of the country's surface transportation system through the use of information technology. The ITS program is coordinated within DoT, bringing together each of the major program areas within the Department. The systems integration and real-time information requirements of ITS include not only managing the flow of real-time information to and from individual vehicles, but also, the seamless coupling of different modes of transportation. In addition many commercial applications for consumer motorists are anticipated. Applications envisioned include traffic management, vehicle tracking, electronic toll collection, augmentation of driver perception, automated emergency intervention, real-time traffic and travel information, trip planning, and eventually automation of at least parts of the driving process.
Eventually ITS will call for a high-integrity, real-time network system. This system will take inputs from highway sensors, from vehicle GPS systems, as well as from other information gathering systems. This information will be continuously compiled in a system of data bases with a dynamic model of the local, regional and national highway system, and will be used to provide real- time information on optimum routes, based on such factors as least time and fuel economy. While there is a higher degree of homogeneity among ITS applications and data requirements relative to NII, the real-time, security, and scale of some parts of the ITS make it one of the most challenging NII applications. However, ITS is not a federally planned and managed development. Substantial federal and state and local funds will be invested, but commercial applications markets will drive the pace and character of much of the ITS.
NII
The Clinton administration has been committed to facilitate the development of "a national information infrastructure that enables all Americans to access information and communicate with each other using voice, data, images, or video at anytime anywhere." This commitment has in turn accelerated activity in the states and the private sector. At the federal level, NII activity is coordinated by the Information Infrastructure Task Force (IITF), an inter- agency group dealing primarily with the policy rather than programmatic aspects of the NII.
As is the nature of information infrastructure, the implications are uniquely broad. Elements of the federal strategy for development of the NII include funding new technology development, investing in community-based pilots, and efforts to evolve intellectual property law and the concept of universal service. However, outside of the government's own operations, the federal strategy for actual infrastructure and application development, is largely an enabling one, seeking to promote a climate which encourage private sector investment and innovation. As in the case of ITS, commercial markets, still largely undefined, for entertainment, business applications, many domain- specific applications (such as health care and ITS), and advanced information services will determine much of the pace and character of NII, and its international extension, the Global Information Infrastructure.
Suggested topics for exploration in this workshop include:
Interoperability and data compatibility requirements of the ITS.
What are the interoperability requirements within the 29 ITS applications defined by DoT. What shared database or compatible data structures and standards will be required? What are the architectural implications of these requirements? To what extent can general purpose services of the NII meet requirements of the ITS? Will the NII strategies for achieving interoperability serve the needs of ITS? If not, what architecture will provide for the needed compatibility of ITS services?
Interactions between ITS and NII at the federal level.
Should policy makers regard ITS as a key component of the NII? Can ITS contribute to NII as an important domain specific application which can stimulate information service markets? What benefits to ITS come from exploiting the linkages to NII? Are there policy issues in common between NII and ITS that suggest opportunities for consolidated effort?
ITS/NII relationships from an operational state and local level.
At the state and municipal level, where ITS deployment will be undertaken, the relationships between ITS and NII are quite different from the federal level. At the federal level the relationships have largely to do with policy formulation and coordination. At the state level there may be questions of roles and missions between highway authorities and state officials responsible for telecommunications and information management. If special purpose information services are needed at the state and municipal level, in which domain will responsibility lie, and what relationship to other state level information services may be expected?
International implications for ITS information services strategy.
Both ITS and NII require transnational compatibility sufficient to permit safe and effective transportation services for vehicles crossing borders. In addition, a global market for ITS services and products will develop. Markets for some foreign systems may develop more rapidly than in the U.S., exerting pressure on the U.S. to adopt the foreign developed standards. What are the venues for negotiation of transnational compatibility in ITS services? How do they relate to the venues for GII standardization? At the present time, the U.S. domination of Internet innovation has established U.S. developed standards for protocols internationally. Should ITS attempt to take advantage of this international commonality in the NII?
Evolutionary deployment implementation strategies.
1. Are there ITS services that could be implemented at modest cost by taking advantage of opportunities for innovation in the NII? 2. If initial ITS services are deployed in local and regional systems, what standards need to be established in those applications to preserve the interoperability of the national system when the regional applications coalesce?
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The workshop papers, appropriately edited, will likely appear in book form following the workshop. Authors are encouraged to submit a paper that will be suitable and available for such (non- exclusive) publication. Contributors are requested to send a letter of intent and abstract by March 24, 1995. Contributions will be reviewed by the workshop Steering Committee, and decisions will be sent out by April 3.
Please direct papers and proposals to:
James Keller Information Infrastructure Project Science, Technology and Public Policy Program Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University 79 JFK Street Cambridge, MA 02138
617-496-4042 617-495-5776 Fax
keller@ksgrsch.harvard.edu
Steering Committee:
Lewis Branscomb Harvard James Keller Harvard Lee McKnight MIT Edward Ramsdell Volpe ```
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