The Portland region has become a significant test site for IVHS planning in the United States. Since Portland has made only limited investment in Advanced Traffic Management Systems or Incident Management Planning in the past, it provides an opportunity to build a system from the ground up. Many existing IVHS applications in other cities have been forwarded based upon research or systems developed in the last five to ten years. In Portland, because there is limited programmed research or project infrastructure committed to IVHS, the system and each of its elements must be able to demonstrate proven, quantifiable benefits to the public and transportation system to be considered for implementation. This paper summarizes the study process which is on-going in Portland and the initial findings.

The Portland region encompasses 18 cities, four counties and two states (Oregon and Washington). With a regional population of less than 1.5 million people, the area is served by seven primary corridors and over 80 miles of freeways. The planning for the ATMS system in Portland was organized by transportation corridors in the region. Seven primary corridors and their significant arterial routes were defined for this study. The corridor orientation was selected to assure specific and unique applications would be tailored to fit the needs of the users of each corridor. At the outset of the project a technical advisory committee and steering team were developed to provide representation from cities, counties, state, MPO and transit. This group would become the foundation for a longer term interjurisdictional framework in the region. In addition, a prototype corridor management team was developed to establish a functional incident management plan for the I-5 corridor south of the downtown. This multi-disciplinary group included police, fire, rescue, hazardous materials, maintenance, ambulance, tow and media representatives who operate within the corridor.

The approach used in the study included continuous contact amongst agencies and a slow, build from the ground up approach. Existing systems in the United States were reviewed and an extensive inventory of corridor operation was conducted. In defining the operation and performance of the transportation system in the region (both existing and future), function needs could be identified to focus development of ATMS in the area. A series of measures of effectiveness or benchmarks were established to determine benefits and a plan was built around the specific needs of the corridors, agencies and users. Beyond the normal engineering or academic approaches to plan development, attempts are being made to identify user needs and public perceptions of ATMS. The primary objectives were to keep the system low cost, flexible and proven in improving safety and reducing delay.

Review of the seven corridors in the Portland region and other ATMS operations in the nation yielded several key findings which were used in developing a strategy for Portland.

• The Portland regions experiences about 10 to 15 lane miles of freeway congestion during the evening peak hour today. The region anticipates accommodating nearly 500,000 more people by the year 2010. The number of lane miles of congestion on freeways in the region are expected to increase over 100 percent in the next 15 years.

• Peak commute travel times range between 8 and 25 minutes on the most congested corridors in the peak periods, depending on time within the peak and potential for minor incidents.

• Data were collected for the major corridors in the region for key bench marks:

• Travel Time

• Extent or lane miles of congestion

• Vehicles per hour per lane

• Delay

• Accident Rate

• While many significant undertakings in IVHS have occurred in the United States, very few have been able to quantify actual savings in travel time, delay, volume or safety.

• The region has several hundred traffic signals on significant arterials in the primary corridors, nearly all signals use 170 controllers.

• Limited detection equipment has been installed on the regions freeways. Use of inductive loops in coordination with ramp meters and magnetometer count stations represent the basic extent of existing detection. Inductive loops have generally not performed well in the region lasting only 2 to 5 years without replacement or maintenance.

• Several parallel data collection efforts requiring monitoring of the transportation system were being initiated simultaneously. Data needs for System Planning due to ISTEA, Clean Air Act requirements, State mandated Transportation Planning Rule and general DOT inventories all use similar information required by an ATMS program.

• Coordination between State and local agencies is frequently difficult. In the Portland region, involving all the agencies in the planning process has improved communication and helped build consensus toward development of the ATMS plan.

• Cell phones have become a large portion of the existing 911 "detection" system for the primary corridors. Most accidents are reported using cellular phones and the consolidated communication agencies in the region have been working with the cellular phone companies to improve their ability to expand effective use of this technology.

With this information collected, plan development could begin. A mission statement was developed for the incident management and ATMS plans as a common basis of understanding the purpose of each plan element:

"As a group, work to safely reduce delay to users of the regions transportation system"

The next step was to organize the framework of the plans. There were two key elements to be considered. The inter-jurisdicational relationships and the functional process under which ATMS or incident management activities occur. For the Portland region we are developing a framework organized around a functional process rather than a specific freeway operations plan. In particular, the concept of integrating congestion management in the long term planning of ATMS has become important. To date, the ISTEA congestion management requirements have lead to substantial planning efforts, studies and reports but very little in terms of actual on the ground continuous monitoring and system management operation. By considering the data collection needs of these parallel programs, the ATMS plan could single handedly address many concurrent planning efforts and convert them into more active management of the transportation system. Involvement of Metro (MPO) and Tri-Met (transit agency) in the project direction has provided guidance. At the same time, use of other transportation modes in the development of the ATMS plan (for example, buses as vehicle probes) lead directly to the modification of the ATMS acronym to be the "Advanced Transportation Management System".

The ATMS process was defined for the Portland region to include:

• Surveillance/Detection

• Processing of Information

• Response

• Communication/Distribution

• End Users

This differs only slightly from other ATMS work and is tailored to the needs of the Portland region. Figures 1 and 2 show how the general organization works for ATMS and Incident Management. The arrows in the diagrams represent communication. By selecting the functional roles of the process as a framework, the duplication of roles in specific actions of ATMS, Incident Management, Congestion Management or other plans can be eliminated. For example, surveillance for ATMS, Incident Management and Congestion Management would all be from the same source. The end users of information would include traffic control, field devices, travellers, local agencies and media. These groups would also provide information into the system (surveillance) making the process a seamless cycle. A flow diagram is being developed for each element of the ATMS plan showing how each of the steps in the process are accomplished - from ramp metering to coordinated arterial signal timing to emergency communication response to changeable message signs. Since travelers, local agencies and the media are defined as end users, each element of the ATMS plan must indicate how it interacts with these groups (either in terms of input - surveillance - or in terms of output - information).

The TAC and Steering Team have taken a pragmatic approach to the plan development. Direction toward a low capital, efficient plan has lead toward use of IVHS technologies that are proven and effective. Since the mission statement for the project mandates safe reduction of delay, any project which could not be specifically proven to this task was dropped. For instance, most systems in development on the west coast are highly dependant upon inductive loops for detection. The programs have spent tens of millions of dollars to achieve this detection level. The Portland system, while using some existing loops, will not include a major loop construction program. Simply, the cost to install and maintain these systems could not prove its benefit in the Portland region. Limited use of loops and CCTV in critical high volume, high accident, bottleneck locations can be more effective. Reducing the amount of initial investment in detection will allow for use of more sophisticated video imaging technologies in the near future, which may be even lower cost means of providing more detailed detection. In fact, all field devices within the ATMS plan are being strategically located to focus on the functional needs of the regions corridors. Based on measured benchmarks, locations with high volumes, high delay, high accidents and high congestion will receive the bulk of ATMS applications. Locations which will be mitigated by long term capital improvements will get short term applications and locations which are not planned to receive roadway improvements will get more long term ATMS applications.

On the Incident Management side, the prototype corridor management team developed for I-5 has outlined several areas for short term improvement. Their initial recommendations have been to:

• Improve communication process and facilities between agencies

• Develop a NIMS training project for all agencies operating within the corridor

• Develop pre-planned detour routes for I-5

• Improve permanent arterial signing to freeways along the corridor

• Develop a mapping system common to all agencies

• Improve marking of locations on freeway (not just mileposts but stenciled markings on structures and barriers)

• Develop alternative access points to freeway corridors for emergency access

The corridor management team concept is now firmly entrenched and will be expanded in the future to other corridors throughout the region. This process will be used as the basis for organizing the agencies and producing the most effective, low cost benefits to the system uses.

One final area of the plan, unique to Portland, has been the measurement of perceived benefits to the public. Many of the highway advisory radio, cell phone, changeable message sign or ramp meter projects go into effect without input from the public. The benefit of such systems to the public has not been quantified with specific, proven information. Many ATMS systems rely on a few, limited studies to make "guesstimates" of benefit/cost rations to justify installation without documented evidence of performance or acceptance of users. A survey of what the public needs and their perception of the benefits of ATMS elements already deployed (eg. ramp meters, CMS) has been identified in the Portland project. The intent is to maintain a focus of customer service on the ATMS plan development and the devices deployed. Initial plan elements must be those which not only have proven benefits (which can be measured) but also have reasonably strong public acceptance, understanding or need.

ATMS is being redefined in Portland, specific to the localized needs of the region. However, many of the lessons are transferable to other smaller metropolitan areas:

• Focus plan development on functional needs

• Organize plan around a process of ATMS activities to avoid duplication with other initiatives

• Establish benchmarks of system performance at the outset of the plan to be used in measuring actual benefits following implementation

• Gain public input regarding perception of benefits

• Avoid capital intensive, high maintenance detection systems

• Organize Corridor Management Teams to focus on Incident Management

• Organize a technical group to address regional issues

Because of its size, Portland is not in a position to allocate large hundreds of millions of dollar systems toward IVHS as other areas have planned. While Portland may not be the first in line for funding of IVHS, it will be one of the first plans based on low cost and efficiency in planning ATMS for a smaller metropolitan region in the United States. The plan will be within the financial resources of the region and balanced with the benefits provided to the public. When ISTEA said EFFICIENCY - Portland has taken it to heart in producing a plan which consolidates the most productive, low cost activities of IVHS and delivering a system the users want.

Ransford McCourt, P.E.
DKS Associates