Western States Rural Transportation Consortium (WSRTC)

The Western States Rural Transportation Consortium (WSRTC), comprised of California, Oregon, Washington and Nevada, has been established to facilitate and enhance safe, seamless travel throughout the western United States. The Consortium seeks to promote innovative partnerships, technologies and educational opportunities to meet these objectives. Additionally, the Consortium seeks to provide a collaborative mechanism to leverage research activities in a coordinated manner to respond to rural transportation issues among western states related to technology, operations and safety. Consequently, activities of the Consortium are focused on technology transfer/education (Western States Rural Transportation Technology Implementers Forum) and incubator projects (small scale research projects intended to serve as a “proof of concept” for larger subsequent efforts) centered on the Consortium pillars of technology, operations and safety.

Please visit our project pages and visit this site frequently, as we continue to add content.

Recent Updates:

Tuesday 3/20/2012 Winter WSRTC Steering Committee meeting held.	Friday 2/3/2012 WSRTC Steering Committee meeting to be held at the NWTC.	Thursday 9/1/2011 WSRTC Steering Committee meeting held.	Friday 8/26/2011 WSRTC Steering Committee meeting to be held at NRITS.	Friday 8/5/2011 WSRTC Steering Committee meeting held.	Friday 6/3/2011 Documents pages added.

Check back soon for more Western States Rural Transportation Consortium (WSRTC) updates.

UPDATE: Tuesday, March 20th, 2012

The Western States Rural Transportation Consortium held its winter Steering Committee meeting on February 9, 2012, in conjunction with the Northwest Transportation Conference on the campus of Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon. Click here to take a look at the meeting agenda.

After introductions and a quick overview of the main agenda items, Leann Koon and Doug Galarus provided an update on planning for the 2012 Western States Forum and a quick review of the tentative speaker agenda.

David Veneziano described the status of the Year 1 incubator projects – Survey of Western States Rural Safety Warning Devices and Regional ICM Planning. The group discussed survey logistics along with points to consider such as rural versus urban devices, system components, diversity of ITS devices deployed, location identification conventions, and high/low speed or divided highways. Upcoming work on the Regional ICM Planning project will focus on Emergency Operations Center protocols in each of the Consortium member states, as well as the initial development of the ICM planning process.

Next, Doug Galarus discussed the various updates and improvements made to the One Stop Shop (OSS) website. Load capacity and performance, traffic layers, and the long term support and maintenance of the website were discussed. Doug also provided a brief update on other projects that are ongoing or upcoming that might be of interest to the Consortium; these included Automated Safety Warning Controller, Professional Capacity Building for Communications, WeatherShare, Integration of AWOS with RWIS and Responder.

Doug Galarus discusses updates and improvements made to the OSS website.

After reviewing the pooled fund Task Orders, the meeting moved to discussion about the different Consortium meeting dates and venues. The next Consortium meeting will be in conjunction with the Western States Rural Transportation Technology Implementers Forum, June 12-14, 2012, in Yreka, California. The Consortium will meet again at the National Rural ITS Conference in Biloxi, Mississippi, in mid-September.

The Consortium meeting concluded with the roundtable discussion of the wide variety of rural ITS projects each of the member states are currently working on. The group engaged in dialogue on several subjects, sharing contacts and relevant experiences with different member states.

To review the meeting minutes, click here, or go to the Consortium’s Documents page. The presentation from the meeting is also on the Consortium’s Documents page.

The WSRTC mission, vision, and goals focus on Partnership, Technology, Research, and Education. To that end, Steering Committee members attended the Northwest Transportation Conference and presented in a couple different sessions. David Veneziano presented his research on Weather Based Variable Speed Limits in the Operations Strategies to Improve Safety session.

David Veneziano presents at the 2012 NWTC.

Screenshot from the NWTC presentation showing the objectives for the Weather Based Variable Speed Limits project.

The WSRTC was the subject of one of the presentations in the Rural ITS Applications session. David and Doug explained the origins and history of the Consortium, what the Consortium is and the challenges it addresses, along with the benefits it provides to the member states and the field of rural ITS. The team also described the numerous spinoff and incubator projects associated with the WSRTC as well as the focus on technology transfer through the Western States Forum and other WSRTC activities. Click here to review the WSRTC – A Partnership to Advance Rural ITS presentation or go to the Consortium documents page.

Screenshot from the WSRTC presentation at the Northwest Transportation Conference.

Consortium Contacts:

Caltrans Project Manager: Sean Campbell Chief, ITS Special Project Branch Caltrans Division of Research and Innovation 1227 O Street, PO Box 942873 Sacramento, CA 94273-0001 916-654-8868 916-657-4580 (fax) sean_campbell "at" dot.ca.gov www.dot.ca.gov/newtech/	Caltrans Project Champion: Ian Turnbull Chief, Office of ITS Engineering and Support Caltrans District 2 1657 Riverside Drive Redding, CA 96001 (530) 225-3320 (530) 225-3299 (fax) ian_turnbull "at" dot.ca.gov www.dot.ca.gov/dist2/
Caltrans Rural Program Steering Committee Chairman: Ed Lamkin Deputy District Director for Maintenance and Operations Caltrans District 2 PO Box 496073 1657 Riverside Drive Redding, CA 96049-6073 (530) 225-3545 Ed_Lamkin "at" dot.ca.gov www.dot.ca.gov/dist2/	Oregon DOT Lead: Galen McGill ITS Manager Oregon Department of Transportation 355 Capitol St. N.E. Salem, OR 97301-3871 503-986-4486 503-986-3055 (fax) Galen.E.MCGILL "at" odot.state.or.us http://www.oregon.gov/ODOT/HWY/ITS/
Washington State DOT Lead: Ted Bailey Signals, Illumination & ITS Engineer Washington State Department of Transportation PO Box 47344 310 Maple Park Avenue SE Olympia, WA 98504 (360) 705-7286 (360) 705-6826 (fax) BaileyTe "at" wsdot.wa.gov http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Operations/Traffic/	Nevada DOT Lead: Jonathan Dickinson Senior ITS Designer NDOT Maintenance and Operations 1263 So. Stewart Street Carson City, NV 89712 (775) 888-7560 (775) 888-7211 (fax) jdickinson "at" dot.state.nv.us http://www.nevadadot.com/
WTI Principal Investigator: David Veneziano Research Scientist Safety and Operations Western Transportation Institute (WTI) Montana State University PO Box 174250 Bozeman, MT 59717-4250 (406) 994-6320 (406) 994-1697 (fax) david.veneziano "at" coe.montana.edu www.westerntransportationinstitute.org	WTI co-Principal Investigator: Douglas Galarus Program Manager Systems Engineering, Development & Integration Western Transportation Institute (WTI) Montana State University - Bozeman PO Box 174250 Bozeman, MT 59717-4250 (406) 994-5268 (406) 994-1697 (fax) dgalarus "at" coe.montana.edu www.westerntransportationinstitute.org
FHWA Technical Liaison: Ray Murphy ITS Specialist US Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration Office of Technical Services 4749 Lincoln Mall Drive, Suite 600 Matteson, IL 60443 (708) 283-3517 ray.murphy "at" dot.gov www.fhwa.dot.gov/resourcecenter/teams/operations/index.cfm

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