WSRTC Update - July 26th, 2013

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UPDATE: Friday, July 26th, 2013

The annual Steering Committee meeting for the Western States Rural Transportation Consortium convened on June 18, 2013, just before the start of the 8th annual Western States Forum in Yreka, California. The meeting agenda can be reviewed here or on the Consortium’s Documents page.

2013 Annual Meeting of the WSRTC.  Counter clockwise from upper left:  Ron Vessey, Washington State DOT; Jeff McRae, Caltrans Headquarters; Jon Dickinson, Nevada DOT; Ed Lamkin, Caltrans District 2; Ian Turnbull, Caltrans District 2; Sean Campbell, Caltrans DRISI; Doug Spencer, Oregon DOT; David Veneziano, WTI.

Photo by Doug Galarus

The meeting was called to order with a welcome and introductions were made around the group. Representatives from all four member states, WTI, and the FHWA joined the meeting.

WTI provided an overview of the upcoming Western States Forum. Nine speakers were on the agenda for a full technical program on a good variety of topics. Rural ITS engineers and practitioners from six different states attended this year’s Forum – California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington. You can review the technical content from the 2013 Forum as well as earlier Forums on the Forum website.

A new task order started on May 1st and will run through October 31, 2014. This will provide key support for the Western States Forum. The One Stop Shop task order has also been extended through September of 2014 in order to accommodate testing and evaluation through another complete bad weather season. The group discussed various administrative aspects of the Pooled Fund, website enhancements, and some technical details for various projects.

David Veneziano reported on the status and progress of the Survey of Safety Warning Devices and the Regional ICM Planning incubator projects.

The final contacts are being made to gather information on safety warning devices and a draft synthesis report will be ready for review and comment around late August. The project has also been selected for presentation at the 2013 NRITS conference.

Meeting discussion focused on the Regional ICM Planning project and choosing a demonstration corridor or corridors. Criteria and some different examples were discussed. Nominations will be collected and the group will make a decision this summer. The target date for the draft report for review and comment is the later part of September.

Doug Galarus discussed completed, current and upcoming research projects of interest to the group. These included Automated Safety Warning Controller, Professional Capacity Building (PCB) for Communications, OSS Phase 2, WeatherShare Phase 3, Integration of Aviation AWOS with RWIS Phase 2, and WeatherShare Integration with Caltrans QuickMap.

The meeting concluded with the traditional roundtable discussion about Rural ITS and related projects each of the member states are working on. The group engaged in dialogue on several subjects, sharing contacts and relevant experiences on a variety of ITS technologies.

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.

Watch for an update about the Western States Forum on the Forum’s project page!

The next meeting of the WSRTC will be August 28th, 2013, at the conclusion of the National Rural ITS Conference in St. Cloud, Minnesota. The presentation on the Safety Warning Devices incubator project is scheduled on Wednesday (8/28/2013) at 10:30 AM in Session G2: Automated Safety Warning Systems.