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:

Thursday 4/4/2013 WSRTC holds winter Steering Committee meeting.	Monday 3/4/2013 Winter WSRTC Steering Committee meeting to be held.	Wednesday 11/7/2012 WSRTC at NRITS 2012.	Thursday 9/6/2012 WSRTC Steering Committee heading to NRITS!	Thursday 7/26/2012 Annual WSRTC Steering Committee meeting held at WSRTTIF.	Wednesday 6/6/2012 WSRTC Steering Committee to meet at the Western States Forum.

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

UPDATE: Thursday, April 4th, 2013

The WSRTC held its annual winter Steering Committee meeting on March 8th, 2013, via teleconference. Fifteen participants from all four Consortium states (California, Oregon, Nevada, Washington) were on the call. Take a look at the meeting agenda here or on the Consortium’s Documents page.

David Veneziano opened the meeting with a welcome and an overview of the meeting’s purpose and agenda. Introductions were made by all of the participants.

Leann Koon gave an update on the plans for the 2013 Western States Forum. Registration is open and logistics are being put into place. This year, the agenda will include diverse topics and presentations from five different states.

The group discussed the travel task orders and how best to incorporate and administer remaining and future funds. A no-cost time extension for Task Order 2 (One Stop Shop) will be pursued to cover another full bad weather/winter season.

David discussed the progress of the current incubator projects, providing updates on the safety warning devices/systems synthesis and the regional ICM project. Both projects are progressing and the group had several items to contribute in follow-up. In preparation for the group’s selection of an applicable study route, a white paper will be produced about the ICM project and its approach. The safety warning devices/systems synthesis has received positive feedback with a number of respondents expressing strong interest in receiving the final report. Deliverables for these incubator projects will be posted here upon completion so check back soon.

A number of ideas for incubator projects were proposed and discussed for the next round of projects. You can review the current incubator project idea list here and in the project section of the website.

Doug Galarus described WTI project work that would be of interest to the group including Automated Safety Warning Controller, Professional Capacity Building (PCB) for Communications, OSS, WeatherShare, Integration of Aviation AWOS with RWIS, and WeatherShare Integration with QuickMap. The meeting concluded with the traditional roundtable discussion about Rural ITS and related projects each of the member states are working on. All of the states are busy designing, installing, and deploying a large number of ITS projects in rural areas and the roundtable served to encourage dialogue and the sharing of 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.

The next meeting of the WSRTC will be held just prior to the start of the 2013 Western States Forum on June 18th.

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: Ron Vessey, P.E. ITS Field Operations Engineer Washington State Department of Transportation PO Box 47344 310 Maple Park Avenue SE Olympia, WA 98504-7344 (360) 705-7948 (360) 705-6826 (fax) vesseyr "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: Nathaniel T. Price ITS / Operations Engineer Oregon Division and FHWA Resource Center 530 Center St NE, Suite 420 Salem, OR 97301 (503) 316-2566 (503) 399-5838 (fax) nathaniel.price "at" dot.gov www.fhwa.dot.gov/resourcecenter/teams/operations/index.cfm

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