Hello and welcome to the Talking Operations web conference on Active Traffic Management Coming to the Urban Partners' Cities: Minnesota and Seattle. My name is Jennifer Symoun and I will be giving a brief introduction to the web conferencing environment before turning the session over to Michael Kulbacki who we are very pleased to have as our moderator for today’s seminar. Please be advised that today’s seminar is being recorded. We will have 70 minutes allocated for the presenters and 30 minutes for question and answer. If you think of the question you can type it into the smaller tech stocks in the chat area on the left-hand side of your screen. Indicate your question is directed towards unless it is intended for all presenters. Make sure you are typing in the thin text box and not in the large area. Make sure you send it to everyone rather than as the presenters. The presenters will not be able to answer your questions during the presentation but Michael will use some of your questions for the question and answer session during the last 30 minutes of the seminar. The file containing the audio and visual portion of the seminar will be posted to the NTOC Web site. We encourage those of colleagues that cannot attend the presentation to use that recording. The presentation choose during a seminar are available for download in the lower left-hand corner of your screen and will also be posted to the NTOC Web site. The attendees will be notified of the presentations, closed captioning of this seminar. At this time of like to turn over to Michael Kulbacki, the moderator for Today's webcast. Hi, it is great to be here. I look for today discussion today on the Active Traffic Management program to go I am a field Operations engineer with the Montana division on a temporary two month rotation with the Office of operations and have been assisting FHWA with the FHWA Active Traffic Management Program. I would like to present our first presenter, . She is a responsible for providing guidance and direction and advancing national average traffic operations and management systems including at a traffic management-She received her bachelor's and master's of Science degree in civil and in civil engineering from the University of Maryland--A member of the Committee on HOV systems. Thank you, Michael. I am going to give an overview of the Active Traffic Management, and explain what ATM is and to consider deployment in the U.S.. I did most of you would agree that we cannot build our way out of congested port of the traffic congestion is getting worse Turkoman agencies are facing financial constraints to meet the transportation needs and often have a similar same as the Venice quote from the jury McGwire money, show me the money. With the financial constraints and increase needs to maintain and extend our transportation system, which explore innovative ways to finance projects and to increase efficiency of the system. As they U.S. DOT stated, contestant is not a fact of life. We need to aggressively fight ingestion per going to look into innovative and combined operational strategies to bring supply and demand into alignment. The concept of active traffic management is not one of the operational strategies that help to deal with what we already have to manage the ingestion. As I stated in the previous life, operational strategies include techniques to improve the efficiency of traffic flow and can have an impact on demand. For example, the image on the right is from [ indiscernible ] where drivers approaching the city get real-time information on the travel time by car and [ indiscernible ] in the center. Like other listed operational strategies in this light, Active Traffic Management can maximize the use of existing capacity and influence [ indiscernible ]. Here is a conceptual framework that is modified based on the Dutch model. One of the options is managing it demand. We can manage demand by influencing the mode and destination of choice. Also, we can influence the route and the [ indiscernible ] as well as the lane Joyce. Here are some of the strategies that we can use to impose those choices propose some of them are traffic management with the darker blue colors. As the ¶ demand Management--The combination with traffic and demand management based. For the active traffic management, we can look into the lane and speed control systems--The pricing system as a demand Management--As a combination of traffic and management as a active traffic management concept. In 2006, Federal Highway, ASHTO--Participants were from Minnesota, Washington, Texas, private sector in a few Federal Highway representatives. The original purpose was to learn about the European approach to congested management. The scan team developed a ATM definition and is defined as the ability to dynamically manage the current and nonrecurrent contestants based on prevailing traffic conditions. We are focusing on the term dynamically and also to the real-time traffic conditions. We are using integrated systems with new technology when we deploy the ATM strategies. So, why ATM? Will learn from the European experience as potential benefits of ATM include providing reliable chips, reduce congestion, provide enhanced travel information and provide additional capacity during congest in periods. Here is an overview of the ATM potential benefits. On the left side you can see the list of active traffic management strategies like speed harmonization, a temporary shoulder use, dynamic merge control. You can see a list of potential benefits in the columns. For example, for the speed harmonization, we can see the potential benefits for the increased throughput, increased reliability--Here are some of the ATM examples. I will give an explanation for each of the strategies. The first one I will go over is speed harmonization. It is an expert system to monitor the data coming from the deal Centers and automatically adjust the speed limit when decongestant threshold exists. Design entry will provide for speed limits and additional information. This strategy has been used in Germany since the 1970's and is also being considered and will be piloted in the Seattle area. Ted will provide more information in his presentation. The second example is temporary and shoulder use. It is typically deploy in conjunction with speed harmonization to address capacity bottlenecks in the three freeway network. It provides additional capacity during times of congestion and reduced travel speed. Currently, a temporary shoulder use in the U.S. is typical during a specific time of day, not based on the real time congestion condition. --Dynamically priced shoulder use and Ken will cover it in his presentation after mine. The third one is queue warning. It provides alerts and information to the travelers about the upcoming congestion and queueing by flashing the light and the sign activated on the various speed limit sign provoke the picture showed it is a typical diagram at a traffic management center operator will see and can monitor the flow of the traffic. The fourth example is a dynamic routing. --Information to the motorist--And appropriate route. I thing the U.S. has been doing really well in this area. We have 511 and some of the dynamics find out their postings travel time and incident Information. Here is a good example from the United Kingdom, the M42, how they are putting it together. They have the hard shoulder use on the left. They also have the refuge area for emergency pull off and call boxes, travel information signs on the overhead as well as the invariable speed limit over the entry. So, depending on the location and combination of strategies deployed, at specific benefits, Europe--Include the following. There is the average throughput increase from 3 to 7%. They have increased capacity between 3 to 22% and a decrease in accidents both in primary and secondary incidents. So, what is next, and how do we transfer of this ATM strategy and implement it in the U.S.? Currently, Federal Highway has a consultant on board to develop [ indiscernible ] on the current practice in the European countries as well as in the U .S.. From the skin and we have additional dialogue with the European countries. We will get a better understanding from the perspective about the benefits and implementation, lessons learned and using this information we will develop a guidebook and educational materials to increase the awareness, the ATM concept and the potential benefits. Also, outline some of the institutional and technical challenges that we might face when implementing ATM. In addition, we will also learn from the urban partners of the Minneapolis and Seattle experience of the ATM strategy deployment. We will develop some lessons learned case studies on this project. To those that are not familiar with the urban partnership agreement, the UPA program, I will take a few minutes to explain. This focus on the four complementary and new strategies, referring to it as the four Ts, tolling, transit, telecommuting and Technology. After a competitive evaluation process in 2007, at the USDOT announced the five program partners. They are Miami, New York City, Minneapolis, San Francisco and Seattle. Some of you might have heard that already New York City is no longer one of the urban partners because their legal [ indiscernible ] did not pass the--The USDOT has committed $853 million towards the Urban Partners to move forward. Some of you might also heard that the funding has been redistributed to the Urban Partners from the congested reduction program, Los Angeles and Chicago. So, this is a quick overview of active traffic management, ATM. If you want more information, you can download the 2006 International Traffic Management scan from the first Web Link. The Federal Highway also is offering a management travel demand workshop that is trying to see how we can bring the demand and supply into alignment. It also covers some of these strategies, different type of operation strategies including ATM. There is another international scan focusing on the managing travel demand and the scan report is available at this web link. For any more questions, you can contact one of us. Here is the e-mail and phone number. With that, that will conclude my presentation and I will take any questions at the end of the webinar. Of like to invite anyone, as we go to this presentation to put your comments in the chat area. As Jessie alluded to, the active traffic management--Measurable benefits in reducing congestion. Now, we will hear from a united state agencies that are spearheading the use of the strategies and enabling technologies in the U.S. broke off the first example is in Minneapolis, Minn.. I would like to introduce Kenneth Buckeye produce a program manager for value pricing with the Office of investment management with the Minnesota Department of Transportation. Has more than 20 years of experience. Most recently in his career at MnDOT, he has focused on volume pricing alternatives as a means to finance transportation systems and come back and then help manage too. Is to be determined on the most pressing research--Pay as you drive demonstration and mileage-Based user fees. Has a bachelor's degree from St. Cloud University and a-Is to pre--I present to you, Kenneth Buckeye. Thank you.It is my pleasure to be here with with our active traffic management audience this afternoon are morning, whatever the case might be. Let me jump right in here. Our active traffic management efforts release start at our regional traffic management center here in the Twin Cities. It is the brain center for our efforts. We have traffic management centers or RTMCs in our rural districts as well provoke they might be more or less robust than our regional management center here in the Twin Cities. Most of our effort, of course, is on our freeway system here in the Twin Cities. We do have some ability to actively manage our arterial system as well. A very important to mention that is, probably, not unique to any RTMC, but is very important in terms of coordination is our ability to dispatch from the same center, both the maintenance vehicles, our first response vehicles, EMT, and working very closely with the state control and local authorities, side-by-side to respond to incidents in a timely manner. We have about 40 engineers and professionals working at our RTMC in the Twin Cities. We have had some version. We have the latest version opened up in the late 90s, a new center in our Metro district office. We have been doing this since the early 70s. Our objectives are to maximize the number of vehicles on our freeway corridors and to minimize the delays and reduce crashes, improved or provide travel information through both changeable message signs and also radio information on a dedicated station and managed instance and special events and provide a to a stranded motorists. --Provide aid to a stranded motorists. Let's see per the computer is so for me. This next slide discusses the tools we use at our RTMC. We have over 400 cameras or 4500 loop detectors. We have the FIRST response 18, drivers and pickup trucks to tour the Twin Cities freeway system throughout the day. Will provide travel information through 511 and local radio and television stations, provide ramp meters. We have 107 changeable message signs. We are very active in managing our HOV and hot lane. We have the two corridors. We also have a dedicated or partnership with a local radio station as well, which are very important component of this system. We have 670 signals under our control at the RTMC as well, which we manage to provide maximum capacity on our state highway system outside of the freeways. We have an arterial management system that we are going to be deploying with our UPA project on a corridor on the southern end of the Twin Cities called Highway 13. We are going to deploy cameras, changeable message signs and do this to alert motorists to congestion that might be occurring on our principle UPA routes, which are I-394 and a trunk highway seven. I will show you those in a minute. We show that signal optimization provides extremely large benefits for the investment that we have to make, as you can see in these BC ratios of 20, 30 or better. We think this is a very important investment for us to make. Our first program--Our FIRST program, we have 12 to 14 tracks that are out on the system throughout most of the Day. We began this in 1987 with reroutes, but it has grown to 10 routes in the [ indiscernible ] period and over 22 miles in the system are covered. We operate it from a brick:00 a.m., the drivers are out there from 3:00 a.m. to 9:00 Monday through Friday and special hours on Saturday and Sunday, as well. We have wide coverage and highly supported program by the public with our FIRST responders. We installed our first round leaders in the Twin Cities in 1969 and today we have over 400 ramp meters in the Twin Cities, 190 of which operate in the morning of over 200 in the evening peak period. Most of our freeway system is covered with black leaders. Because we know that congestion takes a long time to clear once it has occurred, our route major algorithms are designed to operate so that they can more or less anticipated when the system is about to break down. Once they detect that kind of volume, and speeds through a particular area, they begin to ratchet down the signal system to restrict the number of vehicles entering at any given point on the system. We hope to-Our objective, of course, is to alleviate as much of that condition as possible and get traffic moving as quickly as possible. We have changeable message signs, over 100 of those on the system. They are very ventricle to the freeway operations in the Twin Cities. This sign says that a crash has occurred. Design, I believe, is pointing eastbound towards downtown Minneapolis saying that a crash has occurred on another route just ahead. The driver is advised of that. He still might want to take that route, or, there is a parallel corridor ahead if the driver is familiar with the system. 169 is a route that would provide access or provide mobility as well for that driver. We have hot lane and HOV systems in the Twin Cities, two corridors. I-394 is the east/west corridor that is right there. This is I-35W. I-35W is a corridor that is not one of the component of our UPA program, which I will describe in a few moments. The I-394 is 11 miles long and has 3 miles of reversible lanes dedicated to reversible lanes and eight Miles of non-Barrier separated directional Lanes. Before we converted those lanes to hot lanes, we saw very substantial violation rates. Now that they have been converted, we have seen the violation rate decline substantially and drivers are getting a substantial benefit. It was opened in 2005 as a hot lane, converted from HOV to a hot lane. We have leased-I should mention that this is quite a breakthrough, the conversion from FIRST to hot lane. We are a toll averse state. Most drivers had no experience with tolling except for their trips out of state, Illinois, Chicago area. There was a large opposition to this. It took years to kind of congealed this notion that maybe we have to try and optional tolling like I-394. It has been successful by almost any measure that you want to look. Yet, we recognize that it is a very modest project and hoped to expand on the learning from this project to use it in our UPA I-35W corridor. We have leased 11,000 transponders in the corridor. We have seen as much as 33% increase in volume throughput through this facility. Previously, it suffered from the empty Lane syndrome that some HOV lanes suffer from. We have substantially increased the throughput during the peak period. We operated from 6:00 to 10:00 a.m. in the eastbound direction and 2 to 7:00 p.m. in the westbound direction. As you can see from this photograph here, indeed directional lanes, the 8 miles, our separation is a double white stripe buffer, to foot buffer, 8 inches, each stride is eight engines with an eight into space in between. The first attempt to do pricing on such a facility, we have concluded that it works. Other metropolitan areas around the country are kind of picking up on not and going to be developing their own projects. State Route 167 and [ indiscernible ] is set to open using this design. We have a very high acceptance rate for this project, the approval rating in the range of 80% for those of that use the facility as a HOV or toll paying users and 67% overall approval of the facility. We felt it was a very important to give-Make this facility work. With new enforcement was a critical component and felt it was important to give Officers every advantage that they could get to. So, we have a pretty robust enforcement plan. First of all, visual enforcement is still a major component of this enforcement plan on I-394. We have supplemented that's with enforcement beacons, a beacon on the gantries, as a vehicle with a transponder passes under it. By the way, HOV transit vehicles to not have to have a transponder at this facility. We have also required the use of [ indiscernible ] to use the facility. The provider has a very robust technology that they provided to us. It enables us to equip our enforcement vehicles with both enforcement transponder Peters, which are very simple devices in each vehicle that can detect occurrence of a transponder. Another much more robust technology called an enforcement reader, which can detect whether or not that transponder was engaged at the last antenna to avoid cheating. It has been very effective for us. We have also provided supplemental enforcement on the facility for all of the hours that we operate it. The transit advantages. Our goal is to provide faster and more reliable transit commutes. We provide extensive express bus service in certain corridors, particularly the I-394 corridor as well as the I-35W corridor. We have over 250 miles of bus only shoulders in the metro area in the Twin Cities product is the largest area of bus only shoulder areas in the country. They are 10-foot shoulders which is a very, very narrow shoulder for a bus to be driving on, but we have provided the drivers with some assist technologies that has proven to be quite effective. It allows drivers to stay and on the shoulder during inclement weather when the lanes might be covered with snow. It also provides drivers, entering a downtown area, with the ability to pull up very close to a curb, sometimes they can get within one inch of a curb, which adds to the user's safety on the facility. We have equipped-Right now, not one of our Metro transit buses with this, but all of the Minnesota Valley Transit fleet will be equipped with this technology when the UPA is fully and lamented. We also provide park and right lots and each of the ramp meter bypasses as part of the transit advantages. Another endeavor that we are undertaking that we think will be of great benefit and will employ of active traffic management is the integrated quarter Management Project on I-394. The corridor is bounded on the North Side Highway 55 and on the south side, Highway seven. Our goal is to operate and optimize the entire system using ITS technology. We want to give drivers advance information on this corridors so they can make decisions on what route to drive to to most effectively expedite their trip, and as well to give all of the agencies an integrated way to response to incidents. We think this has great potential. Let me talk about our Urban Partners in the Twin Cities. Jessie describe what the Urban Partners is all about. We received or will receive $133 million in federal funding when all of our state authority is in place. Most of it is in place right now. The legislature is still in session. We are looking for some additional clarity on some of the things that we are attempting to do. We do not see any problems and reaching not. We are doing, as I said, HOV to HOT on I-35W. We are doing a price dynamic shoulder piece, which I will describe of here. We are doing transit improvement plaits and park and right facilities, which will be a clip with bus arrival time information, real-time information, transit users will be provided an incentive to use our electronic go to card, which during congested periods will provide an incentive to use our Park and Ride lots and get on the bus for a reduced fare depending on the level of congestion on the facility. Of course, technology is spread throughout the corridor and throughout all of these projects. Our goal for telecommuting is to sign up 500 telecommuters in the corridor, as well. I should also add that Highway 77 over here is also an integral part of our UPA strategies. We are implementing several of the strategy perhaps in that corridor, as well. As I mentioned, I-35W conversion is on the southern section of I-35W which starts out of the Minnesota River. Trunk highway 13 is over here which will be outfitted with technology to give drivers information about which North/South route they should take if they are entering that facility. The I-35W corridor or trunk highway 77 alternative or vice versa, depending on the direction that they are coming from. We also realize that with this HOV to HOT conversion, this first segment, we are going to have to provide supplemental enforcement. We intend to do that using the revenue collected from the facility, which we think will be more than adequate. The second important segment of this project is what has been called the cross-Town preconstruction. This here is Crosstown 62. This is being reconstructed. The Construction limited extent further south and further north to make that separation work effectively. This segment, unfortunately, will not open in the 2009. Not, but should open in 2010. That will provide continuity for the HOT optional toll paying users coming from the south, all the way into downtown. We have another challenging section, which is this section north of the Crosstown, north of 42nd Street. This is a section that we are using our price dynamic shoulder Lane concept on. The section, this blue section will have four lanes with an added price dynamic shoulder lane when it is operated during the peak hours or Pete. S. One of our challenges is going to be that the transition on the northern end. We have borrowed this idea from the visit that Jessie was talking about, the 2006 scan that our district engineer was able to go on. He brought it back. The example he saw was the M42 example in England. This is a very good illustration. It shows the price Financial on the left lane, as it will be on our Project. The right Lanes over here are mixed up, of course, because it is the British example. This picture shows the lane, the dynamic shoulder being closed and the subsequent picture comes up here. The subsequent picture will show it being opened. It is not coming up for me. When it is open, it will show an advisory speed limits. I think it is coming up now. There it is. It is showing an advisory speed limit. Now, in England, of course, it is a dynamic shoulder. We are adding another feature two it. We are pricing it. This next slide shows how we intend to do that. The changeable message signs that you see, the advisory speed limit signs, will be posted over all of the lanes. Four continuous lanes all the way into downtown will be provided. The signs will have the ability to provide both advisory speed limits, Lane control, meaning we can open them or close them, if needed for an incident. We hope to provide some of that speed harmonization that Jessie had mentioned as we know that we can with speed harmonization, perhaps, provide more throughput on a given section of Highway. Then, we will have great flexibility as to what those signs, what information those signs communicate. This line will also have great flexibility. It will also have to show it closed at times and might also show arrows pointing to a merge that the driver should be doing to operate this lane as a shoulder during the off-peak period or when as needed for a shoulder. So, with that, I will conclude my presentation. On this final slide there is some contact information if anyone by to discuss this after the webinar. Thank you. Thank you, Ken. I appreciate the presentation. Again, if there are any questions, we are getting chat and questions which we will be addressing at the end of the second presentation here. I wanted everyone to recognize that we will start to see some underlying themes with the use of ATM. One the maximize the underutilization of capacity, using prevailing condition data to effect more effective strategies for throughput and overall maximization of existing infrastructure. As it does to the presentation by Ken, we are utilizing the existing infrastructure to utilize ATM and maximize throughput and getting traffic flow improved. The next presenter, from Washington state, Ted Trepanier, Ted Trepanier is the state traffic engineer for at WDOT and has 24 years of experience to go his extensive background--Provides a broad debt of experience and knowledge to support and lead to 5--Some of the more reason responsibilities include overseeing toll operations on the New to, bridge and the 1st--Which is opening this Saturday. He got his bachelor's degree in civil engineering from Washington State University, has a master's of civil engineering and--I would like to present Ted. Thank you. Good day to everyone from Washington State. I am glad to have this opportunity to talk with you today. So, just very quickly, what I am going to cover today is where active traffic management fits into the biggest untreated picture in our congested strategies in Washington. I will talk about some studies that we have conducted to get some cost to benefit type of information related to active traffic management, then where we are going first, what are the first products to implement active traffic management in the Seattle area. The bigger picture.What are we doing now. Have a three part strategy to address the congestion. We have had the strategies for some time. What is different here is we are now actually trying to talk about them together so we can emphasize what we are doing and how they interplay and relate with each other. Three basic strategies are to add capacity, manage demand and to operate the existing facilities as efficiently as possible. Of course, the ingestion is simply one of the response abilities and priorities that the department has. We are also very concerned with preserving the system, maintaining the pavement and structures that we have out there, a traveler safety, not one of our primary response abilities, and mobility, reliability and stewardship of the program are the larger picture. So, . On the three blades of our propeller, the first one is to add capacity. And so, um, for us right now we have really the largest program that the department has ever seen, to date. Very robust construction program. Delivering nearly 400 individual projects that will provide both safety and congestion benefits all around the state, focused on the central Puget sound. Managing demand, a very important component. Our commute trip reduction program. We have the largest van pool program in the nation. It's increased. Still increasing demand for van pools. Robust park and ride facilities. Many of the facilities are often full. And need to be expanded as well. Starting this Saturday, um, our first HOT lane. So under operating efficiency, which is where we see active traffic management fitting in. Not quite as many meters as Minnesota. We have identified places where we need to expand the system. It's still a growing system. Realtime traveler information. We've one of the premiere websites as in the country. This past winter when we had events with the weather in Washington we saw individual page views topping 18 million page views in a single day on the website. Accessing our 500 traffic cameras. Very robust instance response program. Nearly 53,000 responses last year for that program. We also recognize traffic sign retime, being a core function. Not ignoring retiming signals. In the state the D.O.T. is responsible for nearly 900 of the signals across our system. We have about 200 miles of HOV system. We have our first HOT lane opening up this Saturday, 167. It will be very interesting to be a part of that. Active traffic management, got the introduction here earlier today. Really builds off what you are already doing -- what we're already doing. We're looking at the overhead [ Indiscernible ]. I will touch on each one of these the individual elements of active traffic management and what we're looking at. And how we're looking to implement in this state. So one of the first things that we did, we conducted a two phase study. The first phase was to identify a possible corridor for analysis. We looked at all of the major corridors to see not only would this corridor, would it be a good fit? But do we have data that would allow us to do cost/benefit type work? I405 was selected. To give you an idea of where that is, um, that's this section right here. If I can get my drawing tool to work. We're talking about that segment of the interstate system in the central Puget sound.