Border-Wide Assessment of Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) Technology—Current and Future Concepts
Final Report
CHAPTER 8. CONCLUSIONS
The Conclusions section is divided into two main areas. The first one presents conclusions from the scan, organized in five areas that were analyzed. The second section includes the conclusions from the two workshops that were conducted as part of this research.
Scan Conclusions
Border Operations
The border-crossing process for passenger and commercial vehicles at the U.S. northern and southern borders is complicated due to the number of stakeholders that participate in the process, involving two countries, private and public sectors, and all levels of government.
Various stakeholders that operate at the land border environment are implementing ITS technologies. However, there is little or no coordination among stakeholders to develop standards that could lead to an integrated, interoperable system, capable of sharing resources and perhaps information. One example of this is the use of the RFID tags, where CBP is using the tag on commercial vehicles to control user fees. The same type of tag is being used for tolling purposes at some commercial crossings, on both sides of the border. Various states are using the same technology to expedite vehicle inspection at the border. This lack of coordination leads to having vehicles with multiple, similar or identical RFID tags.
There are examples of a coordinated bi-national effort like the project currently underway at the proposed Otay Mesa East crossing in California. SANDAG is developing a bi-national ITS pre-deployment strategy that will incorporate the use of ITS technologies in the San Diego/Tijuana region.
Tolling at Land Border Crossings
Toll interoperability at the U.S. – Mexico border is limited to the local level between nearby U.S. border crossings, and no interoperability exists between U.S. and Mexican tolling agencies. Although a few operators are having preliminary discussions aimed at becoming interoperable, this study generally did not find a concerted effort towards interoperability. The primary reason for this is the complexity of dealing with foreign customers and agencies.
In terms of tolling technology, most of the U.S. – Mexico border crossings do have some form of AVI even though is not always RFID-based AVI. However, several U.S. border crossings are planning to upgrade to RFID AVI in the near future. It is also expected that new border crossings will select RFID as their AVI technology solution. Interviews with selected border-crossing operators indicated that they are following 5.9 GHz DSRC developments closely but know of no concrete plans in the near future.
Traffic Management and Traveler Information
The scan revealed that sharing of real-time traffic management data and ITS usage between agencies from both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border has been limited, compared to U.S.-Canada sharing. No bi-national TMCs along the U.S.-Mexico border were identified, and what communication there is between agencies is limited to methods such as radio and mobile phones. Data and information sharing in real-time between border agencies have not been developed due to funding and institutional constraints.
U.S.-Mexico border agencies have deployed ITS solutions only to a very limited degree with the specific purpose of incident management around border crossings. Special events at and around border crossings (e.g., concerts, cultural and sporting events, major holydays) are planned ahead using ad-hoc meetings between bi-national agencies of all levels. Each agency lays out its subsequent roles according to its jurisdictions to assist traffic management during the event.
The FHWA and other state agencies are in the process of implementing several ITS technologies to measure border and crossing times for commercial vehicles along the U.S. southern border.
The use of technologies such as RFID, smart phones, wireless networks, radar traffic sensors, and vehicle waveform identification has shown improvements and has shown tremendous potentials for collection of wait and crossing times at the border.
Archived Data Management
A centralized repository of archived data would significantly reduce data redundancy, reduce data collection and storage cost, and increase efficiency of data retrieval.
There is a need for highly granular border crossing data by state and local agencies. In addition, local agencies need information such as queue lengths, wait times, and crossing times. This information is normally obtained during a relatively short period of data collection at the border.
Emerging Technologies
The USDOT Connected Vehicle Program is a key building block for FMCSA’s objective of significantly expanding the number of inspections that are conducted each year and the base of data on which to make performance-based enforcement decisions.
The WRI initiative involves emerging technologies used in the United States that have been tested with outstanding results for examining the condition of the vehicle and driver by assessing data collected by on-board systems.
Other emerging technologies that have implementation potential at border crossings in the near future come from initiatives that include the DMA Program, C-TIP, and CVII.
Conclusions from Workshops
A conclusion from the first workshop was that a key element for the successful implementation of ITS technologies is to identify policy, legal, and institutional barriers to implementation. Given that Federal, State, and local agencies from two countries as well as private-sector stakeholders operate at the border, it is difficult and time-consuming to overcome these non-technical barriers. Another conclusion from the workshop was the realization that it is crucial to understand stakeholder needs prior to the implementation of any technology.
The main conclusions from the second workshop, in which vendors and other stakeholders presented their experiences, were:
- Utilizing the advanced V2I capability of 5.9 GHz DSRC to allow bi-directional communication capability between the vehicle and the border-crossing systems is a technology that has potential for border crossing operations.
- The future of tolling will likely be “tag free” but lean heavily on DSRC. A transponder will merge with other electronics (smartphones, navigation devices, or a vehicle’s OBU) for customer convenience. These devices will be interoperable, open standard, and capable of performing multiple tasks.
