Skip to main content

ITS awards for Montana university projects

The One-Stop Shop for Traveller Information (OSS), a website that integrates weather and road information from multiple western states, developed at Montana State University’s Western Transportation Institute (WTI), has been awarded an international award from the Intelligent Transportation Society of America (ITS America). The OSS provides travellers with current road information that does not stop at jurisdictional boundaries. Combined with real-time weather information, the OSS provides motorists with
September 26, 2014 Read time: 2 mins
The One-Stop Shop for Traveller Information (OSS), a website that integrates weather and road information from multiple western states, developed at Montana State University’s Western Transportation Institute (WTI), has been awarded an international award from the Intelligent Transportation Society of America (560 ITS America).

The OSS provides travellers with current road information that does not stop at jurisdictional boundaries. Combined with real-time weather information, the OSS provides motorists with a seamless decision-making tool for maintaining and enhancing traveller safety and mobility.

One of two WTI projects to be nominated as finalists for the ITS America Best New Innovative Practice awards, OSS won in the Research, Design and Innovation category. The other WTI nominee, the Automated Safety Warning System Controller (ASWSC) project, was a finalist in the Rural ITS Project category.

The ASWSC is a general-purpose system that warns drivers of hazards such as icy curves and high winds. Prior to the ASWSC, warning systems were unique implementations that used one-of-a-kind software for control. Designed from the beginning as an open system, the ASWSC greatly expands the capability of transportation warning systems.

According to Doug Galarus, senior research scientist and manager of WTI’s Systems Engineering, Integration and Development Program, both projects represent the best of what is possible at WTI. A university transportation centre focused on rural transportation issues, WTI is a collaborative research partnership involving MSU’s College of Engineering, the 7318 Montana Department of Transportation and California’s 3879 Caltrans.

“The recognition from ITS on both of these projects is a welcome honour for all the hard work from everyone involved at MSU, as well as all those at the Caltrans Division of Research, Innovation and System Information, Caltrans District 2 and the Western States Rural Transportation Consortium,” Galarus said. “I give full credit for these systems to our partners at Caltrans – they envisioned the ASWSC and OSS and set us up for successful development and implementation. This was critical to making these systems work properly and to ensuring and enhancing the safety of the travelling public.”

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Iteris to synchronise traffic signals in Anaheim
    July 26, 2012
    Iteris has been was awarded a traffic signal synchronisation services contract, valued at just under US$1 million, from the city of Anaheim, California. The project requires the deployment of ITS upgrades and optimised traffic signal timing along Lincoln Avenue/Nohl Ranch Road through the cities of Anaheim and Orange. Under the contract, the company is responsible for equipment procurement, integration and signal timing design, implementation, and support services at 46 intersections. Work on the project is
  • Houston traffic technology ‘going global’
    December 17, 2012
    A real-time traffic data collection system developed by the Texas A&M University Transportation Institute (TTI) is going nationwide and could go global, according to the university. The development, known as AWAM (Anonymous Wireless Address Matching), uses the first portion of the MAC address from anonymous wireless devices, such as Bluetooth-enabled devices, carried in vehicles to measure the travel time between two points along freeways and arterial roads in rural and urban environments. It provides real-
  • ‘Free’ power for signs, shelters and so much more
    March 17, 2016
    David Crawford looks at the sunny side of the street. Solar power has been relatively slow in entering the transport sector, but a current blossoming of activity bodes well for the large-scale harnessing of an alternative energy that is zero-emission at source and, in practical terms, infinitely renewable. Traffic management and traveller information systems, and actual vehicles, are all emerging as areas for deployment. Meanwhile roads themselves are being viewed as new-style, fossil fuel-free ‘power stati
  • Cooperative driving will become common by 2020, say researchers
    July 1, 2015
    The international Celtic Plus Co-operative Mobility Services of the Future (CoMoSeF) project which, involved the development of data exchange between vehicles and infrastructure, has just presented its findings. The resulting communication system provides drivers with real time information on road weather, road conditions and incidents. During the project a cooperative roadside weather monitoring station run by the Finnish Meteorological Institute relays the latest reports – and weather updates covering