Setting out the ITS stall at Pittsburgh plenary

Yesterday’s Opening Plenary saw Google’s Chris Urmson give the keynote address and ITS America announcing the winners of its 2015 Best of ITS Awards.
June 2, 2015 Read time: 2 mins
Google’s Chris Urmson

Yesterday’s Opening Plenary saw 1691 Google’s Chris Urmson (pictured) give the keynote address and ITS America announcing the winners of its 2015 Best of ITS Awards. Urmson told the packed auditorium that Americans collectively waste the equivalent of 162 lifetimes every day while stuck in traffic, creating a need for Google’s self-driving car.

He also said that test drivers were told that the prototype vehicle they were in could fail at any point yet started to trust the tech after just 15 minutes. Soon they were relaxed enough to enjoy the opportunity to do other things while traveling.

He also told of the difficulties in developing reliable systems to detect the world around them, including cyclists’ hand signals and knowing the difference between the flashing lights on a police car and those on a school bus. However, he said there remains the need to recognise anomalous situations that might arise – including a duck running around the road pursued by a lady in a mobility scooter.

Afterwards, The Best of ITS Awards presentation recognised projects that demonstrate specific and measurable outcomes and exemplified innovation by establishing a ‘new dimension of performance.

Oregon DOT won the Best New Innovative Products, Services or Applications award for its ‘OR 217 Active Traffic Management’ for implementing ITS including as queue warning, variable advisory speed signs and grip sensors to counter some 200 accidents per year.

The Sustainability and Transportation award honoured Utah DOT’s ‘Winter Road Weather Index’ project while 378 Cubic Transportation Systems and the Chicago Transit Authority took the Partnership Deployment award for its ‘Chicago Transit Authority Ventura Update: Open and Loving It’ project. 213 Qualcomm Technologies and 5400 Honda R&D Americas won the Research, Design and Innovation award for their ‘DSRC-based-Vehicleto- Pedestrian and Other Vulnerable Road User Safety Project.’

ITS America’s President and CEO, Regina Hopper said: “These companies are moving the industry forward and proving that they will improve our quality of life.”

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Los Angeles Express Lanes links multiple modes of transportation
    January 25, 2012
    The Big Apple's loss is the City of Angels's gain, according to Ken Philmus
    Read More
  • Crossing the line: managing traffic across jurisdictions
    June 18, 2024
    The US will eventually have a fully-digitised transportation network, with traffic management devices talking to each other across massive distances. It’s really a question of pain points on the road to full deployment, explains Mark Talbot of Q-Free
    Read More
  • Vaisala's RoadAI can optimise maintenance
    August 20, 2019
    Alerts for natural disasters are ones that most of us would rather do without, writes Adam Hill. But the ITS industry still needs help to deal with more common meteorological issues Google Maps has added SOS alerts to its service. For those of us more used to using the phone app to navigate from a metro station to an unfamiliar restaurant, this may seem extreme. But this is not what Google has in mind. Its SOS messages are for “hurricane forecast cones, earthquake shake-maps and flood forecasts”. That
    Read More
  • Telematics Update Awards 2012 winners announced
    June 7, 2012
    Telematics Update has announced the 12 winners of its Annual Telematics Update Awards at the Telematics Detroit 2012 Conference & Exhibition. The entries were judged by a selection of independent consultants and industry experts.
    Read More

Highlighted Content