This last month has been very hectic for many of us. The AASHTO Spring Meeting, the ITS America Annual Meeting, the AASHTO Subcommittee on TSM&O’s (STSMO) Annual Meeting, the V2I Deployment Coalition Conference, several ITS State Chapter Annual Meetings, the TRB RTSMO Mid-Year Meeting and finally the AASHTO Subcommittee on Traffic Engineering Annual Meeting. WOW…what a month! 

I participated in some of these meetings and they were both well attended and successful. It takes a great deal of time, effort and  attention to detail to organize a successful meeting, and my appreciation and many thanks to those responsible. Congratulations also to ITS America for yet another successful annual meeting. Pittsburgh was an excellent choice for this year’s conference. 

Congratulations to the Winners of the 2015 “Best of ITS” Awards:

• Best New Innovative Product, Service, or Application, Oregon Department of Transportation, "OR 217 Active Traffic Management"
• Best New Innovative Practice - Sustainability and Transportation, Utah Department of Transportation, "Winter Road Weather Index"
• Best New Innovative Practice - Partnership Deployment, Cubic Transportation Systems and the Chicago Transit Authority, "Chicago Transit Authority Ventura Update: Open and Loving It"
• Best New Innovative Practice - Research, Design and Innovation, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and Honda R&D Americas, Inc., "Honda and Qualcomm DSRC-based-Vehicle-to-Pedestrian (V2P) and Other Vulnerable Road User Safety Project."

STSMO’s annual meeting was also very well-attended. It got off to a great start with some powerful messages from several leaders of state DOTs, followed by some very engaging breakout sessions.  STSMO has added an additional technical working group on Connected Vehicles. NOCoE looks forward to working with each of these groups in identifying key topics of interest to you, and serving as your conduit of information and knowledge as they generate relevant products.

Another noteworthy milestone of the past month was that on June 4th & 5th a large number of  representatives from public agencies including OEM, academia, and the consulting industry gathered to discuss V2I deployment.  Although much discussion has evolved in the recent past regarding V2I, this event could be the start of a nationally growing  concerted effort towards V2I deployment.

I would like to re-emphasize that NOCoE has many services to offer, including - our “In-person” peer-to-peer exchange. Our first peer exchange occurred in Seattle on June 15th. Click here to read more about it. The next NOCoE peer exchange will take place in Tennessee on July 15th and 16th.

There are two other items that I would like to mention. The first pertains to the Center’s approach to communications moving forward. You will witness more e-mails offering you ways the Center can be of help to you; these will hopefully help to keep those of you who don’t visit the website on a regular basis to stay updated. Secondly, I was approached by Laurie Radow of FHWA about hosting and archiving webinars on special events (for example, the Papal Visit in Philadelphia, the RNC and/or DNC Convention). By sharing our collective experiences, we can serve as a resource to help agencies who are charged with hosting these types of events in the future. The Center will archive these webinars so that you will have access to them.

In summary, the Center’s success is heavily dependent on creating content of substance that can be quickly disseminated among all its subscribers. That is why it’s imperative that we receive your input regarding what “YOU THINK” are key topics of interest, and how best you would like to have the information disseminated. We’re here to serve you as the source for traffic operations, and therefore I look forward to receiving your thoughts and suggestions. Contact me at dmotiani@transportationops.org.

Thank you and have a great Fourth of July Holiday weekend.