NOCoE Guest Commentary
By Bud Gruber, Chairman, Towing and Recovery Association of America, Motor Club Communication Committee

The Center welcomes reflection and commentary from all stakeholders of the TSMO community and is pleased to share this week the thoughts of Bud Gruber from the Towing and Recovery Association of America. Your comments to Mr. Gruber’s thoughts are appreciated. If you have a guest column you would considered for the newsletter, please email me at tkern@transporationops.org

Thomas E. Kern, Managing Director

Highway Safety and Quick Scene Clearances!  If you are serious, think about this!
 
I am a small Towing Company in South Florida that is involved in many associations, groups (TIM, NTIM, NUG, NOCoE, I-95, SHRP-2, TRAA, ERSI, FEMA, ETC.) and other types of committees throughout the country. I am a strong advocate of Safety for All!  We, the towing professionals are an intricate part of safety on all highways. Some of the safety systems in place include some considerations for our industry but most of them seem to leave us out.
 
I am curious as to why, in all of the nation’s Transportation Departments, there is not a “Towing & Recovery Advisory Committee” designated by each DOT.  It seems that the Federal and State governments need to get the Towing & Recovery Industry involved.  Remember this:  If we, the towing professionals, don’t do our jobs quickly, safely and properly, no one is going anywhere!  The lack of great qualified towing professionals would paralyze this country in a short amount of time!
 
I believe our expertise could help form a better policy for the safety that we are all striving for.  Maybe being “The Private Entity” has ruled us out but I believe there are a lot of great towing professionals that would like to become involved, even at our own expense. Make us “part of” rather than taking the chance of “us just being the clean up people!" There are many benefits of working and communicating together! To sum it up, motorists need all of us, working together, for safety!!

Use of High-Resolution Signal Controller Data to Identify Red Light Running
By Steven M. Lavrenz, PhD, EIT

This is a follow-up to my December post on signalized intersection safety. In particular, I would like to focus on a topic which I recently presented at this year’s Annual TRB Meeting. It centers on the subject of red light running (RLR), which is a major safety concern for public agencies.

The paper that this work is based on is titled “Use of High-Resolution Signal Controller Data to Identify Red Light Running,” and was submitted for publication and presentation at TRB as paper No. 16-0209. I am grateful, along with my co-authors, to receive this year’s "Exceptional Paper Award" from the Traffic Signal Systems Committee (AHB25) in recognition of this publication. Please click here to read more.

Oregon DOT Needs Your Help Developing a TSM&O Performance Plan

Kittleson and Associates, Inc. is assisting the Oregon Department of Transportation in developing a TSM&O Performance Measures Plan to support integration of Transportation System Management & Operations (TSM&O) into day-to-day agency operations, staff development, capital project prioritization (funding), and information to help intra-agency, policy-makers, and traveling public.

This is where you come in. You’ve been identified as a leader in TSM&O and we are hoping to speak with you and gather any relevant documentation or actions taken, particularly on the following: Please click here to read more.

New Connected Vehicle Data Sets for the Research Data Exchange
By Shane Trimmer

The USDOT’s Intelligent Transportation Joint Program Office announced the release of new connected vehicle data sets on the Research Data Exchange (RDE) under The Safety Pilot Model Deployment (SPMD) Program. The RDE now houses two months of data from the SPMD program and has been made available on the RDE website (http://www.its-rde.net). Please click here to read more.

Register with NOCoE and Join the Discussion Forum!

We hope you find the NOCoE (http://www.transportationops.org/) a place where you can share information as well as receive it – we encourage you to register and share in our discussion forum your latest work plan, specific challenge you are facing with an operations practice or new technology, or techniques you’ve used to empower your staff. This is your transportation operations resource and we are interested in your feedback to continually improve our porfolio of services. Please feel free to contact the Center with your suggestions, either through the website or at TKERN@transportationops.org.