Walking and Jugging only, Please

Photo by: mrjames113083

At Santa Monica, California, the place known for its beautiful beach and sun-drenched residential areas, joggers and walkers might not be able to do stretching, situps, push-ups, and a lof more, on traffic median anymore. According to the news, Where the Traffic Median Is a No-Pilates Zone, from New York Times.

The target is increasingly loud, littering and generally intrusive groups of exercisers who gather from dawn until dusk along the Fourth Street median. The ocean view, the air and for some the architectural spectacle have transformed the area into a huge outdoor gym rimmed by multimillion-dollar homes."

Yes, it's not because of danger, but because of the increasingly annoying loud, mess, and use of commercialization. Everything is just not quite a big deal if all of them take place modestly. And yes, traffic median is a public space, so everybody is inherently entitiled some right of using it. However, rights is usually followed by obligations. With the prequisite that nobody will be annoyed, rousted out of bed, or even hurt, the right of using the public space might be more legitimately allowable.

On the other hand, with all the obligation those exercisers fulfill, the residents might also want to appreciate exercisers' contribution to making the neighborhood more vivid and energetic, indrectly sending a message to car drivers passing by that this is just a very livable place with all the good-looking people working out around, and favorably booming the price of house.

Metrocard's Another Role: An Airtight Alibi

A news from "Murder Suspect Has Witness: A MetroCard", New York Times, has made clear the role of bus or subway turnstiles as electronic evidence maker. In this case, the airtight alibi provided by the byproduct of swipping metrocard through the slot of a turnstile in order to pay the fare has changed Mr. Jones' destiny which otherwise might not be possible back then when there wasn't such kind a device.

Although criticsims about its Big Brother effect have been haunting around for years, it'd be better to be able to set people free when they are guiltless and when our technology allows than worrying about being monitored by secretive operations of Big Brother. Now, it's people who take public transit leave their electronic evidence. But not too long later, when each car starts talking to each other, to the road, and to the highway administration center, electronic evidence will be even more powerful when it becomes ubiquitous.

ITS America: Best of ITS Award Winners Announced

Best of ITS Award Winners Announced
ITS AMERICA NEWS

The Intelligent Transportation Society of America (ITS America) unveiled the winners of the 2008 Best of ITS Awards. They were presented during the 15th World Congress on ITS in New York.

Those winners from more than 40 entries were selected and under detailed scrutiny by an expert panel of judges, including the following categories, each with a set of outstanding performers:

Best New Innovative Product or Service
• Caltrans - Sensys Wireless Vehicle Detection System
• Nissan North America - Nissan Safety Shield 2007
• Visteon Corporation - The Visteon Light Vehicle Integrated Vehicle Based Safety System
• MTC and SAIC - San Francisco Bay Area 511

Best New Innovative Practices
• New York City DOT - The Applied Solid-state Traffic Controller
• NAVTEQ – NAVTEQ/Missouri DOT Advanced Traveler Information Services Project
• BMW of North America - The Next Generation Telematics Protocol (NGTP)
• Delcan - Lake County Passage Project
• Mississippi DOT - Reconnecting Mississippi's Coastal Communities Through ITS
• Western Transportation Institute at Montana State University- Partnerships for Deploying

Animal Vehicle Crash Mitigation Strategies
• Caltrans - Mobile Century: A Novel Approach to Traffic Data Collection from GPS-Equipped Mobile Phones
• Kentucky Transportation Cabinet - Safety Assistance for Freeway Emergencies Patrol

Outstanding ITS America State Chapter
• ITS Minnesota



[The Transporati Says]
The 16th ITS World Congress on Stockholm in next year has already started calling for paper for a while. For technical and scientific papers, the deadline for submission of draft technical papers and full scientific papers is December 1st, 2008. The topics are categorized as the following, anyone who is interested in it would better speed up the submission process.

A.ITS for transport and traffic managers
1. Demand management and access control
2. Traffic management
3. Public transport management
4. Traffic prediction
5. Incident and event management
6. Traffic modelling and simulation
7. Parking management

B.ITS for travellers and users
1. Connected traveller services
2. Infotainment and mobility services
3. Location based services
4. Navigation and positioning
5. Traveller information, In-Vehicle Information Systems (IVIS)
6. Multimodal information
7. ITS for public transport

C.ITS for drivers
1. Advanced Driver Assistance Systems(ADAS) /Intelligent Vehicle Systems (IVS)
2. eSafety
3. Human Machine Interaction
4. Nomadic devices
5. Speed advice/management and driver impairments
6. Cooperative services

D.ITS for freight and logistics
1. Urban logistics
2. Intermodal transport and logistics
3. International transport corridors (incl.megatrucks)
4. Dangerous goods management
5. Freight and fleet management
6. Standardised data exchange
7. Tracking and tracing

E.ITS addressing societal challenges
1. ITS for vulnerable users
2. ITS for children, elderly and disabled
3. ITS privacy and liability
4. ITS against social exclusion
5. ITS for enforcement
6. ITS for disaster management
7. ITS for security

F.ITS infrastructure
1. Data collection and aggregation
2. Digital maps
3. Network information maintenance and update
4. Cooperative vehicle infrastructure systems
5. Infrastructure use charging
6. Communication systems
7. Data exchange
8. ITS as a critical infrastructure

G.ITS deployment challenges
1. Business cases and policy support
2. ITS costs, impact and benefits
3. Standardisation and interoperability
4. Incentive programmes
5. Field operational tests
6. Public procurement
7. Awareness raising, education and training
8. Public-private partnerships
9. eTransactions (payment, booking, ticketing, tolling, cross borders)

H.ITS for our climate
1. Politics and control mechanisms
2. Drivers and travellers perspectives
3. Controlling with focus on climate
4. ITS deployment for a better climate
5. Green traffic management
6. Green navigation
7. Green transport and logistics