Assessment of Concepts and Technologies for a "Green" Traffic Management Center

Maricopa County, in the state of Arizona, is one of the fastest growing regions in the United States. The region’s cities, once separated by large distances, are now immediate neighbors. The transportation, public safety, and emergency management agencies of these cities rely more and more on information about neighboring systems for traffic management. This paper describes the incorporation of concepts and technologies that would be necessary to create an environmentally-friendly, or "green," traffic management center for this urban region. The region has a statewide Arizona Department of Transportation Traffic Operations Center (ADOT TOC), Maricopa County Department of Transportation (MCDOT) Traffic Management Center (TMC) and eight local traffic management centers, with additional municipal TMCs coming on line in the region over the next several years. The TMCs house a substantial amount of systems and equipment, and much like data centers, they draw significant power due to the operating requirements of the various systems. A major upgrade to the MCDOT TMC is currently under preliminary design for planned construction in the FY 2010. One of the goals of the upgraded TMC is to minimize the use of energy, increase efficiency and reduce the negative environmental impacts, thus a "green" TMC would result. The authors describe the green concepts and technologies that are being assessed at this stage of the TMC design, including "green" enhancements to current operations, and, for the new construction: building enhancements, information technology equipment and networks, furnishings and interiors, and energy delivery systems. In addition, MCDOT intends to document this process and lessons learned so that other TMCs in Maricopa County and throughout the country can benefit from how MCDOT has adapted the EPA planning processes to the traffic management center environment.

• Corporate Authors:

  ITS America

  1100 17th Street, NW, 12th Floor
  Washington, DC  United States  20036
• Authors:
  • Saleem, Faisal
  • Hauser, Barbara
  • Lopez, Israel
• Conference:
  • 15th World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems and ITS America's 2008 Annual Meeting
  • Location: New York NY, United States
  • Date: 2008-11-16 to 2008-11-20
• Publication Date: 2008

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: CD-ROM
• Features: References;
• Pagination: 9p
• Monograph Title: ITS Connections: Saving Time. Saving Lives

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Communication systems; Computers; Energy conservation; Energy consumption; Environmental and sanitary systems in buildings; Environmental impacts; Information technology; Planning and design; Structural design; Technological innovations; Traffic control centers
• Identifier Terms: Arizona Department of Transportation
• Uncontrolled Terms: Transportation infrastructure
• Geographic Terms: Maricopa County (Arizona)
• Subject Areas: Construction; Environment; Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; I15: Environment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01138576
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Aug 19 2009 1:49PM