Intelligent Transport Systems in Commercial Vehicle Operations

Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) is the application of computers, communications and sensor technology to improve the efficiency or safety of surface transportation systems. The ITS initiative has been taken up by most developed countries including US, Canada, Australia and the European Union. This paper introduces ITS and its vision to save time, money and human lives. ITS can be applied to the entire spectrum of the transportation industry. This includes Freeway, Incident & Emergency Management, Electronic Toll Collection, Arterial Management, Travelers Information Systems, Advanced Public Transportation Systems, Commercial Vehicle Operations, etc. However the primary focus in this paper is on introducing the application of ITS technologies in the realm of Commercial Vehicle Operations (CVO). The paper covers the three major capability areas namely safety information exchange, electronic screening and electronic credentialing, giving details on the ongoing initiatives and the different technologies applied in the respective areas as well as the benefits offered by the same. The ITS initiative has caught up in a big way in the United States. The U.S. Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT) has sponsored and undertaken a program called Commercial Vehicle Information Systems and Networks (CVISN) Model Deployment Initiative (MDI). The goal of the CVISN initiative has been to assist each state in US to achieve "ambitious but achievable" level of deployment of ITS technology in all the three areas of commercial vehicle operations by establishing an organizational framework among state agencies and motor carriers for cooperative system development and creating a CVISN design architecture which can evolve and accommodate new technologies.