Intelligent Transportation Systems

The strengths of the book include the advanced concepts and innovative thinking about ITS and its role in transportation. The authors make some persuasive arguments for change as well as providing some practical examples of 'how to' change and 'what you get' for the effort to make changes. The book provides a good definition and explanation of ITS, very good examples of ITS challenges, the need for scientific validation, and a very useful and well stated list of characteristics of ITS. The book correctly appeals to both students and professionals in the industry. Inertia is a powerful force (as noted in the text) and the new way must be explained and 'sold' as part of an information marketplace. I would definitely use the book in teaching a transportation engineering curriculum or any class in systems or operations analysis. There are several broad topics that are pertinent for several disciplines as well as enough transportation discussion to make the text relevant for the engineering classes in most programs. I would also use it in research as the topics in the main chapters are substantial and may provide a range of interesting research avenues for professors and students. Operations and computer simulation professionals would appear to benefit from the techniques and as well as the ideas. --Tim Lomax, Texas Transportation Institute In its current form, this book would be a very useful addition to the transportation/ITS literature. The writers are certainly aware of the concomitant issues and have done a good job of writing their particular take on the topic. A key question is: can ITS, a relatively nascent industry make money? For this, ITS needs to be studied as an industry, namely, how will it grow? how is it inextricably linked with other industries? and how can it lead to job and wealth creation? ITS has many levels: technical, operational, business, policy, financing, and political. This book focuses on the technical and operational levels of ITS. --Chelsea C. White, III, Georgia Institute of Technology ! a highly original work in rail and vehicle routing simulation and modeling and will be extremely useful in research. It would be very good in the educational setting, especially given the basic software which could be enhanced and improved in the future by the authors and other researchers. Most advanced nations and the third world countries have the need to educate their transportation professional in advanced traffic management strategies since building your way out of traffic congestion is impossible. These are very complex choices and intelligent tools are needed to assess the potential benefits before expensive deployments. Specifically, the DTMC concept is excellent. Current intersection signal controllers have huge processing and computing powers and would make a nice implementation application! --Raj Ghaman, Former Manager of ITS Research, US Department of Transportation