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WRAP-UP

Coming Together: the new ITS Midwest

Coming together was the theme and the spirit of the first meeting of the Intelligent Transportation Society of the Midwest as a four-state chapter of ITS America. Over sixty members from Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio participated in the November 2nd Fall meeting of ITS Midwest in Covington, Kentucky. The Fall meeting provided a great opportunity to meet other members from the newly merged organization and to share experiences and lessons learned.

ITS Midwest President John Benda welcomes the meeting participants

Incoming ITS Midwest President John Benda opened the meeting with a warm welcome, noting that there was overwhelming support for ITS Midwest and ITS MidAmerica to join forces to become a stronger, more effective organization. President Benda was also pleased to honor ITS Member Tom Ewing (photo) on behalf of the Board of Directors with a Chapter Service Award for over a decade of active support to ITS Midwest, including his outreach work, service as newsletter editor, and recent efforts to establish the award-winning www.itsmidwest.org website. Noting that the strength of the organization comes from the membership, he encouraged participants to get involved in ITS Midwest to help shape its future. Members were urged to complete the committee interest survey distributed at the meeting as a good place to start.

ITS America's new President, Scott Belcher (photo), delivered the keynote and welcomed the newly combined chapter into the ITS America family. Scott views active state chapters and members as vital to the future of ITS America. Scott highlighted the combined ITS World Congress and ITS America Annual Meeting in New York City in November 2008 as the next great opportunity to “come together” with colleagues around the globe.

The Fall meeting program included briefings on the ITS initiatives, operations activities, and transportation management experiences in each state. Marian Thompson and George Saylor of Ohio DOT described activities in Ohio, David Zavattero of the City of Chicago spoke about Illinois progress, Steve Wuertz of InDOT presented Indiana initiatives and Mark Stapleton of the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet covered Kentucky projects. The briefings generated good follow-up questions and discussions, affirming the value of insights that were shared and gained.

Greg Krueger of Michigan DOT, the invited lunch speaker, brought the meeting participants up to date on the latest developments in Vehicle Infrastructure Integration, noting both the technical aspects and, perhaps more daunting, the institutional issues being tackled to make VII a reality.

All presentations from the Fall meeting are now posted online.

The full day of activities culminated in a tour of the ARTIMIS Operations and Control Center. The Advanced Regional Traffic Interactive Management & Information System (ARTIMIS) is an excellent example of a successful bi-state, regional partnership to serve travelers in the Cincinnati-northern Kentucky region. ARTIMIS fulfills the “coming together” spirit of the new ITS Midwest. We look forward to even greater participation in future events and activities being planned for ITS Midwest.

 

Related Resources

Agenda: “Coming Together: the new ITS Midwest”

Presentations

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