Administrative Support>>Systems Unit

The Systems Unit of the Institute provides programming and other computer support to ITS researchers, students, and staff. This support includes the development of software, maintenance of the Institute's computer software and hardware resources, administration of ITS's electronic information distribution services, and general assistance to ITS researchers and other staff in meeting their computer-related needs. In addition, the Systems Unit maintains, enhances, and distributes a selected group of transportation programs.

Programming support: The Systems Unit staff includes three programmers who provide programming support on individual research projects. Their availability depends on particulars of the programming effort and their previous commitments. Recent programming support to ITS research projects includes enhancements to the TWOPAS rural highway simulation model and its graphical interface, UCBRURAL, for a National Cooperative Research Highway Program (NCHRP) project for developing new procedures for Chapter 8 of the Highway Capacity Manual 2000. In addition, programming support is provided to enhance the FREQ12 freeway simulation model which is used in may ITS/CALTRANS Freeway Analysis training programs. Systems Unit staff has developed a client-server software system to collect and analyze real-time data from traffic detectors on l-80 and continues to support NEXTOR's Oracle database Web site.

Software and hardware maintenance: The Systems Unit maintains the commercial software for the Institute activities in McLaughlin Hall.and provides a database tracking system for software licenses. In addition, the Systems Unit maintains computer hardware for most of the faculty, researchers, students and staff.

Electronic information services: The Systems Unit maintains the ITS Web site, an ftp server, an administrative database server, and mail services. Continuing development of network capabilities at ITS has enhanced the ability of researchers and staff to make use of the full range of computing resources available to the Berkeley campus.

General assistance: The Systems Unit provides general computer support for those associated with the Institute. This includes trouble shooting software and hardware problems, installing software, and recommending appropriate software packages. The Systems Unit also evaluates new technology and makes recommendations for hardware and software purchases for the Institute.

Distribution of transportation software: The Systems Unit continues to maintain and distribute FREQ, a freeway simulation model for high-occupancy vehicle lanes or ramp metering, which now has over 200 users worldwide; FRELANE, an analysis model for major freeway weaving sections and selected freeway segments; NETCELL, a traffic queuing simulation model; UCBRURAL, an interactive interface for the TWOPAS rural highway simulation model; BTS, a traffic inventory program for small cities; and TROMP, a trinomial probit package to calibrate probit discrete choice models.

Administrative services: The Systems Unit continues to provide program development for the automation of ITS's administrative services.

Staff: The staff of the Systems Unit consists of:

Lannon Leiman , Programmer / Analyst IV lannon@berkeley.edu Randall Cayford , Programmer / Analyst IV cayford@berkeley.edu Greg Merritt, Programmer / Analyst IV gmerritt@berkeley.edu Miguel Quinonez-Skinner, Computer Resource Specialist mqs@berkeley.edu

The Systems Unit also can be reached by phone at (510) 642-1008