PATH Director Alexander Skabardonis launches the plenary session

With talks by Larry Orcutt, Division Chief, Research and Innovation, Caltrans; Neil Schuster, CEO, ITS America; and Lyle Saxton, FHWA, retired

Director Alexander Skabardonis opened the PATH @ 20 celebration with a brief description of PATH's early history, its current projects and future directions. He noted the key event in PATH's creation, a Caltrans/UC Berkeley conference in Sacramento, which brought together agency officials and university researchers to find how to enhance California's transportation system in new ways. Even 20 years ago, Skabardonis said, it was clear that "we can't build our way out of congestion; we cannot double deck all the freeways in the state." At a "landmark" meeting in Sacramento, after PATH was established, the research direction for what would become "the pioneer" program in intelligent transportation systems (ITS) was laid out.

In the ensuing years, PATH played a key role in the then-unfolding national intelligent transportation systems program, including the National ITS Architecture, Intelligent Vehicle Initiative and evaluation of federally-sponsored Field Operational Tests. Today, PATH is organized into four main program groups and is contributing to federal, state and international ITS developments on a wide range of fronts.

PATH is a key contributor to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA)'s Next Generation Simulation (NGSIM) program, a multi-year project whose major goals are to address gaps in the functionality of existing traffic simulation tools. (go to the Fall 2005 NewsBITS story).

Additional projects fall under the broad categories of Intersection Decision Support (IDS), Cooperative Intersection Collision Avoidance Systems (CICAS), and Vehicle Infrastructure Integration (VII) (see the Winter 2005 NewsBITS). Integrated Corridor Management, a major federal initiative, bus rapid transit, car sharing, smart parking and demand-responsive transit are additional areas in which PATH is active.

Skabardonis noted that the opening of the Parsons Traffic and Transit Lab enhanced PATH's ability to attract and engage researchers, faculty and agency clients, adding that currently PATH was involved in some 100 projects, led by 35 faculty investigators from 12 universities, with 30 graduate students and 40-plus researchers and support staff.

Caltrans' Larry Orcutt

Larry Orcutt spoke about the partnerships that PATH has developed, notably as the primary research arm in support of Caltrans. "We want to focus on deployment, not just research," he said, and to push PATH's impact beyond the state boundaries to national and international stages.

That means leveraging research to extend its reach, as is the case with the CICAS work, he pointed out, which holds promise for reducing traffic fatalities not just in California, but across the nation and the world. Another hallmark of the PATH program, he said, is its ability to link research results with practitioners so that its effects can be felt in real-world applications.

ITS America's Neil Schuster

Neil Schuster, CEO of ITS America, acknowledged PATH for being the ground breaker in ITS development. "We're 15 years old," he said of his organization, the leading advocacy group for intelligent transportation systems research and deployment, "and you're 20 years old." As new challenges arise, he said, "We need a vibrant ITS community," and PATH will be playing an important role in making sure that is the case. The challenges that ITS will be called on to meet include the rising toll of traffic deaths and injuries, especially overseas in rapidly motorizing countries such as India and China.

Additionally, "We have a generation that expects to be plugged in," he observed. The technology that transportation uses must meet their expectations and respond to their needs. "We need great research. We know PATH will do that."

Lyle Saxton, FHWA (retired)

Concluding the plenary session was Lyle Saxton, who oversaw the first federal efforts in support of ITS research. Saxton observed that PATH was created just as there was a "reawakening" in advanced transportation systems. The developments here in California were "key to establishing the momentum." With the maturation of the Interstate highway system, and the continued growth in traffic volumes and congestion, there will be a sustained need for the type of work PATH does, Saxton said. Saxton recounted some of the history leading to PATH's creation in 1986 and praised PATH for its work in the late 90s that culminated in the Mobility 2000 demonstration of automated vehicles.

"PATH took the lead" in advanced vehicle control systems, he said, and "has not been surpassed."

The complete list of sessions and speakers can be found in the PATH @ 20 Agenda.