PSU Magazine Spring 2002

driver traveling at highway speed whether she is required to pull off at the next weigh station. P U is study– ing the practice to see if it's accurate enough to use in issuing citations if overloaded trucks refuse to stop. PSU also helped Tri-Met evaluate the effectiveness of its technology, including GP and automated pa en– ger counters that measure how well buse stay on chedule, and how smoothly they keep passengers board– ing and unboarding. As with other information generated in the region, P U archived the data. A recent report for Tri-Met showed chat it had saved more than $50 million over the pa t five years by using this technol– ogy, says Strathman. PSU is now u ing that same data to help Tri-Met write new schedule to make the agency even more efficient than before. ow well is all chis technology working to improve traffic in and around Portland? le depends on how you look at it. A study by the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University ranked Port– land/Vancouver ninth out of 68 metropolitan areas in the country in roadway congestion. That's better than some of the more predictable traffic heavyweights uch as Lo Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Seattle, but worse than Detroit, New York City, and Houston. "Where Portland leads the nation is in the way it's deployed its Intelli– gent Transportation System in such a collaborative manner," ay Bertini. That collaboration involves ODOT, the city of Portland, Tri-Mee, county governments, state and local police, Washington state agencies, and 911 re ponder , all of whom meet on a reg– ular basi to stay on top of traffic issues. And with P U playing such a major role, further "intelligent" solutions to the area's traffic conges– tion are limited only by technology and imagination. D (John Kirkland, a Portland freelance writer, wrote the article "Thinking Small" in the winter 2002 PSU Magazine.)