Reminder – Applications for the Environment: Real-Time Information Synthesis (AERIS) User Needs Workshop

When: March 14-15, 2012
Time: March 14: 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. Eastern Time and March 15: 9:00 A.M. to 4:30 P.M.
Where:  Washington, D.C.  

The U.S. Department of Transportation (U.S.DOT) will host a free public workshop to discuss the Applications for the Environment: Real-Time Information Synthesis (AERIS) Program and solicit user needs for its Transformative Concepts. The meeting is being organized by the Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office (ITS JPO) which is part of the Research and Innovative Technology Administration (RITA). The first day’s proceedings (March 14) will be webcast at no charge for those who are unable to participate in person. The second day of the workshop will include break-out sessions for the U.S. DOT to discuss user needs for the three of the AERIS Transformative Concepts.

Workshop participants should visit the AERIS website to download and print Read-Ahead Materials for the break-out sessions.

Subject Matter Experts to Participate in Workshop on Day 1 (March 14)

The AERIS Team is pleased to announce that a diverse panel of subject matter experts has been invited to participate on the first day of the workshop and provide information about their activities, challenges, successes, lessons learned, and future vision.  Experts will represent various stakeholder communities, including transportation research, transit, smart cities, and autonomous vehicles, among others.  The focus of these discussions will be on the data and communications needs necessary to make connected vehicle environmental applications operate successfully.

Invited speakers include representatives from:

• American Public Transportation Association
• Booz Allen Hamilton
• Google
• IBM
• The University of California at Riverside’s Center for Environmental Research & Technology
• The Virginia Tech Transportation Institute

Discussions will be held in a roundtable format that is intended to allow for free-form exploration of projected visions for the future.  The first roundtable discussion will focus on what the future might look like if one could completely transform individual and network mobility services using connected vehicle technologies in order to achieve a maximum environmental benefit.  The second roundtable discussion will focus on the data and communications technology needs that might enable these visions for the future.  The overall goal of these roundtable discussions is to support critical and creative thinking, and to inform further discussions among workshop participants.

Day 2 of the workshop will focus on breakout sessions to discuss in more detail the AERIS Transformative Concepts in relation to the themes discussed in Day 1 – user needs, data needs, and communications needs.

About the AERIS User Needs Workshop:

The purpose of this workshop is to obtain stakeholder input on the Concepts of Operations (ConOps) that will be developed for the set of AERIS Transformative Concepts. Transformative Concepts are integrated operational concepts that use vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I), and other data and communications in innovative ways to operate surface transportation networks to reduce transportation-related emissions and fuel consumption. Transformative Concepts are intended to change the way surface transportation systems operate, with an emphasis on combining connected vehicle applications to provide significant environmental benefits. The AERIS Transformative Concepts include:

• Eco-Signal Operations,
• Eco-Lanes,
• Low Emissions Zone,
• Eco-Traveler Information,
• Support for Alternative Fuel Vehicle Operations, and
• Eco-Integrated Corridor Management.

During this workshop, the AERIS team will facilitate interactive breakout sessions to obtain stakeholder input on desired capabilities, data needs, and modeling needs. This valuable feedback will be utilized by the U.S. DOT to further define the Transformative Concepts and provide input into the ConOps. Input from this workshop will enable the USDOT in conducting future research and modeling to determine potential environmental benefits in a connected vehicle environment. For more information on the AERIS Program and the Transformative Concepts, visit: http://www.its.dot.gov/research_archives/aeris/index.htm

Event Location

Hall of the States
Conference Center
444 North Capitol Street, N.W.
Washington D.C., DC 20001
(202) 624-5490
(near Union Station Metro Station)

Read-Ahead Materials

Read-Ahead Materials will be available at http://www.its.dot.gov/research_archives/aeris/index.htm. Workshop participants should download and read these materials prior to participating in the workshop. Workshop participants should also bring hard copies of the Read-Ahead Materials to the second day of the workshop. Limited copies of these materials will be provided at the workshop.

For any questions please contact Adam Hopps at Ahopps@ITSA.org