ATRI & FHWA Receive ITE Award for Technology Research Innovation

    ARLINGTON, Va., Aug. 20 /EMWNews/ -- The Institute of

Transportation Engineers (ITE) awarded its annual 2008 ITS Management &

Operations Award jointly to the American Transportation Research Institute

(ATRI) and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) for designing and

developing a national research tool that monitors freight performance on

North American highways using wireless truck position data.



    The award was presented to ATRI and FHWA by ITE International president

Alfred Guebert on August 19th at the 2008 ITE Annual Meeting in Anaheim,

California. More than 2000 attendees participated in the event.



    The "Freight Performance Measures" (FPM) initiative, which was

sponsored, designed and tested by ATRI and FHWA over a period of five

years, uses wireless trucking industry position data to calculate changes

in travel times and speeds on more than 200,000 miles of roadway. It can

also be used to identify system reliability, freight bottlenecks and truck

parking issues.



    Jeffrey Short, Senior Research Associate and FPM Project Manager for

ATRI, described the award "as an extremely important acknowledgment of the

FPM research by a very prestigious group of practitioners. Recognizing that

so many ITE members may also be beneficiaries of FPM, it provides strong

validation of our efforts."



    Crystal Jones, FHWA's project manager for FPM, was present to receive

the award on behalf of the Federal Highway Administration's Office of

Freight Operations. Ms. Jones has spent more than four years providing

critical guidance and oversight to the FPM research program. To date, the

FPM system has been reviewed and/or tested by more than 30 agencies

representing state DOTs, metropolitan planning organizations and academic

institutions.



    ATRI is the trucking industry's 501(c)(3) not-for-profit research

organization. It is engaged in critical research relating to freight

transportation's essential role in maintaining a safe, secure and efficient

transportation system.