Minutes of Committee A1E14 (AP020)

New Public Transportation Systems and Technology

January 13, 2004, 8:00 am – 10:15 am

Hilton, Dupont Room, Washington, DC

1. Friends, members and guests introduced themselves. Eighteen individuals placed their names on the sign-up sheet (eight of whom were committee members).

2. Pat McLaughlin presented Ed Neumann, outgoing committee chair, with a certificate of appreciation. It was announced that the incoming committee chair is Susan Shaheen, who has served as chair of the Subcommittee on Stationcars. Matthew Barth will replace her as chair of the subcommittee.

3. Pete Shaw discussed attendance at the 2004 meeting and other TRB policy issues.

4. Diane Schwager of TRB discussed opportunities to prepare TCRP problem statements and to serve on review panels.

5. Ed Neumann reported that 13 papers had been submitted for 2004, of which 8 were selected for presentation at two committee technical sessions, and two were assigned to a poster session. Six papers will be recommended for publication. A proposed session on the FTA bus fuel cell program fell through when FTA submitted their idea too late for TRB to accommodate an additional session.

6. Ed Neumann distributed a flyer describing upcoming TRB conferences in the area of Public Transportation.

7. Susan Shaheen delivered a progress report on the Subcommittee on Stationcars.

8. Future activities and paper topics were proposed by committee members. Ideas presented were the following:

A. Continue to pursue a session on the FTA bus fuel cell program.

B. Posters on ITS transit (Yuval Grinspun and John Abraham will prepare a call for papers and solicit submissions). Use of cell phones and wireless technology is expected to remain an important topic; transit trip planner capabilities may emerge. Franz Gimler suggested that small hand-held devices is going to be an extremely important area in the future, and work must be done to identify paper authors.

C. Smart parking management including message signs, and internet applications

D. Dynamic ride sharing.

E. Segway, with emphasis on the technology and its diffusion via rentals and links to other transportation systems and services.

F. Use of golfcarts as a niche vehicle lieing somewhere between Segway and small cars; this could be packaged as an “emerging vehicles” concept.

G. Revisit work done by CALTRANS during the early 90’s on single passenger autos.

H.Elevators and escalators in transit properties – issues are liability, parts, repairs, safety.

I. Accelerating walkways

J. FTA work on crash avoidance at intersectioins (Walt Kulyk suggested as a contact)

K. Michel Parent is a potential source of overseas authors on ITS applications, including carsharing

L. Transit oriented joint development is a hot topic.

M. Revive the people mover focus that was an earlier topic of importance to the committee.

N. Automatic train control (would need to be joint with other committees)

9. Srinivas Pulugurtha of UNLV volunteered to establish a home page for the committee. He will be recommended for membership.

10. Ed Neumann reported that 10 members will be rotated off the committee this year, making room for an additional 15 new members. Non-members attending were extended an invitation to consider applying for membership.

11. Since there was no other business, the meeting adjourned at approximately 10:15 am.

The Agenda and Sign-up Sheets are attached