This month's issue of
ITE Journal, now available
online, focuses on "
Smart Communities and Transportation." As ITE's International President Shawn Leight writes, smart communities gather, integrate, and analyze data to enable informed and data-driven decision-making. Articles in this issue mirror this sentiment. For instance,
Are You Gonna Go My Waze? Practical Advice for Working with 3rd Party Data Providers shares some of the positive and negative experiences the authors encountered while working with WAZE and other crowdsourced data providers in order to help public agencies develop effective partnerships.
In a prior job, I managed a conference called "If You Build It, They Will Come" that focused on the debate of the economic development benefits of building stadiums and arenas. Therefore, I was particularly intrigued by the article
How Should Public Transit Be Evaluated for a Regional Attractor" The Case Study of the San Franciso 49ers Football Stadium which discusses the challenge of "making it work" transportation engineers often face with regard to a specific land use plan or development site.
After leaving economic development, I moved into the world of unmanned vehicles. These were in the days of the first flight for the Predator drone with many of today's civilian applications still on the drawing board. It is interesting to read, then, how far the technology has come in the article
Drones in Transportation Engineering: A Discussion on Current Drone Rules, Equipment, and Applications. The authors discuss the benefits of using drones to make the collection of key engineering data more timely, safe, and cost-efficient while outlining knowledge of the regulations and expertise drone users need to know.
A shout out to our advertisers for this issue: Eberle Design, Inc., Econolite, Iteris, ITS Plus, Inc., PTV, and Transoft Solutions as well as those featured in our Professional Services Directory: Aegis ITS, AKRF, Albert Grover & Associations, BFJ, Kimley-Horn, Linscott, Law & Greenspan, Neel-Schaffer, RK&K, Sam Schwartz, Stonefield, and VHB.