Integrated Corridor Management - The San Diego Experience

The San Diego region was one of eight pioneer sites selected by United States Department of Transportation (US DOT) to participate in the Integrated Corridor Management Program’s System Definition Phase 1: Concept of Operations and System Requirements Specifications Development. This paper reports on the San Diego experience with Phase 1, which was completed in March 2008. The San Diego region encompassed the Interstate 15 corridor from the junction of State Route 52 in the City of San Diego north to the junction of State Route 78 in the City of Escondido, a distance of 21 miles. This multi-modal corridor employs reconfigurable, managed lanes with an integrated High Occupancy Toll (HOT) system, congestion pricing, direct access Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and Smart Parking (which uses real time information to assess parking availability). The authors describe the many opportunities in this corridor to employ Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) technologies on both the freeway and parallel arterials and transit routes. ITS can be used to better inform the traveling public, to increase information sharing between transportation and public safety agencies, and to enhance the response to routine and extraordinary traffic incidents. The authors conclude that collaboration among state transportation agencies (i.e. Caltrans), the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), individual cities, transit agencies and public safety agencies will ensure that decisions made to maximize throughput in the corridor will be made using real-time inputs from all modes of transportation and timely dissemination of corridor travel conditions to participating agencies and the motoring public.