Addressing the policy cycle Educating legislators and decisionmakers about ITS

David Embrey Pickeral, JD

Booz Allen Hamilton, United States of America

8255 Greensboro Drive

McLean, VA USA 22102

703-377-4074

pickeral_david@bah.com

ABSTRACT: Contrary to the historical linear model for technology implementation, modern

technology policy has evolved as a continual, cyclical process. Understanding this process is

essential in educating legislators and decisionmakers in a way that will guide effectively timed

and appropriately supported implementation of new technology developments.

KEYWORDS: Technology Policy, Outreach, Education, Stakeholders, Decisionmakers,

Legislation, Funding, System Planning

BACKGROUND

As modern technology doctrine evolved over the past century or so, it followed a pattern that

could be represented as more or less a straight line. Research would yield a new capability,

which would gradually evolve into a functional, marketable resource while gaining public

acceptance and increased commercial participation, and, in time, would warrant regulatory

attention to ensure appropriate use and benefit was derived from the technology. Eventually,

an entirely different technology might appear to compete with or supplant its predecessor. In

many instances, the existing resource would continue to evolve essentially in a standalone,

linear fashion in competition with the new entrant.

Most of the industrial-age improvements in transportation, telecommunication, and utility

services that shaped the global infrastructure followed this pattern. For example, canals were

supplanted by railroads, which in turn yielded to highway and air transport, each evolving on a

substantially distinct path with entirely different enterprises, even completely separate

industries, supporting them.

In the information age, however, a new, dramatically different model has emerged. This

model, illustrated in Figure 1 below, is cyclical rather than linear.

Figure 1 – Technology Policy Cycle

A CONSTANT PROCESS

As new technology is developed and moved into the end user community, it is designed to

build on—but not necessarily replace—legacy capabilities. New technology releases are

almost invariably engineered to anticipate both backward compatibility with existing assets as

well as forward compatibility with capabilities that may be years away—making development,

implementation, and retirement of technology a continual concurrent, cyclical process. For

example, copper telephone wires installed decades ago—even as they are being gradually

replaced by fiber optic connections—continue to be enhanced by such innovations as ISDN

and DSL to allow for ready-access digital broadband services.

The challenge is that transportation decisionmakers—industry leaders, investors, government

officials, and even the traveling public itself—have not yet transitioned to the cyclical model.

They and the industries they affect remain effectively “stovepiped” in the linear model,

viewing transportation assets and the technologies that support them as discrete fixtures rather

than part of an integrally connected and constantly evolving network. Consequently, they may

resist change both vertically, to the introduction of new technology, as well as laterally, to the

building of intermodal capabilities.

In educating these decisionmakers about Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS)

developments, therefore, it is essential to understand the three basic phases of this cycle,

which may be described as Analysis, Consensus, and Implementation, and how they apply to

a particular proposed or existing ITS-based feature. In each phase, key messages and

information must be delivered and addressed to ensure that the educational process serves the

purpose of driving solid, long-term decisionmaking that will result in legislation and

appropriations to develop useful, scalable, and sustainable public infrastructure rather than

fostering market-driven sales of the latest “killer app.”

Analysis

The analysis phase comprises such activities as user needs assessment, preliminary academic

study, and baseline engineering research. During this period, technical standards development

bodies are often contemplated or initially convened. In terms of reaching key stakeholders,

two-way communications are particularly critical during this phase to guide decisionmakers in

a technology selection process that is informed by a thorough understanding of the needs of

their constituents. This is the point in the cycle when effective communications can have the

most far-reaching and lowest-cost, influence on the technology development. Even beyond

the exchange of data itself, it is important to reach out to decisionmakers early so that they

feel they are involved at the outset, and indeed are driving rather than being led by technology

development. Legislative and regulatory agencies, once the perennial trailing indicator of

technology development, have increasingly become involved much earlier in the process.

Through legislative committees, executive task forces, hearings, administrative rulemaking

processes, etc., decisionmakers are reaching out directly to industry and innovators to ensure

that maximum commercial and public benefit is derived from emerging technology.

In the ITS context, many new vehicle-infrastructure integration (VII) projects, such as

interactive traveler information systems, are now in the Analysis phase. It will be important

for the ITS community to engage early with the communities that these technologies will

potentially affect—to exchange information and to ensure that projects are initiated that have

tangible, real-world application. This early involvement, in turn, will naturally result in a

need for these services as they become defined and established during the consensus phase.

Consensus

During the Consensus phase, the nature and function of the technology is substantially

defined; however, there is not yet been full agreement on how—or even if—this technology

can be harnessed to serve some combination of economic and/or public interests. Building on

theoretical research and preliminary design specifications, engineering standards development

bodies usually come together to reach agreement on at least an initial suite of standards to

serve as a baseline for development. This phase is critical in terms of reaching

decisionmakers because it is typically the phase in which they are first asked to commit

substantial resources toward more practically oriented research, pilot programs, beta testing,

and the like. It is also the phase in which multiple emerging technologies and/or legacy

technologies may compete for development resources, with many technology applications

falling by the wayside before ever becoming viable.

In the ITS context, some applications, such as Dedicated Short Range Communications

(DSRC), have been through initial standards development and have received regulatory

approval, but are now awaiting actual implementation as part of the national infrastructure.

At the same time, these applications are competing with legacy technologies (e.g., optical

scanners for public safety signal preemption) and other new and emerging non-ITS

technologies (e.g., satellite-based systems) to cover the “last mile” to the vehicle. It is critical

that the proponents of ITS are able to differentiate it from these competitors to ensure entry

into the Implementation phase.

Implementation

Implementation, simply put, is the phase in which projects become products. OEMs,

infrastructure owners, and common carriers are expected to step up and “sell” these value-

added components to their constituency—be they freight shippers, passengers, or any segment

of the general public—all of whom are true buying customers. At this point, attempts to

influence the actual deployment decisions for a particular technology are largely futile. What

is critical, however, is that best practices and lessons learned are captured from all segments

of this phase to guide technology developments in other phases of development—in effect

closing the cycle.

In the ITS world, many “first-generation” proprietary ITS or ITS-like products, such as

NextBus for transit information, OnStar for emergency private vehicle communication, and

EZPass express toll readers are now, literally, “on the street.” It is important for ITS planners

to understand and carry the successes of these products back to decisionmakers. Planners also

need to highlight areas where new developments to these technologies, or the onset of other

new ITS technologies, will address the shortcomings of their predecessors and offer even

greater benefit to, and commensurably trigger demand from citizens, consumers, and those

who will ultimately influence those decisionmakers.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author wishes to thank Donna Nelson, PhD, formerly of Booz Allen Hamilton, for her

assistance in preparing this paper.