DuPage County Division of Transportation

DuPage County Transportation Coordination Initiative

TCI Background

As population grows in the Chicago region, suburban areas face higher levels of congestion on expressways as well as the local street network. Considering the practical limits of infrastructure expansion, DuPage County's Transportation Coordination Initiative (TCI) provides the foundation for more widespread use of "Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS)" to enhance the efficiency and safety of the highway system as a whole.

A broad cross-section of officials from the fields of transportation, logistics, research, engineering, communications, law enforcement, and public safety participated in the TCI planning process. Early on, these stakeholders developed a common vision to guide the direction of the TCI:

"Build a resilient, sustainable, technologically advanced, multi-modal transportation system that provides practical, safe, accessible and coordinated movement of people and goods throughout DuPage County and the region."

Between April of 2006 and August of 2007, stakeholders worked to identify ITS solutions that provide the most benefit to the traveler and make the most sense for the County. Their efforts focussed on four areas of ITS: Arterial Operations, Transit Management, Traffic Incident Management, and Traveler Information. The resulting TCI Strategic Plan provides recommendations for the deployment of ITS technologies and operational strategies to maximize the capacilty of the county network, reduce travel times, enhance incident management and coordination, and improve traveler information services throughout the county. The TCI Strategic Plan documents are listed below.

TCI_Logo

TCI Strategic Plan Documents

The Concept of Operations describes the manner in which transportation stakeholders in DuPage County interact to provide transportation services, and how ITS tools can be applied to improve these services. This document also contains the stakeholder Needs Assessment.

The DuPage County Subregional ITS Architecture provides a framework for describing, planning, and implementing ITS, that promotes coordination between stakeholders. For a list of TCI stakeholders and other information, see the TCI Architecture Appendices.

The Integration Strategies and Technologies document evaluates potential solutions to the TCI needs indentified in previous steps.

The TCI Implementation Plan identifies ITS projects that provide the basis for planning, deployment, operation, and maintenance of ITS in DuPage County for the next ten years.

A Traffic Incident Management (TIM) Work Group consisting of emergency responders and transportation agency personnel convened twice during the TCI planning process. The DRAFT TIM Work Plan was developed as a basis for any future group activities.

DuPage County ITS Projects

TCI Implimentation Plan reference: Section 4.2.3, Integrated Expressway-Arterial Corridors

Army Trail Road Traffic Signal Coordination and Integration

This project will develop a traffic monitoring system utilizing vehicle detection devices to monitor significant changes in volumes of traffic on Army Trail Road at the I-355 Veterans Memorial Tollway and specific locations west of this interchange. Tollway ramp devices will initiate an alarm at the DuPage County Division of Transportation (DDOT) office and activate a pre-installed timing program in the Aries signal controller software, designed to clear ramps of queued traffic prior to having traffic back up onto the through lanes of the expressway. An additional device located eastbound on Army Trail Road midway between Meadow Lane and Creekside Drive, will alert the DDOT Traffic Engineer of traffic conditions approaching the interchange. Pan-tilt-zoom cameras situated on Army Trail Road at Glen Ellyn Road, and at I-355, will provide the engineer with on-site capabilities to detect and monitor specific occurrences associated with the alarms. Fiber optic cable will be installed between Meadow Lane and Creekside Drive to complete an essential communications link within the project area.

Project Status: Professional Services Contract for Phase II Engineering services approved by DuPage County Board on September 9, 2008.

For more information contact DDOT Traffic Engineer, David Ziesemer, at the Division of Transportation office at 630/407-6900 (M-F 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., excluding holidays) or e-mail at david.ziesemer@dupageco.org.

Regional ITS Links

Updated 8/6/2009