ITS Approach in Iran and Criteria for the Selection of a Pilot Road for the Application of ITS

1. ITS Approach in Iran and Criteria for the Selection of a Pilot Road for the Application of ITS Masoud Tabibi, Ja’far Jamili Road Maintenance and Transport Org. (RMTO), IT Office 10 October 2004, Rasht

2. Contents • Approaches for applying ITS • Selection of the ITS Approach in Iran • Step-by-Step Narrowing the Horizon • Evaluation of Potential Areas • Selection of the Pilot Area

3. Approaches for applying ITS Bottom-Up Approach Top-Down Approach Select the more effective ITS technologies Select your objective and try to narrow it Up Top See which ITS technology would be more effective Look for only related ITS technologies Bottom Down Apply various ITS technologies Apply various ITS technologies

4. Selection of the ITS Approach in Iran Bottom-Up Approach • Needs a lot of investment • Requires a lot of time for monitoring and evaluation • Makes it easy to decide  Top-Down Approach • Needs more coordination among related stakeholders • More quickly could be applied • Requires less investment

5. Step-by-Step Narrowing the Horizon • Which Objective(s) would be the most important one(s) for the application of ITS technology? • Which type of roads has more priority for applying ITS technologies? • Which technical criteria are required to give a priority to a road for applying ITS technologies? • What are non-technical requirements to succeed in an ITS application?

6. Evaluation of Potential Areas • Results of questionnaires • Concerning the objective

7. Results of questionnaires • Concerning the road type

8. Results of questionnaires • Concerning the construction status

9. Results of questionnaires • Concerning behavioral aspects and terrain

10. Results of questionnaires • Concerning the priority index

11.       • Results of questionnaires • Concerning potential capabilities of provinces

12. Selection of the Pilot Road • The following ways are taken into account to select a pilot area for the application of ITS technology: • Results of questionnaires • Engineering judgement • Effectiveness and cooperation of related provincial offices in both sides of the pilot road

13. Results of questionnaires  Results of questionnaires indicate that the Gilan Province can be assumed as one of the most top three potential areas for applying ITS technologies

14. Engineering judgement  Existence of various road sections (1)

15. Engineering judgement  Existence of various road sections (2)

16. Engineering judgement  Topography of area (road terrain)

17. Engineering judgement  Function of the road and the composition of heavy traffic

18. Engineering judgement  Safety aspects • Road safety is a serious and growing problem in Iran. • In 2003, almost 26,000 people were killed in road accidents in Iran. This is equal to 3 fatalities per hour. • Compared to Turkey and Azerbaijan, the number of fatalities per 10,000 vehicles is also significantly higher, with approx. 50 in Iran, 7 in Turkey and 20 in Azerbaijan.

19.  Safety aspects (cont.) • Rough estimations show that in Iran the economic costs of fatalities and injuries may be up to 1.8%- 4% (2-4 billion USD) of GDP. • 51% of fatalities in the country are motorcyclists. • Traffic accident data indicates that about 72% of total accidents outside built-up areas happen on two lane two way roads, whereas the share of freeways is limited to 8%.

20.  Safety aspects (cont.) • Tunnels in Iran have poor road safety performance, with more than 18 accidents per km per year, while the expressways and highways have 1.7 accidents per km per year and the remaining roads have 1.0 accidents per km per year.

21.  Safety indexes (provincial graphs) Number of road fatalities per 1 million inhabitants

22.  Safety indexes (provincial graphs) Number of road injuries per 1 million inhabitants

23.  Safety indexes (provincial graphs) Share in country (%)

24.  Safety indexes (provincial graphs) • In the Gilan province, similar to the national level, motorcycles have a great share in road fatalities. • The provinces Semnan, Qazwin, Gilan and Mazandaran in the North, Kerman and Fars in the South, and Khorasan in the East have larger safety problems compared to the number of inhabitants.

25. Engineering judgement  Existence of tunnels and long bridges

26. Engineering judgement  Existence of other road alternatives (specially an important freeway)

27. Engineering judgement  Communication coverage and data existence  Within the next three months the road could be covered completely by mobile phone system  There is a good access to digital map and geographical information of the area

28. Management aspects • Two of the most effective and cooperative provincial offices of RMTO are located at two sides of the road: Qazwin and Gilan • There is a good cooperation among various organizations in the framework of Road Safety Committees • There is a good distance for the selected road in which both provinces will be involved effectively

29. Thus: Let’s start ITS technologies for increasing the efficiency of Iranian road network, first by: Qazwin-Rasht RoadWay As a good Pilot Area

30. Thanks for your attention!