Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) Study for the Houston TranStar Consortium

At the request of the Leadership Team of the Houston TranStar Consortium (consisting of Texas Department of Transportation, the Metropolitan Transit Authority, Harris County and the City of Houston), the SWTC Testbed Division (SWTC) was asked to study the possibilities associated with joint-use of the region’s Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) communications network. This study included an inventory of technology infrastructure in the greater Houston metropolitan area. The outputs of the study provided a high-level route inventory of the region’s fiber optic-oriented ITS network in addition to other government networks extant within the region.

Uptown (Galleria) Area Wireless Network Study

At the request of the Uptown Area (Galleria), the City of Houston and Houston TranStar, SWTC assisted Uptown relative to understanding the intricacies and potential costs associated with a wireless network for this area. Located in the Galleria area, Uptown is positioned to become a model/prototype environment for the City of Houston’s surveillance and traffic signal control validation, development and testing, incident detection and management requirements. Similarly, Uptown has achieved Priority Corridor status. As a result, Uptown has received funds that will be used to enable unique technological solutions to complex traffic management problems. These include traffic incident management, information dissemination and signalization.

City of Houston Regional Wireless Project

The City of Houston’s Information Technology department (CoHIT) is planning to create a regional wireless network within the Houston region. The first phase of this plan is to enable wireless parking meters and payment systems within the downtown area. SWTC assisted the City of Houston relative to understanding the intricacies of wireless network planning. In addition, SWTC assisted the City of Houston in the evaluation of vendor replies within the first phase.

Cell Phone Detector Evaluation

In this program, a Russian-made “Non-Linear Junction Detector” is being evaluated for use in correctional institutions to detect contraband cell phones. As widely reported recently in the press, contraband cell phones are becoming a serious problem in US prisons, where the prison authorities assume they can be used to plot escapes or conduct criminal business behind bars. Last year in the state of Texas, prison authorities seized 135 cell phones and similar numbers are being seized in other states.

The “Non-linear junction detector” (cell-phone detector) being evaluated interrogates a cell phone with a relatively high power RF signal that “drives” solid state junctions in the phone into a non-linear state where they will produce signals at harmonics of the interrogating frequency.

TranStar Video Interoperability Study

Houston TranStar (TranStar), a consortium of the Texas Department of Transportation, Harris County, the City of Houston and the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County, requested that the Southwest Public Safety Technology Center (SWTC) review and assess video downlink connectivity to helicopters for incident coverage during disasters. These helicopters may belong to Houston Police Department, Harris County, MetroNetworks, Channels 2, 11, 13, 26 or others.

The focus of the study was Electronic News Gathering (ENG) and how a system might be created to gather disaster-related information from both government and public airborne sources, for utilization in traffic analysis and situational awareness.