Academic, public transit, public safety and ITS leaders aim to foster public-private partnerships at 3-day summit in Minneapolis
Transportation and public safety leaders will meet in Minneapolis this week to discuss industry trends and emerging technology challenges as part of Global Traffic Technologies’ (GTT) second annual advisory board meeting.
GTT will host public transit agency planners, intelligent transportation system (ITS) engineers, chiefs and officers from public safety agencies and researchers from around the United States and Canada. The three-day meeting will allow attendees to share stories about the progress each of their respective agencies have made as transportation technology advances.
GTT is a world leader in priority control and traffic sensing systems, with thousands of implementations of its acclaimed Opticom priority control solutions installed internationally. Priority control provides public safety and public transit vehicles with the ability to request a green light at intersections, allowing for quicker, safer and more reliable vehicle movement.
Advisory board attendees will be part of discussions focusing on trends in their cities, future technology and data driven operations, said GTT product manager Chad Mack.
“The advisory board is an opportunity for these leaders to meet and share new ideas with each other,” Mack said. “We’ll cover everything from IoT connectivity to creative funding approaches. If there’s interest, we’ll explore it.”
This weeks’ meeting marks the second time in as many years that industry leaders will meet in Minneapolis with GTT. Last year, the GTT advisory board meeting focused heavily on public transportation technology. Discussions at the advisory board have led to improvements to the Opticom Connected Vehicle Platform and other transit-focused technology developments.
This year, the meeting has been extended another day and a half to include public safety leaders. With the release of Opticom Analytics in June, fire departments around the U.S. have shown interest in improving their response times and safety with big data operations powered by Opticom. The analytics tool is a web-based platform that shows agencies where their emergency vehicles get slowed down during a response and allows them to make smarter decisions about where to improve or add preemption.
Mack said feedback from the meeting will help ensure that GTT is providing the best, most valuable technologies to the market.
“As vehicles and infrastructure become more connected, the opportunity for innovation increases,” Mack said. “The advisory board is intended to drive public and private partnerships to ensure that the most impactful technologies are being delivered to the market, and it gives industry leaders a chance to share new ideas with their peers.”