Rich Jones, executive administrator of the Klein Volunteer FD, points to the intelligent intersection communication network's in-vehicle module, which has been installed in every fire apparatus. (Photo Courtney McCain)

In Harris County, Texas, emergency responders are seeing green, specifically more green signal lights.

“As we’re approaching [an intersection], [the system] triggers traffic lights farther down our route to allow cars to move out of the way ahead of us,” says Rich Jones, executive administrator of Klein Volunteer Fire Department, one of the emergency response agencies in Harris County, Texas, that participated in a beta test for an intelligent intersection communication network, called IntelliCON. “It senses where [our units] are and at what rate we are traveling,”

The inability to get around gridlock has become an issue for Harris County’s emergency responders. The area includes the Houston-metro area, and the majority of its residents travel by car. Houston’s exponential growth — especially to the north and west — continues at boomtown speed, spilling well beyond city limits. Six million people now live in the multi-county, Houston-metro area, and of those, more than 4 million reside in Harris County.

The pilot project, which installed the system in 50 traffic-clogged intersections, is set to expand fourfold — eventually encompassing 220 intersections across northwest Harris County within the next three years.

“I have high hopes for this project,” says Chief Fred Windisch, the Ponderosa Fire Department. “[With this system,] I think we’re going to achieve our goal of allowing safe passage for emergency vehicles on these roads. It is already improving our response on roads where it has been installed.”

The process to install and expand the system has also hastened more open communication and understanding between local emergency services and transportation agencies. Jones, his agency and many others now look forward to its expansion.

Cutting-Edge Technology Manages Gridlock
Unlike preemption systems manually activated by responders after they have line-of-sight for an intersection, IntelliCON does it automatically. Developed by the California-based E-ViEWS Safety Systems Inc., IntelliCON is a multi-tiered, preemption system that clears traffic for responding emergency vehicles. The company has had success with system beta tests in the U.S. and Canada, but its largest project to date is the Harris County deployment.

“Manual traffic preemption relies on line of sight,” Windisch says, “And you’ve also got to be close enough to the lights to trigger those lights to change.

At the intersection, the E-ViEWS module, which is installed in the traffic cabinet, monitors the traffic signal phasing and allows real-time signal preemption. Dynamic message signs, one for each approaching lane, are also installed at that intersection. These visual displays are mounted on a traffic signal pole and will indicate the location and direction of approaching emergency vehicles. Message signs are also installed along the road approximately 300 feet in advance of the intersection.

The system includes a vehicle module, which tracks and transmits real-time vehicle data, and monitors nearby intersections and vehicles for conflict detection; and a dispatch module, which displays all intersections and emergency vehicle locations, and provides real-time access to unit configuration settings.

Like other large metropolitan areas, Harris County has a multijurisdictional tapestry. But the Greater Houston Transportation and Emergency Management Center (Houston TranStar) is massive, combining transportation and emergency management officials from Houston, Harris County, the Metropolitan Transit Authority and the Texas Department of Transportation. Houston TranStar handles the metro area’s radial-style roadway system from the center of downtown Houston to the outer reaches of the county. As one of the first in the nation to develop and establish advance transportation controllers (ATC) and common center software (ICONS), TranStar has a reputation for being innovative.

 “We’ve established standards-based hardware here, and that’s opened up great potential,” says Wayne Gisler, Houston TranStar agency manager. Houston TranStar uses an ITS (intelligent transportation systems) cabinet with 2070 ATC standard with Siemens software for traffic management.

“This setup eases cost,” says Gisler. “It will allow system growth and maintain that edge, without needing to do hardware and physical reconstruction every time new software is developed. It can evolve.”

“E-ViEWS is really a good application, and these types of programs are very advanced,” Gisler says. “Already, there is a lot of interest outside [the pilot area], about how other agencies can get involved and be a part of this.”

A Traffic Management Brainstorm
E-ViEWS Safety Systems Inc. developed out of a close call at a California intersection in 1998.

“A 40,000-lb. fire truck blew through a red light and nearly hit me,” recalls CEO Jim Davidson. “It was traveling so fast that if it had hit me, I would have been killed. I pulled over and began shaking. I couldn’t even talk to myself for a few minutes.”

The experience later gave Davidson an epiphany. He soon founded the company to develop and market traffic warning and preemption systems. By 1999, he was partnering with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology, which now hold equity positions in E-ViEWS, to develop dynamic warning ITS (intelligent traffic system) technologies. Strategic partners also include ITS Consultants, Motorola ITS, Patton Boggs, ITERIS, Electro-Techs and the Gordon Williams Co.

One of its first ventures was in Monrovia, Calif., where E-ViEWS beta tested its products at 10 intersections and installed tracking software in each of the city’s police cars to trigger the cascade of traffic light changes during responses.

“Monrovia had $200,000 in lawsuits annually before [E-ViEWS], and they’ve reduced that to zero,” Davidson says.

In 2002, E-ViEWS was recognized by NASA with its National Space Award, citing the company’s technological potential. That recognition led to other implementations, including a dynamic message sign at Disney World, with the transit system in Montreal, a small-scale emergency preemption program in Trois-Rivieres, Canada, and another in Henderson, Nev.

In addition to helping develop E-ViEWS’ IntelliCON preemption system, which has IntelliCorr intersection modules compatible with industry-standard traffic cabinets, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory designed a series of technologies for public safety, transportation, rail and metro bus transit, and multiple applications that address homeland security concerns.

“We’re an emerging company,” Davidson says. “We’ve got some of the leading technology in the world, and the possibilities are endless. Pre-emption is just a tiny part of it. We’re greatly expanding our capabilities and applications.”

E-Views currently holds multiple patents (more are pending), and the company isn’t stopping there, Davidson said. NASA and Caltech are in the midst of developing next generation detection and warning systems to address today’s multi-level transportation issues, as well as terrorism concerns spurred by 9/11.

The Cypress Creek EMS Comm Center currently hosts the system's server and is the main comm center for the corridor. The system's dispatch module displays all intersections and emergency vehicle locations for telecommunicators (Photo Courtney McCain)

A Multi-Agency Territory
After watching their service areas swell with suburban sprawl, fire and EMS managers in northwest Harris County were ready for new technology to handle the resulting traffic.

Outside the Houston city limits, Harris County’s emergency service districts (ESDs) contract various public safety agencies to provide service. Enacting change in any multijurisdictional area is challenging, but every ESD across north Houston faced similar issues, so it wasn’t long for involved ESDs, Harris County, Houston TranStar and multiple fire agencies (Ponderosa, Klein, Champions, Cypress Creek and Spring) to develop a memorandum of understanding for the E-ViEWS system implementation.

Participating fire departments signed on as partners for the pilot project, promising to fork over funds ($2 million) to pay for installation. Cypress Creek EMS Emergency Communications Center (also known as Alarm) was heavily involved as the main dispatch center for the corridor.

Windisch says, “There have been some hold-ups, mostly with software. This has never been done before at this scale. But it’s already been successful in the corridors where it is installed.”

Windisch developed an implementation plan for 210 intersections in northwest Harris County that will be networked by E-ViEWS. “Once we had agreements from different departments, we started budgeting, based on a prorated schedule,” Jones says. “We worked with Fred to develop spreadsheets, and a five-year plan was developed to determine which specific intersections were more crucial to implementation.”

System Installation Meets Software Snags, Engineering Requirements
In early 2008, the system was tested first along Louetta Road. A smaller thoroughfare, it nonetheless developed traffic jams, especially in late afternoon.

But within several months, the implementation hit its first traffic jam: hardware vs. software issues in other areas of the county. The state and county both use different hardware and different traffic systems, which would both require painstaking reprogramming from every side.

“The system [in northern Harris County] is the most sophisticated model we have, and it’s expanding,” says John Olivieri, a project engineer with E-ViEWS. “TranStar wanted our software to interface with the Siemens software they use for traffic control. Siemens had to create software so [E-ViEWS] would interface with what already is being used for traffic, so E-ViEWS is paying Siemens to make those code changes in Siemens’ proprietary software so it can communicate with TranStar. It’s not an overnight fix.”

According to Olivieri, that wasn’t just a compatibility concern. In the statistics-driven world of traffic engineering, the introduction of a non-standard traffic control device isn’t done lightly. Even predictable traffic patterns can be challenging for traffic engineers to coordinate, especially when unforeseen incidents gum up traffic. It was vital, therefore, for E-ViEWS to be a system designed to work with existing traffic light patterns, instead of resetting them after preemption.

“The timed sequence is never interrupted, and it resumes as soon as the emergency vehicles pass through the intersection,” Davidson says. “It’s a consistent and smart infrastructure. We’re doing some pretty slick stuff, but it’s got to work with Siemens’ pretty slick stuff. Programming changes can be made remotely, immediately, once the software and controllers are in place. It’s a unique, smart, interactive, total traffic management system.”

Economic Realities
By 2008, the fire agency partnership had gathered $275,000 for the implementation and kept waiting for the go-ahead from Harris County and Houston TranStar to expand beyond the Louetta corridor.

Then the economy tanked, and commissioners representing every involved agency knew about the $275,000. Fearful that waiting might cause the project to lose momentum (and give commissioners reason to reallocate those funds), the fire chiefs looked to the state highway system, which has two roads in their territories, to expand the project.

The Texas Department of Transportation enthusiastically approved the software installation along State Highways 249 and 2920 while adjustments continued for county roads.

Klein Volunteer FD had purchased the original IntelliCON server, initially installing it at the TranStar facility. E-ViEWS also installed IntelliTran, the mobile transponders for the system, in fire apparatus and ambulances assigned to those corridors.

But when the county road plan for the E-ViEWS implementation stalled and the state highway system was used instead, the server was ultimately retrieved and installed in the Cypress Creek EMS Comm Center, which became the temporary center of operations for the program (data still was being shipped to the E-ViEWS office from the Texas-based server).

Construction Traps Responders in Traffic
“After Louetta, we put E-ViEWS on 29 intersections on [State Highway] 2920, and also did [State Highway] 249 from the Tomball city limits to [Farm-to-Market] 1960,” Jones says. “And we’d have done more, but by then we’d pretty much run out of state road. Actually, 1960 would have been next, but 1960 is complicated.”

Within the past three decades, the farm-to-market road known as 1960 has morphed from a quaint, two-lane road through the piney woods of rural Harris County. Many of those trees are gone, replaced by a 10-mile area of strip malls and stop-and-go traffic. As call volumes spiked, frustrated emergency responders began contraflowing into oncoming lanes to get anywhere in the 1960 corridor.

The road has been widened several times, but not as drastically as last year, when a center median was added to avert head-on crashes. The median is impenetrable by most emergency vehicles. According to Jones, area fire chiefs and Cypress Creek EMS leaders, who knew ahead of time that the median would be built, supported the measure as long as E-ViEWS was available to flush traffic ahead of an emergency response.

Months passed with no news from Houston TranStar on the status of E-ViEWS’ implementation along 1960. Initially unaware of the software issues, emergency response personnel began to worry because road construction on the 1960 median was on schedule without any sign that E-ViEWS would be installed, first.

Suddenly, contraflow on 1960 was no longer an option, and emergency responders began calling traffic delays to the Cypress Creek EMS Alarm on a regular basis.

“It was frustrating, because our priorities are very succinct,” Windisch says. “Fire and EMS personnel want to get to the call. Once they put that median in, there were times we were delayed because there was so much traffic, and it wasn’t moving, and responders couldn’t get around it.”

In November 2010, fire chiefs were notified that E-ViEWS, Siemens and Houston TranStar had coordinated the software, and that IntelliCON was “all systems go.” The system will be installed, beginning on FM 1960, as soon as possible.

Toivo Sari, IT manager for Cypress Creek EMS Emergency Comm Center said that next step, which should begin within weeks and be finished in three years, adds nearly 170 intersections to the network already in use.

“The intersection hardware already has been installed along 1960,” Sari says. “They just need to put in equipment, and then it’ll be ready to go. We’re all really excited about it going in on 1960.”

After the intersections are online, the E-ViEWS server will be moved back to Houston TranStar, where it had been initially before the software delay forced the hand of Sari in March. After a series of meetings with frustrated fire chiefs who feared their stagnating E-ViEWS funding might be sucked into the general fund abyss, Sari retrieved that E-ViEWS server so the system could be used through Cypress Creek EMS during the 50-intersection trial.

Hastened by the system, that fiber-optic line now spans the distance between Cypress Creek EMS and the Houston TranStar office. Both Sari and Gisler are optimistic about the new communications possibilities between both agencies.

“The E-ViEWS product did drive that fiber optic line placement,” Sari says, counting the secure connection as a “big positive” for both agencies. “This enhances communications between us, and opens up possibilities for other projects.”

Gisler says he’s looking forward to working more closely with his emergency response neighbors to the northwest.

“Fred Windisch has been outstanding to work with,” Gisler says. “We really want this to work. We want to push this as far as it can go. It takes a long time to break down barriers that have existed for the past 30 years, and [the E-ViEWS project] has brought that. Anything that enhances communication is a positive for everyone.”

“We demonstrated that E-ViEWS works, and that it’s reduced response times,” Jones said. “It works on the technical end and has improved safety for everyone on the street.”

About the Author
Courtney McCain has worked as a paramedic and an air medical dispatcher in Kansas and Texas. She is now a writer focusing on public safety issues. Contact her via e-mail at kemsnews@everestkc.net.