Expansion of the Border Crossing Information System
Record Type: UTC

There is no reliable system in place to measure and report border crossing times to either commercial trade or travelers planning to cross the U.S. – Mexico border. This research project, in combination with three other already funded and ongoing projects (see Budget section), will provide a prototype of such a system. The result will be a real-time international border crossing travel time information system prototype, not unlike the information available to major city travelers from local traffic management centers in cities like Houston or Dallas. In addition to real-time information, the project will serve as a valuable data source for three other valuable activities: a) estimating the economic impact of border crossing delay and potential improvements, b) validating dynamic cross-border traffic assignment models, and c) long range transportation planning. This project will design the mechanisms to automatically capture border crossing times for commercial vehicles and convert those results to user-friendly formats that can be shared with stakeholders involved in the U.S./Mexico international border crossing process for operations, planning and research purposes. In order to maximize the effective use of the information, the project will begin with a comprehensive survey of stakeholder information needs, focused primarily on commercial crossing users. TTI researchers will define the methodology to capture the information for commercial-vehicle crossing time. The best way to present the information to potential users will be identified and the systems required to share the information with key stakeholders will be developed and tested during this project.
Start date: 2008/2/1
End date: 2009/1/31
Status: Completed
Contract/Grant Number: DTRT06-G-0044
Secondary Number: 00024
Total Dollars: 60854
Source Organization: University Transportation Center for Mobility
Date Added: 03/03/2008
Index Terms: United States-Mexico Border, Crossing times, Real time information, Travel time, Traffic assignment, Commercial vehicles, Research projects,

University Transportation Center for Mobility
http://utcm.tamu.edu
Texas Transportation Institute
Texas A&M University System
3135 TAMU
College Station, TX 77843-3135
USA
Phone: (979) 845-2538
Fax: (979) 845-9761

Tooley, Melissa S
Phone: (979) 845-8545
Fax: (979) 845-9761
Email: m-tooley@tamu.edu

Texas Transportation Institute
http://tti.tamu.edu
Texas A&M University System
3135 TAMU
College Station, TX 77843-3135
USA

Texas Transportation Institute, El Paso
http://tti.tamu.edu/groups/program.htm?p_org_code=GEP
Research and Implementation
4050 Rio Bravo Drive, Suite 151
El Paso, TX 79902
USA

Villa, Juan C.
Phone: (979) 862-3382
Fax: (979) 845-6008
Email: j-villa@tamu.edu

Aldrete-Sanchez, Rafael
Phone: (915) 532-3759
Fax: (915) 532-3762
Email: r-aldrete@tamu.edu