97%
of Delcan employees say they believe their work is important to Delcan’s success.

–2008
Employee Survey


Vancouver Gateway Program Barbados Coastal Zone Management Program


Los Angeles Regional Integration
of ITS

Area of Expertise RIITS
Objective Implement a countywide information network, enabling agencies to exchange transportation-related information for safety, public information and transportation management
Client LA County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro), Sponsor


With the goal of improving management of the LA County Transportation system and providing better service to the traveling public, Delcan, along with Sarakki & Associates, has created what is arguably the largest transportation information sharing and distribution network in North America.

As partner agencies, Caltrans, the City of Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT), the California Highway Patrol (CHP) and Metro all contribute information collected through their own Intelligent Transportation Systems to the network. The network then enables information sharing in real time between freeway, local traffic, transit and emergency service agencies, as well as air and seaport groundside operations. RITTS also provides data to traveler information services of all kinds.

As a result of our work, 19 million people from Ventura County to Orange County now receive comprehensive and accurate traffic information in real time. This project also provides a valuable exchange of traffic information between the 15 partner agencies, including Los Angeles International Airport, fire departments, public works organizations and railways.

Information collected by the RIITS Network is disseminated to users via:

  • Secure browser-based map display for authorized agency users
  • Data feed for integration into existing agency systems
  • Data feed for Information Service Providers (ISP) for private companies
  • Public traveler information web pages

The shared information includes real-time data and/or video from 1,300 Vehicle Detector Stations (VDS), 400 CCTV cameras, 110 changeable message signs (CMS), 3,500 arterial traffic signals, 2,400 buses, 10 trains and hundreds of California Highway Patrol events per day. The RIITS project is one of the largest public partnerships of its kind using the latest web-based technologies and the latest Center-to-Center (C2C) Extensive Markup Language (XML) standards.

The completion of this project has promoted the integration of ITS in the Greater Los Angeles region in many areas. Metro bus rail systems now have more information available to effectively manage incidents. Caltrans and LADOT use the exchange of data to better manage their systems and add information such as ramp metering status and signal status to perform joint event management. In fact, after the implementation of this project, the Federal Highway Administration consulted Delcan in modifying their industry-wide NTCIP 2306 standards. Due to the groundbreaking work Delcan has provided, agencies today wishing to deploy this model can develop an interface to retrieve regional transportation data in days.

Bringing Innovation To Groundbreaking Initiatives

Leveraging existing web-based communications systems:

  • Leveraging existing communications infrastructure and use of web services technologies for secure access to RIITS through the public interest, rather than construction of new cable-based communications systems, saved the participating partners $1M.
  • The use of web-based technologies allowed rapid increase in the number of users, by offering convenient access by simply logging in on any existing PC.
  • ISP requests have shown the breadth of interest in the data, with the soft launch of the public web site achieving 25,000 hits per day with virtually no publicity.