Expansion of the Border Crossing Information System

Project Description

The time it takes to cross the border from Mexico into the U.S. for both passenger and commercial vehicles is an important element in making travel and business decisions. This project produced the Border Crossing Information System (BCIS), a prototype to measure and report border crossing times to either commercial trade or travelers planning to cross the U.S.-Mexico border. The project provided a valuable data source for: 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.

Researchers developed the BCIS using a data warehouse concept to support relational database structure and archive data in a variety of temporal and spatial granularity. Researchers also tested the viability of the information system to integrate with field devices that could collect commercial and passenger vehicle crossing times. The BCIS uses 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.

Based on this information, travelers can select the best departure time, route, and modes of travel, or perhaps decide not to make the trip at all. The BCIS also provided archived border crossing data for stakeholder agencies through a centralized repository and provides services to analyze and query the archived data. The archived border crossing data included limited ITS data related to border crossings for planning, safety, operations, and research.

Link

Link: Final Report

For More Information