Expansion of the Border Crossing Information System (UTCM 08-30-15)

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, provides a prototype of such a system. The result is a real-time international border crossing travel time information system prototype. In addition to real-time information, the project serves as a valuable data source for three other important 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 designed 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 began with a comprehensive survey of stakeholder information needs, focused primarily on commercial crossing users. TTI researchers defined the methodology to capture the information for commercial-vehicle crossing time. The best way to present the information to potential users was identified and the systems required to share the information with key stakeholders were developed and tested during this project.