RITA | ITS | Costs: Help

Costs Database Help

Welcome to the ITS Costs Database!

This page should assist you in finding what you are looking for, but if you continue to have trouble, please feel free to contact us. Read on for an introduction to the site or click on a link below to look for help more specifically related to what interests you.

Site Navigation

Search Help

ITS Help

Site Navigation

This website offers two types of navigation schemes: Quick Links and Drop-down menus. The Quick Links icons located at the top right hand side allow you to access data in the five ITS decision-making resources:

The navigation "drop down menus" located at the top of the page allow you to browse through the information in the ITS Costs Database. Each of the drop down menus is described below:

Costs Database

The Costs Database menu includes overview information about the Costs Database.

What's New reveals a list of the 10 most recently posted document summaries in the database sorted by the date of posting.
About This Site describes the data contained in the Costs Database.
FAQ reveals a list of the most recently posted document summaries in the database sorted by the date of posting.
Available Documents provides a list of downloadable documents related to ITS Costs and the Costs Database.
Links provides a list of ITS Evaluation related Web sites.
Contact Us provides contact information for the Costs Database.
Contribute Data allows the user to share data or documentation to be incorporated in the Costs Database .
Help presents a link to this Help Page that contains information on how to navigate the Costs Webpage and how to find information on ITS Costs.

Unit Costs

The unit costs data are structured based on the cost elements in the ITS National Architecture Cost Analysis and ITS Deployment Analysis System (IDAS) equipment list. IDAS is an ITS planning and cost/benefit tool.

Unadjusted Costs links you to 22 ITS subsystems. ITS elements are located in the subsystem in which they physically reside. For example, video cameras are deployed at the roadside for the purposes of surveillance and detection. Unit cost data for video cameras is found in the Roadside Detection (RS-D) subsystem.
Adjusted Costs also links you to the 22 ITS subsystems. The only difference in the information provided via this link and the "Unadjusted Costs" link is the cost values are presented in 2005 dollars. The dollar year the costs data were adjusted from is provided.
Indexes links you to information about the indexes used to adjust cost values to 2005 dollars. The index number corresponds to the index used to adjust the cost data. The index is representative of the ITS element. For example, the first element in Roadside Detection, Inductive Loop Surveillance on Corridor, is tagged with Index 2. Index 2 is WPU1178 and is applied to elements that contain electronic components. The capital cost range is an adjusted value and was adjusted from 2001 (see column labeled "Adjusted From Date"). The O&M costs are 2005 values obtained in Noblis' analysis (as such, no adjustment needed).
Download Excel is the link to the Excel spreadsheet version of the unit costs data. The file consists of four (4) worksheets: unadjusted cost spreadsheet, indexes used in adjusting cost values, adjusted cost spreadsheet, and reference notes (similar to the information on this web page).
Download PDF is the link to the PDF formatted version of the unit costs data and contains the same information as the Excel file.
Data Sources links you to a listing of the direct and indirect data sources of unit costs data.

System Costs By

The Costs Database includes summaries of various reports documenting the impact of ITS on the surface transportation system. System costs summaries are examples of ITS projects that have been deployed and include the cost of the deployment. Summaries provide additional background on the context of the ITS project, project cost data, and links to the source documentation (when available). A breakout of components and costs is provided for most summaries. The System Costs By drop down menu provide you with several different ways to browse through these summaries:

Application allows you to access the summaries classified by categories defined by the various application areas of ITS. The taxonomy consists of 14 Intelligent Infrastucture applications and 3 Intelligent Vehicle applications. Each of the 17 applications is further divided. By scanning the sub-application areas, you can choose which system cost summaries may contain information related to your area(s) of interest. These categories are depicted in the taxonomy chart and listed in the Costs Home Page.
The State and Country links allow you to view reports grouped by the location of the evaluated implementation.

ITS Knowledge Resources

The ITS Knowledge Resources drop down menu allows you to access the home page for the five ITS Knowledge Resources websites: Benefits, Costs, Lessons Learned, Application Overview and Deployment Statistics. It also contains a link to the ITS Help Page.

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Search Help

Located at the upper left of each page in this Web site, the search box enables you to quickly access costs, benefits and lessons learned information related to particular interests you may have. An important element of the search capability is the selection field that allows you to search the "benefits" data, "costs" data, "lessons" data, or "all." Selecting "all" allows you to search for benefits, costs, and lessons learned information related to the keywords you enter. Use the "Go" button to submit your search.

In addition to simple word searches, you can use query operators to refine your search.

The following table presents the query operators you can use and describes how each operator will enhance your search.

Operator What it does

and
AND
&
These find documents containing all the conditions or words linked by AND.
Example: 'car AND highway AND safety' finds documents containing all three of these words.

or
OR
, (comma)
These find documents containing either of the conditions or words and returns them ranked by number of appearances in the document.
Example: 'car OR highway OR safety' finds documents containing at least one of these words.
Note ACCRUE works slightly better than OR when sorting results by relevance.

NOT
not
!
These make the query negative.
· You can put NOT between words: 'car AND NOT safety' finds documents containing the word car, but not if they also contain the word safety.
· '(car OR safety) AND NOT (highway OR transit)' finds documents containing the word car or safety, but not if they also contain the word highway or transit.
· '(car AND safety) AND NOT highway' finds documents containing the words car and safety, but not if they also contain the word highway.

" " Placing double quotes around operators (like AND, OR, CONTAINS etc.) allows the search engine to read them as normal words.
Example: "arterial management" finds documents containing the phrase arterial management.

? This is a wildcard. It represents any single letter. It does not work with dates or numbers.
Example: '?ar' finds documents containing car, far, mar, bar (and any other three-letter words that end with 'ar')
'???rt' finds documents containing start, alert, smart, (and any other five-letter words that end with 'rt')

* This is a wildcard. It represents any extension of letters. It does not work with dates or numbers.
Example: 'inter*' finds documents that start with 'inter' such as intersection, interstate, interoperable
Also, '*art*' finds documents containing the letter sequence 'art' such as arterial, cart, start

- (hyphen) This tells the search engine to find the hyphenated word pair. Example: 'full-text' finds documents containing "full-text."

( ) [parentheses] This determines the order in which your query is processed. A part of the query enclosed in parentheses will be processed before parts outside the parentheses.

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ITS Help

Need assistance? Call the ITS Help Line at 866-367-7487 or
e-mail itshelp@volpe.dot.gov

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Operator	What it does
and AND &	These find documents containing all the conditions or words linked by AND. Example: 'car AND highway AND safety' finds documents containing all three of these words.
or OR , (comma)	These find documents containing either of the conditions or words and returns them ranked by number of appearances in the document. Example: 'car OR highway OR safety' finds documents containing at least one of these words. Note ACCRUE works slightly better than OR when sorting results by relevance.
NOT not !	These make the query negative. · You can put NOT between words: 'car AND NOT safety' finds documents containing the word car, but not if they also contain the word safety. · '(car OR safety) AND NOT (highway OR transit)' finds documents containing the word car or safety, but not if they also contain the word highway or transit. · '(car AND safety) AND NOT highway' finds documents containing the words car and safety, but not if they also contain the word highway.
" "	Placing double quotes around operators (like AND, OR, CONTAINS etc.) allows the search engine to read them as normal words. Example: "arterial management" finds documents containing the phrase arterial management.
?	This is a wildcard. It represents any single letter. It does not work with dates or numbers. Example: '?ar' finds documents containing car, far, mar, bar (and any other three-letter words that end with 'ar') '???rt' finds documents containing start, alert, smart, (and any other five-letter words that end with 'rt')
*	This is a wildcard. It represents any extension of letters. It does not work with dates or numbers. Example: 'inter' finds documents that start with 'inter' such as intersection, interstate, interoperable Also, 'art*' finds documents containing the letter sequence 'art' such as arterial, cart, start
- (hyphen)	This tells the search engine to find the hyphenated word pair. Example: 'full-text' finds documents containing "full-text."
( ) [parentheses]	This determines the order in which your query is processed. A part of the query enclosed in parentheses will be processed before parts outside the parentheses.