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Letter from Bryan Mulligan...
![[Author]](http://www.intelligentdevicesinc.com/eNewsletters/images/BMulligan4.jpg)
Thanks to everyone for the very positive feedback to the first issue of Intelligent News. It is gratifying to see how the work we are doing in the ITS market is resulting in better, faster, lower cost and more successful deployment of ITS systems. This edition covers the practical deployment of two of our newer technologies, bringing “NTCIP made easy” to the world of snow plows and a case study on an Idaho DOT pilot scheme on combining NTCIP with our new WEBDirect technology in controlling their Portable Sign fleet.
News from the NTCIP Joint Committee is interesting this month. On March 27, the vote came in from the Joint Committee to approve NTCIP 1203 Version 2 as a Recommended Standard. The vote ended a six year effort to bring out a new version of the standard that covers Dynamic Message Signs. This new version has mixed support from Intelligent Devices and our constituents in the market. The changes in the new version of standard are as follows:
• New features added for the support of Graphics and Color – these features were well done and should work well.
• Addition of new objects to support a number of minor features – altering how fonts can work, message default reporting and so on – these changes smack of “fiddling” with the standard and will probably cause more trouble than they are worth.
• A massive re-work on the layout and structure of the document which has resulted in the document bloating to about 350 pages – The jury is still out on these changes, as we’re still to see what new procurement specifications look like that call out the new version of the standard. It may be that the changes are simply unworkable in practice.
• The biggest success of the new version of the standard, is that through a mammoth effort by Intelligent Devices and others, we managed to force changes through in this version that keep it backward compatible with version 1 of the standard. While that may seem a self evident requirement to all of you who are busy deploying signs and software based on the standard, it was not obvious to everybody! So the good news is, for those of you actively busy with deployment programs, that you can carry on without risk. Only call out Version 2 when you are ready, or need Color and/or Graphics. Until then, keep going with the specifications that you have.
I voted to “abstain”, as the good in the new version was balanced equally, in my opinion, with the bad.
Enjoy this copy of Intelligent News. Until next time…
Regards,
Bryan Mulligan
Past Issues:
Intelligent News - March 2007 |
