There are seven international highway crossings on the Niagara, St. Clair and Detroit Rivers at the Michigan-Ontario-New York border. These crossings are at the beginning/end of the Ontario strategic highway network and are the key transportation links to the United States. The crossings account for over $125 billion per year of commercial trade. Over 5.5 million trucks and 31.5 million passenger vehicles annually use these border crossing facilities for movements between Canada and the United States. At these crossings there are toll plazas located on one side of the border and customs-immigration plazas located on the other side of the border. The government transportation agencies, border crossing agencies, and toll operators on both sides of the border jointly initiated a project to deploy an Intelligent Transportation Border Crossing System (ITBCS) at the Michigan-Ontario border crosssing, Ambassador Bridge, and at the Ontario-New York border crossing, Peace Bridge. This system will support the North American Trade Automation Prototype initiative and will use compatible DSRC transponder technology to test the concept of a seamless border to facilitate the flow of international trade and passenger traffic. This presentation will discuss the international border crossings, international and institutional cooperation, ITS technology application planning, automated border crossing operational requirements, transponder interoperability, ITBCS functions, field operational test, related institutional issues, and future perspective. (A)
Abstract