Team presents at ITS Heartland annual conference

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Recently, KC Scout participated in the 21st Annual ITS Heartland Conference at the Overland Park Convention Center. ITS Heartland is a five-state Chapter of ITS America consisting of Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma Departments of Transportation. The three day event was held November 8-10 and was hosted by KDOT.  

"This conference is designed to facilitate information sharing for Intelligent Transportation Systems projects and activities and to showcase ITS applications within its five member states," explains KC Scout Special Projects Coordinator Nancy Powell. 

According to Powell, input also includes the latest news from the National Chapter, FHWA, University Transportation Researchers, and ITS product vendors.

This year KC Scout was selected to present in several sessions at the conference. Every year member states are invited to submit abstracts for the event. A committee determines which ones will comprise the three days of breakout sessions, panel discussions, demonstrations, and award ceremonies. KC Scout led the Traffic Incident Management (TIM) Symposium and focused on how designers and planners can help improve TIM at their daily jobs.

"In addition to the symposium, KC Scout also presented an immersive video taking audience members through the handling of a typical crash event and all the parties involved in their specific roles during the event," Powell said.

The video presentation was written, directed, and filmed by the KC Scout team ahead of the conference and showcased a real event that had previously occurred along I-470 and how the team worked together to clear the incident safely.

On the final day of the conference, KC Scout Manager Randy Johnson spoke to the group on COVID-19 and the challenges it presented for TMC operations. He was also a member of the Past President's Panel sharing expertise with peers from previous years.

"Having deferred last year's conference from an in-person event to a virtual one due to COVID-19, this year was heralded as a reunion of colleagues, researchers, and vendors all happy to be sharing engaging conversations about ITS and what the past year looked like as we adjusted to a new way of conducting transportation business during a worldwide pandemic," said Powell.

The next ITS Heartland Conference will be held in April 2022 in Lincoln, Nebraska. There is no charge to DOT employees who wish to participate.

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