Annex 7 - The CITE Consortium

This note provides additional information regarding the CITE Consortium (see also Chapter 3 of the Main Report on ITS Training and Education). Details are given here of the courses offered, the material available, the Business Plan and Functional Framework of CITE.

The courses currently offered by CITE include:

• Introduction to ITS
• Traffic Flow Theory
• Telecommunications Technology
• Interoperability : ITS System Architecture
• Transportation Management
• Tools of ATMS
• Incident Management
• Corridor Management
• Dynamic Route Guidance
• Traffic Signal Systems
• Applied Systems Engineering

The above courses cost on average between $275 and $375.

Material

A number of textbooks have been prepared as support for the online courses. The idea is that they follow the course closely, but provide additional information. These include:

• Intelligent Transport Primer (each chapter written by an author well known in the field)
• Intelligent Transportation Systems Architectures
• Positioning Systems in ITS
• Incident Management in ITS
• Wireless Communications for ITS
• Vehicle Location and Navigation Systems
• Tomorrow's Transportation (with wide view of benefits of ITS)
• ITS Handbook 2000 (recommendations for PIARC)
• Introduction to Transportation Systems (30-point framework)
• Sensor technologies and data requirements for ITS

The prices of such publications are mostly around $80 - $100.

Business Model

A CITE consortium committee has developed a Business Model, which has five primary objectives:

1. Support CITE's underlying purpose (i.e. developing ITS courses/material to be developed and offered co-operatively by the Consortium's member Institutions).
2. Enable CITE to be financially self-supporting, after its initial 2 year start-up phase funded by the I-95 Corridor Coalition.
3. Clearly serve the best interests of all CITE's "stakeholders", including the need to avoid placing the Consortium in competition with the best interests of any of its stakeholders.
4. Allow CITE to expand and change as circumstances dictate.
5. Enable CITE to partner as appropriate with other organisations.

Functional Framework

CITE propose that the business model should be constructed around four primary functions:

1. Co-operatively develop new graduate level ITS courses
2. Co-operatively develop new continuing ITS education programmes
3. Co-operatively develop and deliver distance education ITS programs, at both the graduate and continuing education levels
4. Function as a regional ITS education and training clearinghouse

These functions are supported by three supporting functions: Quality Assurance, Customer Response and Partnering Arrangements.

Financial Model

The financial model designed to support the functions outlined above includes the following elements:

• Governance and Administration of CITE: Through a Chairman and small secretariat, which rotate and involve no costs for CITE. Expenses incurred for this, and for members attending Consortium meetings are covered by the institutions of individual members.
• CITE-sponsored projects (e.g. curricula development, new course etc). Project budgets are agreed by the membership with participation funded either (i) wholly by CITE, (ii) wholly by the member's Institution (iii) or by a combination of these. In case (ii), the individual or the Institution receive royalties resulting from the income received by CITE for the project. The process includes written contracts between parties. All materials developed by CITE under this process are the exclusive property of CITE and its member Institutions.
• CITE Business Plan and Budget: Submitted to the membership each year, quantifying operating costs, revenues and projections. Following initial funding of $200,000 over 2 years, it is up to CITE to generate sufficient funds to cover its costs. Three broad categories of revenue are identified:

1. Annual "soft money" commitments from major CITE sponsors, for which the sponsors enjoy a range of benefits.
2. Supplementary "soft money" support from other CITE sponsors, CITE associates and CITE member Institutions
3. Significant "hard money" revenues, based on fees received for specific CITE services or projects undertaken for CITE clients.

Within these categories, the five primary sources of revenue are (i) major CITE sponsors, (ii) other CITE sponsors, (iii) CITE associates, (iv) CITE member institutions and (iv) CITE clients.