2013 ITS Writing Competition For U.S Students

ITS America and Southwest Research Institute are once again proudly
sponsoring the Annual Student Essay Competition for the 2013 ITS
America Annual Meeting. The Student Essay Competition is designed to
encourage student interest and future participation in the development
of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) and solutions. The
objective of the essay competition is to provide an opportunity for
today's transportation and engineering students to apply their
knowledge in a thought-provoking and enjoyable competition and to
build awareness of ITS as a career path with unlimited potential.

Each year, students from all of the country respond to a variety of
topics and provide their insight to the ITS industry. Students are an
important part of the continued development of the ITS industry, a
field of expertise that is vitally important to our nation's economy
and our way of life.


AWARDS:

The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners will receive $1,500, $1,000, or
$500 respectively.
Additional recognition includes:
-- The 1st place winner will be invited to attend the Awards ceremony
at the ITS America Annual Meeting on Tuesday, April 23rd and be
assisted financially to cover trip expenses.
-- Receive a complimentary full registration to attend the conference.
-- Have the opportunity to present their winning essay at the
dedicated Interactive Session area in the exhibit hall.
-- Have their winning essays displayed on the Student Essay
Competition Web page of ITS America's website.
-- All three winners will be featured in nationally-distributed press releases.
"The student essay competition encourages students around the U.S. to
take a more active interest in the application of advanced
technologies to transportation by challenging them to focus their
concepts and ideas.
We are proud to be a part of this ITS America initiative to foster and
encourage the advanced technology consultants and solution providers
oftomorrow."


Institute
STUDENT ESSAY TOPICS
Essays must be based on one of the following topics.

Topic 1: Next Generation Cooperative Systems, how will they evolve?
Subtopics:

*How cooperative systems will quantitatively improve the performance
of standalone active vehicle safety systems?

*One of the challenges of implementing cooperative systems is the
penetration rate required. What are the barriers to achieving the
necessary penetration rates in order to realize system level benefits
of a specific cooperative system/application?

*Describe relevant research into the application of
multi-agent/intelligent agent theory on current transportation
challenges.

*Describe the importance of Infrastructure (roadside equipment) in the
deployment of a large-scale V2V cooperative system.


Topic 2: How is ITS evolving?
Subtopics:

*How will regions integrate their data to provide consolidated views
for the traveling public?

*What is the next emerging technology that willimpact IT