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Benefits Database Help

Welcome to the ITS Benefits Database! We've made several changes that should help you more easily access information on the benefits and costs of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS).

This page should assist you in finding what you are looking for, but if you continue to have trouble, please feel free to contact us. Read on for an introduction to the site or click on a link below to look for help more specifically related to what interests you.

	Site Navigation
	Benefits Data
	Search Help

Site Navigation

The Web site includes two major navigation areas. The navigation "tabs" across the top of the screen allow you to move between the various decision-making resources sponsored by the USDOT. These include the ITS Applications Overview, this ITS Benefits Database, the ITS Costs Database, the ITS Deployment Statistics Web site, and the Lessons Learned Knowledge Resource.

The second set of navigation links appears at the left of the screen and allows you to brows through the information available in the Benefits Database. Each of these links is further described below.

Benefits Data

The benefits database includes summaries of various reports documenting the impact of ITS on the surface transportation system. The links on the left of the screen provide you with several different ways to browse through these summaries:

"Application" allows you to access the summaries classified by categories defined by the various application areas of ITS. These categories are depicted in the taxonomy chart and listed after clicking the link into this area of the site. They begin with a division of the summaries into those applications intended for the infrastructure of the transportation system and those applied to vehicles.

"Measure" allows you to view the summaries in the database sorted by the performance measures included in the evaluation described.

The "State" and "Country" links allow you to view reports grouped by the location of the evaluated implementation.

The "Integration" link provides access to the benefits summaries sorted by a series of integration links which describe the types of interactions that may occur between various elements of ITS.

Several other links are provided to other content on the site:

"What's New" reveals a list of the most recently posted document summaries in the database sorted by the date of posting.

"Data Needs" section provides access to a portion of the site discussing the determination of the areas of ITS in need of further evaluation.

"Benefit of the Month" is an archive of the monthly highlights featured on the Benefits Database homepage and the homepage of the USDOT's ITS Joint Program Office.

"Available Documents" provides a list of downloadable documents related to ITS Benefits and the Benefits Database.

"Links" provides a list of ITS Evaluation related Web sites.

Search Help

Located at the upper left of each page in this Web site, the search box enables you to quickly access both benefits and costs information related to particular interests you may have. An important element of the search capability is the selection field that allows you to search the "benefits" data, "costs" data, or "all." Selecting "all" allows you to search for both benefits and costs information related to the keywords you enter. Use the "Search" button to submit your search.

In addition to simple word searches, you can use query operators to refine your search.

The following table presents the query operators you can use and describes how each operator will enhance your search.

Operator	What it does
and AND &	These find documents containing all the conditions or words linked by AND. Example: 'car AND highway AND safety' finds documents containing all three of these words.
or OR , (comma)	These find documents containing either of the conditions or words and returns them ranked by number of appearances in the document. Example: 'car OR highway OR safety' finds documents containing at least one of these words. Note ACCRUE works slightly better than OR when sorting results by relevance.
NOT not !	These make the query negative. · You can put NOT between words: 'car AND NOT safety' finds documents containing the word car, but not if they also contain the word safety. · '(car OR safety) AND NOT (highway OR transit)' finds documents containing the word car or safety, but not if they also contain the word highway or transit. · '(car AND safety) AND NOT highway' finds documents containing the words car and safety, but not if they also contain the word highway.
" "	Placing double quotes around operators (like AND, OR, CONTAINS etc.) allows the search engine to read them as normal words. Example: "arterial management" finds documents containing the phrase arterial management.
?	This is a wildcard. It represents any single letter. It does not work with dates or numbers. Example: '?ar' finds documents containing car, far, mar, bar (and any other three-letter words that end with 'ar') '???rt' finds documents containing start, alert, smart, (and any other five-letter words that end with 'rt')
*	This is a wildcard. It represents any extension of letters. It does not work with dates or numbers. Example: 'inter*' finds documents that start with 'inter' such as intersection, interstate, interoperable Also, '*art*' finds documents containing the letter sequence 'art' such as arterial, cart, start
- (hyphen)	This tells the search engine to find the hyphenated word pair. Example: 'full-text' finds documents containing "full-text."
( ) [parentheses]	This determines the order in which your query is processed. A part of the query enclosed in parentheses will be processed before parts outside the parentheses.