Building Ontario's its R&D capacity: A unique multi-disciplinary and multi-sector its testbed

Despite the high demand, Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) research is fairly fragmented in Canada. The University of Toronto, therefore, is taking the lead initiating an aggressive and comprehensive ITS Research and Development Centre and Testbed. The city-size Testbed is composed of 1) a university-based R&D centre, and 2) real-time communication links to sensors and control devices all over the physical Toronto transportation network itself via both City of Toronto and Ministry of Transportation of Ontario Traffic Operations Centres. The Testbed is a meeting ground for practitioners and researchers from the public, academic, and private sectors to research new approaches to transportation systems management, and to accelerate ITS deployment through advanced technology research. Funding is made available through a consortium of partners covering the public (federal and provincial), private and academic sectors In this paper, we share the Testbed details with the Canadian transportation community and ITS stakeholders.