FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Citizens, government officials, and other stakeholders in Alabama’s transportation infrastructure got an early Christmas gift when the staff at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), located in Newark, New Jersey, installed software at the Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT) guaranteed to revolutionize how transportation planning, coordination, and reporting is undertaken in the “Yellowhammer” state.

Transportation Economic and Land Use System (TELUS) is an information-management and decision-support software program specifically designed for use by State, Regional and Local Transportation Planning Organizations nationwide in the preparation, maintenance, and dissemination of their annual transportation improvement programs. While several other states are considering use of TELUS, Alabama is the first state to use the system to better coordinate metropolitan and state transportation plans statewide and to provide maximum citizen participation.

TELUS was developed by NJIT over the past six years with a $6M grant from the US Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). It has been designated by FHWA as a “Priority, Market-Ready Technology and Innovation” project The system is available to any of the 384 Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPO) and 50 State DOTs nationwide wishing to use it.

According to Steve Ostaseski, Principal Transportation Planner with the Regional Planning Commission of Greater Birmingham, "TELUS is the best shared application available to advance transportation planning. Web-based, shared information will support regional cooperation and, more importantly, regional awareness of how transportation investments are being decided."

Under the leadership and guidance of the staff at ALDOT, TELUS was customized to meet ALDOTs needs and then installed on an ALDOT server in early December 2004. The system is now accessible on the web to anyone wishing to view the status of projects, locally or throughout the state.

Shundreka Givan, with the City of Huntsville, states, "I think that TELUS is a very user-friendly program that will allow a very effective method for developing our local TIP."

For further information on TELUS, please contact:

Dr. Fred Ducca of Federal Highway Administration’s Office of Planning, Environment, and Realty at (202) 366-5843, or via e-mail at fred.ducca@fhwa.dot.gov.

Dr. Lazar Spasovic, Project Director, TELUS - NJIT at (973) 596-6420 or via e-mail at spasovic@njit.edu.

Robert Florida, Office of Communications at 973-596-5203 or via e-mail florida@njit.edu.

For the information on the software, please access the TELUS-National website at http://telus-national.org.