No-cost Copies of NTCIP Standards Available

What's the deal? Starting in January 2005, AASHTO, ITE, and NEMA are making available no-cost copies of the jointly-approved and published NTCIP standards. This special offer is made possible by funding from the FHWA's Joint Program Office. Each standard will only be available for a limited, 12-month period, unless the offer is extended. The FHWA hopes to counter the "standards cost too much" barrier that may be preventing some agencies and others in the ITS community from considering a standards-based project design. NTCIP Coordinator Bruce Schopp says, "By the end of calendar 2005, we're expecting to have 26 of the standards available as Adobe PDF files on the NTCIP Web site."

How does it work? Users can register at the NTCIP site www.ntcip.org, and then can download a copy of the Adobe PDF file for each standard they want. In the Library document links table, or on individual Library pages for the standards, users can click on the "PDF shopping cart" to go to the log-in or register pages. The document download feature requires a separate, new registration, which is different from the Committee Work Area FTP sign-in, or from the Forum Web conference log-in. The document download registration collects more user information, but over a secured link. Registered users have 24 hours to download the PDF file to the same computer IP address where the request was started. Users should follow the instructions in the customer agreement for duplication and printing. The customer agreement allows the NTCIP PDF files to be used for personal, noncommercial, and intraorganizational purposes

only. Users may make one more electronic copy of the file, and may print or copy two paper copies. For other use or redistribution of the PDF files, users should contact AASHTO, ITE, or NEMA. By registering, users will receive announcements when that standard is updated or revised. What else? The NTCIP standards that are jointly approved and published are still for sale in hardcopy form, from either Global Engineering Documents, global.ihs.com, or the ITE Bookstore, www.ite.org/bookstore/index.asp. As other NTCIP standards reach joint approval status and are edited for publishing, Adobe PDF files for each of those new standards will be added to the no-cost download feature on the NTCIP Web site. In 2005, the FHWA agreed to extend the offer of no-cost NTCIP standards for an additional 12 months. Each standard, when available, will continue to be available for 24 months. #