The Albuquerque Tribune reports on the growing use of ITS in New Mexico. This article mentions the key to working ITS: coordination and cooperation. Governor Richardson appears to be unique in his ability to get various agencies to cooperate on transportation issues. His vanity-titled GRIP joins together far-flug regions of the state and adds identifiable coherence to their statewide transportation funding strategy.

Previous high-profile model deployment initiatives also did this. With names like SmartTrek and AzTech, kitchy though they were, they had marketing appeal. They were something that people could point to and say "Oh, that's because of SmartTrek." MDIs enjoyed a great deal of positive press.

This is increasingly important as people feel more and more isolated from Government in general and defeatist about transportation in particular. Plus, creating identifiable transportation consortiums like this can greatly improve chances for increased federal funding. In short, look serious and people will take you seriously.