| Abstract |
The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) is interested in developing an ability to measure the operating performance of the roadway system at a national level. The U.S. DOT is also interested in state and local transportation agencies having access to roadway system performance data to assist in their planning, evaluation, and management activities. To be useful for the purposes described, roadway system performance data must be measured continuously, and be available in both real-time and archived formats. The objectives of the Integrated Surveillance and Data Management Infrastructure (ISDMI) program are to provide real-time and archival traffic information services along with the integration of an existing surveillance infrastructure. The ISDMI systems are made up of two functional areas: (i) a data gathering function, i.e., Metropolitan Traffic Area (MTA) and (ii) a data processing and storage function application, the National Transportation Data Center (NTDC). The deployment of this program was initiated in the two large metropolitan areas, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. The U.S. DOT provided $2 million in federal funds and the Pennsylvania DOT provided $500,000. Implementation of this program is a public-private partnership between the U.S. DOT and a private Consortium led by Mobility Technologies (formerly Traffic.com). Mobility Technologies designed, owns, operates, and maintains the traffic information system to provide an ISDMI. The primary purpose of the MTA is to gather traffic information from various sources within a defined region and transmit those data back to the NTDC. The NTDC data reporting system processes, stores, and reports on the information from the data gathering system. The NTDC processes the data to provide real-time traffic condition information, and maintains a data storage or warehouse facility for archived data. Both the public and private sectors have access to the real-time and archival databases at the NTDC through a web-based enterprise system. The system consists of a network of sensors located across a metropolitan area and connected via a communications network to the NTDC. Each sensor collects information in real time, continuously monitors the roadway, and communicates to the NTDC on a regular basis (currently configured at intervals of 60 seconds) sending all of the information gathered in that period. The data, which are processed at the NTDC, are used for both real-time distribution and data archive purposes. Bibliography, appendix, tables, figures. |
TRT
