SANDAG Virtual TMCs - Traffic Management Center Functionality
Subsystem Description
The 'Traffic Management Center' monitors and controls traffic and the road network. It represents centers that manage a broad range of transportation facilities including freeway systems, rural and suburban highway systems, and urban and suburban traffic control systems. It communicates with ITS Roadway Equipment and Connected Vehicle Roadside Equipment (RSE) to monitor and manage traffic flow and monitor the condition of the roadway, surrounding environmental conditions, and field equipment status. It manages traffic and transportation resources to support allied agencies in responding to, and recovering from, incidents ranging from minor traffic incidents through major disasters.
Functional Object: TMC Barrier System Management
'TMC Barrier System Management' remotely monitors and controls barrier systems for transportation facilities and infrastructure under control of center personnel. Barrier systems include automatic or remotely controlled gates, barriers and other access control systems. It also provides an interface to other centers to allow monitoring and control of the barriers from other centers (e.g., public safety or emergency operations centers).
Functional Object: TMC Basic Surveillance
'TMC Basic Surveillance' remotely monitors and controls traffic sensor systems and surveillance (e.g., CCTV) equipment, and collects, processes and stores the collected traffic data. Current traffic information and other real–time transportation information is also collected from other centers. The collected information is provided to traffic operations personnel and made available to other centers.
Functional Object: TMC Data Collection
'TMC Data Collection' collects and stores information that is created in the course of traffic operations performed by the Traffic Management Center. This data can be used directly by operations personnel or it can be made available to other data users and archives in the region.
Functional Object: TMC Demand Management Coordination
'TMC Demand Management Coordination' provides the capability to gather information on regional toll, parking, and transit usage and request changes to pricing and other mechanisms to manage overall transportation demand.
Functional Object: TMC Dynamic Lane Management and Shoulder Use
'TMC Dynamic Lane Management and Shoulder Use' remotely monitors and controls the system that is used to dynamically manage travel lanes, including temporary use of shoulders as travel lanes. It monitors traffic conditions and demand measured in the field and determines when the lane configuration of the roadway should be changed, when intersections and/or interchanges should be reconfigured, when the shoulders should be used for travel (as a lane), when lanes should be designated for use by special vehicles only, such as buses, high occupancy vehicles (HOVs), vehicles attending a special event, etc. and/or when types of vehicles should be prohibited or restricted from using particular lanes. It controls the field equipment used to manage and control specific lanes and the shoulders. It also can automatically notify the enforcement agency of lane control violations.
Functional Object: TMC Environmental Monitoring
'TMC Environmental Monitoring' assimilates current and forecast road conditions and surface weather information using a combination of weather service provider information, information collected by other centers such as the Maintenance and Construction Management Center, data collected from environmental sensors deployed on and about the roadway, and information collected from connected vehicles. The collected environmental information is monitored and presented to the operator. This information can be used to issue general traveler advisories and support location specific warnings to drivers.
Functional Object: TMC Evacuation Support
'TMC Evacuation Support' supports development, coordination, and execution of special traffic management strategies during evacuation and subsequent reentry of a population in the vicinity of a disaster or major emergency. A traffic management strategy is developed based on anticipated demand, the capacity of the road network including access to and from the evacuation routes, and existing and forecast conditions. The strategy supports efficient evacuation and also protects and optimizes movement of response vehicles and other resources that are responding to the emergency.
Functional Object: TMC HOV Lane Management
'TMC HOV Lane Management' provides center monitoring and control of HOV lanes. It coordinates freeway ramp meters and connector signals with HOV lane usage signals to provide preferential treatment to HOV lanes. In advanced implementations, it automatically detects HOV violators.
Functional Object: TMC Incident Detection
'TMC Incident Detection' identifies and reports incidents to Traffic Operations Personnel. It remotely monitors and controls traffic sensor and surveillance systems that support incident detection and verification. It analyzes and reduces the collected sensor and surveillance data, external alerting and advisory and incident reporting systems, anticipated demand information from intermodal freight depots, border crossings, special event information, and identifies and reports incidents and hazardous conditions
Functional Object: TMC Incident Dispatch Coordination
'TMC Incident Dispatch Coordination' formulates and manages an incident response that takes into account the incident potential, incident impacts, and resources required for incident management. It provides information to support dispatch and routing of emergency response and service vehicles as well as coordination with other cooperating agencies. It provides access to traffic management resources that provide surveillance of the incident, traffic control in the surrounding area, and support for the incident response. It monitors the incident response and collects performance measures such as incident response and clearance times.
Functional Object: TMC In-Vehicle Signing Management
'TMC In–Vehicle Signing Management' controls and monitors RSEs that support in–vehicle signing. Sign information that may include static regulatory, service, and directional sign information as well as variable information such as traffic and road conditions can be provided to the RSE, which uses short range communications to send the information to in–vehicle equipment. Information that is currently being communicated to passing vehicles and the operational status of the field equipment is monitored by this application. The operational status of the field equipment is reported to operations personnel.
Functional Object: TMC Multi-Modal Coordination
'TMC Multi–Modal Coordination' supports center–to–center coordination between the Traffic Management and Transit Management Centers. It monitors transit operations and provides traffic signal priority for transit vehicles on request from the Transit Management Center.
Functional Object: TMC Passive Surveillance
'TMC Passive Surveillance' collects time stamped vehicle identities from different detection zones, correlates the identities, and calculates link travel times and derives other traffic measures.
Functional Object: TMC Regional Traffic Management
'TMC Regional Traffic Management' supports coordination between Traffic Management Centers in order to share traffic information between centers as well as control of traffic management field equipment. This coordination supports wide area optimization and regional coordination that spans jurisdictional boundaries; for example, coordinated signal control in a metropolitan area or coordination between freeway operations and arterial signal control within a corridor.
Functional Object: TMC Restricted Lanes CV Application
'TMC Restricted Lanes CV Application' manages dynamic lanes for connected vehicles. The application provides the back office functions and supports the TMC operator in establishing and managing dynamic lanes using communications to manage lane use for connected vehicles.
Functional Object: TMC Roadway Equipment Monitoring
'TMC Roadway Equipment Monitoring' monitors the operational status of field equipment and detects failures. It presents field equipment status to Traffic Operations Personnel and reports failures to the Maintenance and Construction Management Center. It tracks the repair or replacement of the failed equipment. The entire range of ITS field equipment may be monitored including sensors (traffic, infrastructure, environmental, security, speed, etc.) and devices (highway advisory radio, dynamic message signs, automated roadway treatment systems, barrier and safeguard systems, cameras, traffic signals and override equipment, ramp meters, beacons, security surveillance equipment, etc.).
Functional Object: TMC Service Patrol Management
'TMC Service Patrol Management' supports dispatch and communication with service patrol vehicles that monitor roads to aid motorists, offering rapid response to minor incidents.
Functional Object: TMC Signal Control
'TMC Signal Control' provides the capability for traffic managers to monitor and manage the traffic flow at signalized intersections. This capability includes analyzing and reducing the collected data from traffic surveillance equipment and developing and implementing control plans for signalized intersections. Control plans may be developed and implemented that coordinate signals at many intersections under the domain of a single Traffic Management Center and are responsive to traffic conditions and adapt to support incidents, preemption and priority requests, pedestrian crossing calls, etc.
Functional Object: TMC Traffic Information Dissemination
'TMC Traffic Information Dissemination' disseminates traffic and road conditions, closure and detour information, incident information, driver advisories, and other traffic–related data to other centers, the media, and driver information systems. It monitors and controls driver information system field equipment including dynamic message signs and highway advisory radio, managing dissemination of driver information through these systems.
Functional Object: TMC Traffic Management Decision Support
'TMC Traffic Management Decision Support' recommends courses of action to the traffic operator based on current and forecast road and traffic conditions. Traffic incidents, special events, maintenance activities and other events or conditions that impact capacity or demand are monitored. Historical data and models are used to compare the impact of potential courses of action and make recommendations to the operator. Decisions are supported through presentation of filtered and fused network–wide road and traffic conditions that identify network imbalances and recommended courses of action. The recommended actions may include predefined incident response plans, signal timing plan changes, DMS/HAR messages, truck restrictions, lane control strategies, metering strategies, and adjustment of variable speed limits. Multimodal strategies may also be recommended that include suggested transit strategies and suggested route and mode choices for travelers. Once a course of action is selected, traffic operations personnel implement these actions within the Traffic Management Center and coordinate the response with other centers in the region.
Functional Object: TMC Traffic Metering
'TMC Traffic Metering' provides center monitoring and control of traffic metering systems including on ramps, through interchanges, and on the mainline roadway. All types of metering are covered including pre–timed/fixed time, time–based, dynamic and adaptive metering strategies and special bypasses. Metering rates can be calculated based upon historical data or current conditions including traffic, air quality, etc.
Functional Object: TMC Traffic Network Performance Evaluation
'TMC Traffic Network Performance Evaluation' measures traffic network performance and predicts travel demand patterns to support traffic flow optimization, demand management, and incident management. It collects traffic data from sensors and surveillance equipment as well as input from other Traffic Management Centers, emissions management, transit operations, and event promoters and uses this information to measure traffic network performance. It collects route planning information from transportation information centers and integrates and uses this information to predict future traffic conditions. The planned control strategies can be passed back to the transportation information center so that the intended strategies can be reflected in future route planning.
Functional Object: TMC Work Zone Traffic Management
'TMC Work Zone Traffic Management' coordinates work plans with maintenance systems so that work zones are established that have minimum traffic impact. Traffic control strategies are implemented to further mitigate traffic impacts associated with work zones that are established, providing work zone information to driver information systems such as dynamic message signs.