This article describes the Loral Corporation's Advanced Traffic Management Systems (ATMS) project to develop an operational traffic management centre, which can be used in medium to large urban areas. The project is now in the prototype stage. Its design approach is to: (1) incorporate existing field technologies; (2) provide urban and inter-urban data interchange; and (3) establish a platform for future growth. The control centre that it will develop will provide a model for applying ATMS from the 1990s into the 21st century. In the system, an advanced dynamic interactive graphics user interface (GUI) will present operators with a seamless interface over core ATMS functions. There will be a map on the workstation's screen that divides roads into segments, typically at half-mile intervals. Each segment will have average speed, average volume, and similar attributes, and display superimposed layers of data fed from detector loops, cameras, and radar sensors. The system's architecture would allow the use for incident detection of data gathered by closed-circuit television (CCTV) and converted into digital data. A comprehensive view of an incident would be available in all the control rooms, allowing each agency to monitor the effects of its traffic management strategies on roads for which it is responsible.
Abstract