This paper describes an advanced incident management system, using state-of-the-art Intelligent Vehicle Highway System (IVHS) technologies, that is bevng developed for the 13-mile Smart Corridor near Santa Monica, CA, USA. The system's objective is to develop an on-line decision support system, using a knowledge-based expert system (KBES), to help Traffic Operations Center (TOC) personnel to detect, verify and respond to traffic incidents. The system enables police, transport departments, and other agencies involved in the management of incidents, to coordinate their efforts and share resources and information. The system's main elements are: (1) freeway and arterial incident detection, using dynamic data from system detectors embedded in the Corridor's roads, together with automatic extraction of incident data; (2) incident verification through television cameras and reports from field personnel; (3) automatic generation of response to incidents, using the rule-based KBES, and consisting of a set of strategies and the use of various resources to minimise an incident's negative impact; and (4) monitoring, which evaluates changes in incident characteristics and traffic conditions and changes the responses appropriately.
Abstract