A freeway Transportation Management Center (TMC) equipped with many ITS functions can significantly improve freeway traffic operation and management without adding additional miles of roadways. There are many successful cases about building freeway TMCs in the United States. However, there are also some mistakes that are repeated during the design of these TMC buildings. TMCs are unique facilities. Architects and engineers who are unfamiliar with the characteristics of TMCs, the functions of TMCs, and the devices and systems they contain would often make design errors. The objective of this research was to provide a tool to help architects and engineers who want to design a TMC building and agencies that plan to implement a TMC. A state-of-the-practice on designing freeway TMC buildings was synthesized based on a survey of freeway-based TMCs in the United States. In addition, many experts, who designed and/or managed a TMC, gave their valuable opinions. The main contributions of the research are the lessons learned from the state-of-the-practice on freeway TMC design, and the findings on relationships among TMC building characteristics. Especially, the authors investigated the size issues of a TMC building and provided numerical relationships among the size of the TMC building, the size of the control room, and the number of staff of the TMC based on the survey. The numerical relationships could be used in sizing the various function spaces of a TMC. Finally, guidelines for designing a freeway TMC building were developed based on the lessoned learned and the findings.
Abstract