In the Netherlands, the installed base of so called Dynamic Traffic Management (DTM) tools has grown substantially in recent years, and more and more new DTM applications are getting close to their introduction. Originally, the realization of each DTM application was considered as a stand-alone project, and carried out completely independently of the others. This approach has resulted in a multitude of independent networks along the roadside and, hence, has led to a serious maintenance problem, quite apart from other drawbacks like the lack of data-exchange facilities between the various tools and the missed opportunity of the economy of scale. These considerations (amongst others) have been the motivation to design and build a single communication network infrastructure (The VICnet) along the roadside in the Netherlands. The main goal of the VICnet is to convert the existing DTM applications into a manageable set of tools, and to ensure that future applications can be added with more flexibility at lower cost. In this paper, the architecture of the VICnet is discussed and more detail into subjects like technical aspects, maintenance and third-party involvement is gone into. It is believed that the general network infrastructure presented in this paper is a sensible way to cope with the problem of providing safe and trustworthy DTM and to deal with problems like scalability and maintenance at the same time. For the covering abstract see IRRD E102946.
Abstract