Ohio DOT District Offices - 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 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 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 Safeguard System Management

'TMC Safeguard System Management' remotely monitors and controls safeguard systems for transportation facilities and infrastructure. Safeguard systems include blast shielding, exhaust systems and other automatic or remotely controlled systems intended to mitigate the impact of an incident. When access to a transportation facility is impacted by the activation of a safeguard system, impacted systems and travelers are notified.

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 Variable Speed Limits

'TMC Variable Speed Limits' provides center monitoring and control of variable speed limits systems. It monitors data on traffic and environmental conditions collected from sensors along the roadway. Based on the measured data, it calculates and sets suitable speed limits usually by lane. It controls equipment that posts the current speed limits and displays additional information such as basic safety rules and current traffic information to drivers.