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Summary of Intelligent Transportation Systems: Traffic Control
Introduction
Intelligent transport system (ITS) is a detailed set that entails transport infrastructure and an operational system that helps in prioritizing safety, efficiency, and convenience of the transport infrastructure systems. The safety, efficiency, and convenience of transport infrastructure is achieved by the application of information and communication technology while at the same time minimizing costs (Eswaraprasad and Raja 600). Intelligent Transportation Systems have continued to be widely applied throughout the transport industry in several areas such as traffic control, real-time parking management, electronic-toll collection, incident management, travel demand management and automated speed enforcement. These systems are made possible as a result of combining new capabilities that are availed by modern information and communication systems (Eswaraprasad and Raja 600). This summary focuses on the application of ITS in traffic control.
Traffic control is a fundamental user service given that the surveillance, control communication, and support system activities covered by traffic control form the fundamental basic framework upon which several other user services depend on. Traffic control is the management of the movement of traffic (both pedestrians and vehicles) in the streets and highways. Traffic control employs controls such as adaptive signal systems, lamp metering, and lane control. Traffic control provides real-time transportation network performance information which is useful to other ITS service users. For instance, data collected, processed and used for traffic control will be needed in other ITS services such as Traffic and Travel management, emergency management, emergency vehicle management, maintenance operations, and Public Transport Management.
Need
The need for an effective and efficient traffic control is necessary in order to reduce demand and increase the operational efficiency of the transportation system. ITS, through traffic control, is useful as it provides the means to partially cope with an increase in demand and helps in maximizing the utilization of the available capacity, especially where there is need for construction of interstate highway systems. Traffic control significantly helps in ensuring the safety and efficiency of the movements of all users of the transportation system, including all vehicles and non-vehicular users such as cyclists and pedestrians. Traffic control strives for the optimum usage of all control strategies, thereby helping in maximizing the use of the public’s investment in the transportation system. The data gathered by traffic control in the field is then fused into usable information which is then purposefully used to help in maximizing the efficiency in the movement of goods and people through the transportation system by giving preferential treatment to emergency vehicles, and high occupancy vehicles. This preferential treatment of priority vehicles helps to ensure equitable treatment of the multiple occupiers the vehicles carry. The proper implementation of an effective traffic control system will result in a substantial decrease in congestions, and this will,
in turn, significantly improve the air quality.
Service Description
Traffic control entails the use of institutional, human, hardware and software components in the transport management system in order to efficiently and effectively manage the movement of goods and people on streets and highways. Traffic control significantly facilitates the movement of people by giving preferential treatment to mass transit and other forms of high occupancy vehicles while also ensuring the safe and efficient movement of non-vehicular travellers such as cyclists and pedestrians. Traffic control includes controlling network signal systems to achieve certain objectives such as minimizing delays, improving air quality, minimizing energy use, and maximizing system output. They also help in area-wide optimization of traffic movement, which allows ITS to optimize the movement of goods and people over a large geographical area. Certain controls such as ramp metering and lane usage signals help to maintain a desired defined vehicle to capacity ration. Institutional and inter-jurisdictional cooperation is deemed necessary in many areas in order to allow for a unified operation of control systems owned by different jurisdictions.
Improved surveillance, real-time adaptive control, and support systems are needed so as to implement traffic control effectively. Surveillance allows the collection and processing of traffic data that is vital in the development and implementation of control strategies and the feedback from the effect of these strategies. With the availability of real-time traffic information describing existing conditions of the road network, real-time traffic adaptive control can be possibly implemented. With real-time traffic adaptive control, optimization strategies can be employed to oversee objectives in fuel consumption, pollution emission, vehicle flow, vehicle speed. Real-time tactics such as signal priority can be used to allow vehicles to share the traffic right of way safely and efficiently. An appropriate traffic control system is implemented by communicating control data to devices such as traffic signal controllers, information signs, and freeway ramp meters. Accurate and reliable feedback mechanisms are a vital element in the traffic control service to adjust controls when needed.
Operational Concepts
For traffic control to be effectively rolled out, its successful application will depend on several systems for support. Operator support systems will provide the transport management system operator with accurate, easy to understand depictions of the current of the transport system. The availability of user input capabilities that allow a human operator to automate control strategies will improve the effectivity of the traffic control system. This human interface will be especially important when coordinating traffic control strategies in response to incidents. In a decentralized approach, traffic control of a particular region could be provided by a single transport management centre, or several centres linked together by a communications network. Communication networking with other transport operating agencies and jurisdiction would provide access to information on transit, routes, and rail schedules. A single transport management centre could also be central data collection and dissemination point for real-time information. Data from several sources will be collected, processed, contradictions resolved in order to create an accurate representation of the transportation system that can be disseminated for use by other user services.
Works Cited
Eswaraprasad, Ramkumar, and Linesh Raja. “Improved intelligent transport system for reliable traffic control management by adapting internet of things.” 2017 International Conference on Infocom Technologies and Unmanned Systems (Trends and Future Directions)(ICTUS). IEEE, 2017. 597-601
Zigulis, Greg. “Welding Safety and Health Considerations.” Occupational Health & Safety, 1 Dec. 2015, https://ohsonline.com/Articles/2015/12/01/Welding-Safety-and-Health-Considerations.aspx?Page=4. Accessed 28 May 2020.