Next-generation traffic control

Deploying traffic management hardware is only half the job when building a modern traffic control center: today’s overcrowded roads demand smart software platforms to enable more efficient transportation systems

Words | Branko Glad, Telegra, Croatia

Wherever they are in the world, today’s cities, metropolitan areas and densely populated regions face similar traffic problems. Increasingly, roads are under-capacitated, often by several orders of magnitude. It’s not unheard of to have millions of vehicles traveling along networks built for hundreds of thousands.

The reason for this is not only due to population growth, but also because of the enduring and increasing popularity of the car. Cars are still the first choice of transportation for most people, and most will use primary corridors.

Even when a citizen wants to become more multimodal in their transportation choices, often private vehicles, public transit and other modes are not sufficiently coordinated to make this easy. Part of this problem is that traffic control centers (TCC) are not efficient enough and they do not have sufficiently precise and detailed information about traffic to successfully coordinate it.

Demand outstrips supply

Fundamentally, most road networks and related infrastructure were not designed and built with the exponential rise in population and demand for transportation that we are now witnessing in mind. Furthermore, the development of alternative transportation modes is failing to meet rising demand. But, despite the lack of new infrastructure, it is possible to make what we do have work more efficiently, by enhancing TCCs.

TCCs are at the heart of transportation systems and therefore well placed to manage flows across limited infrastructure resources. But first, divisions between different systems need to be broken down. Today, traffic management is typically built up of separate individual systems: traffic signal management, advanced ITS, tunnel management, traffic counting, CCTV, etc.

This all results in the fact that, although TCCs do exist, they are relatively inefficient because they are running non-integrated and non-coordinated systems based on insufficient and non-synthesized traffic data. Traffic management strategies applied from such TCCs are rudimentary, slow in implementation, and usually end with poor results. TCCs in this first generation may be working at as little as 10% of their true potential.

Current limits on TCCs

The fundamental aims of TCCs are to: monitor traffic situations; identify possible congestion in advance; identify traffic incidents (and accidents) immediately, as they happen; activate the correct strategies

Above and below: Telegra’s

topXview traffic management software is a platform, designed and developed for the implementation of TCC 2.0. It helps traffic control centers to be more effective and to run more efficiently

for resolving congestion, incidents and preventing secondary incidents; and to constantly improve these traffic management strategies through experience. In short, TCCs must establish and keep maximum traffic flow with minimum primary and secondary incidents. If this can be achieved, the TCC will justify its existence.

To fulfill such goals, traffic managers and traffic operators in TCCs must have technological infrastructure to help them perform their duties. This infrastructure is built from two components. Firstly, there is traffic equipment for collecting information (traffic counters, CCTV cameras, etc) and traffic equipment for directing and informing road users (variable and dynamic message signs [VMS/DMS], traffic signals, etc). Most TCCs have access to this basic infrastructure.

The second component necessary in order for a TCC to be effective is suitable software infrastructure – a good TCC software platform will allow traffic managers and operators to accomplish their goals efficiently and ergonomically. Often this does not exist in first-generation TCCs. Instead of a software platform, TCC 1.0s operate with non-integrated, non-coordinated applications for management of individual subsystems. This results in poor outcomes, and enormous stress for traffic managers and operators.

The solution: TCC 2.0

The solution for this problem is a second generation of TCCs (TCC 2.0). These are based on software platforms that integrate all systems the TCC is capable of. Such a platform will analyze and synthesize real-time and historical data collected from all sensors, all information from vehicles connected to a TCC network, and all information received from related services and stakeholders. It will present this information to the operator in the TCC in an ergonomic view so that they comprehend quickly and intuitively the overall traffic situation in the entire network (the city).

An advanced TCC software platform will also anticipate and detect congestion and incidents before or immediately as they start happening and then alert operators to this, with prompt confirmation through CCTV, which is integrated in the platform. It can then suggest optimum strategies for resolving situations, and simulate faster-thanreal-time outcomes of such strategies, so that operators can choose the right ones.

The software can then activate strategies, after an operator’s approval, by sending commands for the implementation of a chosen strategy to relevant ITS devices (DMS, traffic lights, etc). It can also send personalized instructions, synthesized in the TCC, to all vehicles using a connected vehicles app; inform all potential travelers of any problems through a TCC web portal; send commands to relevant services and other related transportation modes; and supervise execution of all active strategies.

TCC 2.0 benefits for society

Second-generation TCCs are a basic and necessary pre-condition for implementing modern traffic management concepts known under different names such as integrated corridor management (ICM) and smart city traffic management.

In particular, second-generation TCCs bring particular benefits to the society. They enable the successful and efficient traffic management of cities and bigger road networks, to the satisfaction of all users; they promote higher traffic safety levels; they reduce the costs associated with congestion, incidents and pollution; and they create, overall, a higher quality of life for all citizens. n

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