INTEGRATED TRANSPORTATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

Douglas W. Wiersig, Greater Houston Transportation and Emergency Management Center

The recent focus toward development of Transportation Management Centers (TMC) has created an opportunity for transportation professionals to interact in an expanded manner with many nontraditional disciplines. For TMC's to be fully effective, Integrated Transportation Management Systems (ITMS) must be developed which require the participation of a diverse set of technical and non-technical disciplines.

Developing an ITMS is a far reaching undertaking that can include a variety of functional components that vary by locality needs and resources. ITMS can include procedures relative to incident response, physical components associated with traffic, transit and parking systems and the actual control command center from which systems and procedures are managed.

For successful operations, the proper mix of elements must be brought together and through effective management produce a workable product. The many diverse multidisciplinary elements that compose ITMS are the things that make its products so useful and conversely so difficult to mange on an ongoing basis.

This paper identifies the various disciplines and functional groups that should be involved in developing an ITMS. It discusses the process of identifying disciplines, the relationship between them and relates them to the various development phases.

An effective ITMS can not operate unless a diverse group of disciplines participate in all phases of its development. Numerous disciplines are dependent upon other disciplines to effectively accomplish their work responsibilities. Unless activities are coordinated and performed cooperatively, system results will be significantly below acceptable levels. Disciplines must complement one another rather than being absent all together or competing with one another.

To achieve the usually desired goal of responsive incident management and effective management of transportation systems a significant amount of preparation and contributed resources is needed. These resources include developing initial and ongoing community support for program activities and their resulting financial resources, technical design support to physically construct system components, administrative and legal efforts that allow construction and daily operations to occur and ongoing maintenance of system components to ensure their availability.

In the development of many ITMS's there is a tendency to focus on those elements that the individuals responsible for developing the program are most knowledgeable about, that being traffic/freeway operations. As a result of this focus considerable efforts in both time and money can easily be consumed dealing with just a small element of the total effort that is necessary to develop an ITMS. This narrow focusing is not unique to ITMS development but occurs in many other transportation projects. The unique aspect associated with ITMS's is that for effective operations to occur, a very wide range of disciplines must be involved which traditionally have not worked together or have not worked well in previous encounters. This might include traffic and transit, traffic and police/fire, traffic and wrecker services and traffic and information provides. In general, disciplines have not totally recognized the resources available in other areas and have taken the attitude that they can perform internally at equal or better levels. As a result of this attitude and "turf building," undesirable relationships have developed in many communities to the point that disciplines compete with one another for management and operation of the same component.

If management centers are to become fully effective and integrated, a broader thinking approach must be taken such that contributing disciplines are included in all phases of operations. This becomes even more important when you must consider the situations where more than one physical TMC exists in an area representing multiple jurisdictions with multiple disciplines in each. As has been the experience with many other projects, creating early awareness of program activities and including all disciplines in this phase, usually results in a smoother implementation precess. Attempting to add disciplines and functional work groups in mid steam or at the end of a project usually results in a restart of many program activities. It also creates an unfriendly environment since groups not involved in the initial decision making are now being told what to do or how things will be accomplished.

Identifying and including various disciplines and functional work groups into an ITMS is highly dependent upon the operational mission of the TMC. Identifying the responsibilities associated with a TMC is a key first step which ultimately determines the overall size and complexity of management functions. Typically, ITMS are usually responsible for incident management and signal control functions. In today's expanding transportation management structure, a number of additional roles could easily be included and in many cases are being incorporated in ITMS. These include responsibilities associated with:

Each of these responsibilities while relating to one another, significantly expand the disciplines and functional work groups that would be involved in an ITMS. In addition to these responsibilities, local needs within a community will also influence the orientation and operational importance of a TMC. These local needs could be associated with issues such as freeway congestion and incident management, tunnel and bridge bottle necks, and snow and ice removal. As a result, the responsibilities and associated goals and objectives of a TMC can vary significantly from community to community, which in turn determines agency and discipline participation.

The mission or responsibilities assigned to an ITMS change over time depending on the community's needs and success in performing operations. Expanded roles will create the need for additional functions to be integrated in the future and more optimally, to be considered in the initial planning phases of a system. The greater the flexibility in system design, operating policies and administrative structure, the greater the opportunity to easily accommodate new or expanding disciplines.

Beyond defining initial responsibilities, a valuable process that helps to identify necessary disciplines is concept planning or operations needs analysis. This process can be undertaken by both existing and newly created ITMS's. For existing ITMS's this process can easily become the catalyst that overcomes past and sometimes negative relationships between disciplines by taking a fresh approach and look at existing situations.

During this operations needs assessment, a detailed analysis is undertaken to determine specifically:

Through this process existing functional participants more clearly define their specific roles as well as the identification of other disciplines that are necessary for effective operations. This in turn becomes a heuristic process wherein the newly defined or participating disciplines provide additional insight into the specific components that are desired or necessary. This heuristic building process produces two primary products. Initially it identifies new or rejustifies the need for participation by specific disciplines. Secondly, it creates a team building process whereby functional groups become more involved in the integration process and recognize the benefits of their participation or rationale as to why or how elements must operate. As a result, the disciplines become stake holders and associate ownership into the system which in turn strengthens their participation. This identification approach and ongoing development effort is similar to those strategies associated with Total Quality Management (TQM). The wide variation in the types of disciplines and the need for substantial interaction between nontraditional technical and non technical working groups, creates a need for a high level of understanding and team building trust.

Creating this trust and team building is not easy and usually can best be accomplished through the development of successful subtasks. Using the benefits and relationships developed in an initial success creates the desire and justification for another success--"success builds success." Consequently, when developing an ITMS and bringing together a diverse set of disciplines it is important to grow the process at a rate which is compatible with the issues and social decision making process of each work group. Creating success is the easiest method of including new and expanding the roles and effectiveness of existing disciplines.

The inclusion of functional work groups or disciplines into an ITMS encompasses a broad range of technical and non technical elements. These disciplines can include such elements as traffic and transit operations, public safety(police, fire), maintenance functions, computer operations, traveler information services and legal counsel. Each discipline plays a role in some phase of a TMC's design and ongoing operations. Disciplines can be viewed from several perspectives ranging from those associated with daily operations of incident response to ones involved with the physical design and maintenance of system components. For effective operations and a truly integrated management system, numerous disciplines must be brought together in each major phase of ITMS development. Determining specifically which disciplines to integrate and when is a function of the responsibilities associated with a TMC and the local community environment. Table 1 provides a list of disciplines that could or should be included in an ITMS. The disciplines are divided into three major categories consisting of Technical, Operational and Administrative/Community areas.

Technical disciplines are those work groups that primarily contribute to the physical design of system components. Through the introduction of more sophisticated electronic, communication, video and computer technologies, a greater number of technical disciplines are now required to build management systems. The complexity of these technologies coupled with quickly changing advances, make it necessary to include experts from each discipline. Very rarely will an agency or consulting firm have a single source of expertise that spans this range of technology. Given the ever changing advances in technology and the obsolescence of equipment in shorter and shorter time frames, overall system architecture and design must be developed that is flexible to changes from a functional, time and cost perspective. Poor designs as a result of an initial lack of expertise usually hinders the functionality of the final system. This in turn creates an expectation and credibility gap for operators, elected officials and most importantly the public.

Each technical discipline will contribute at different levels of intensity depending upon the role of that particular technology or system. Even though a technology may not be significant today, it is important to include expertise from this area such that the overall system architecture is structured in an open flexible manner that can allow inclusion in the future. Additionally, a greater understanding of alternative technologies in the concept phase may alter the use of specific systems since better components or methods have been identified.

These disciplines are those which utilize and manage the system on a daily basis, respond to incidents and emergencies and are responsible for maintenance of system components. To manage individual traffic or sub systems an array of functional expertise must be combined. Responding to incidents or managing signal systems requires the combination of many disciplines. No one agency or discipline is capable of performing the various tasks that must occur when dealing with a major traffic accident. Incident management requires considerable planning and team work and a diverse group of disciplines beyond traditional traffic/transit relationships such as police, fire, wrecker services and maintenance cleanup forces. Creating an integrated team is not an easy task since the major obstacle to over come is the social decision making structure within each discipline. Consequently, creating an empowered TMC that is aware and capable of managing these environments is critical for the establishment of a working team. The process is further complicated when dealing with private sector enterprises associated with wrecker services, equipment rental clean up crews and traveler information services. Developing contracts, procedures and assuring responsiveness with the proper equipment can be frustrating and make response efforts less effective.

Managing transportation systems such as traffic signal systems, ramp meters or parking availability systems requires the integration of associated operating disciplines.Traffic engineers, freeway operators, and parking garage managers must coordinate activities. If transit priority systems are program components, transit operations will also be involved. Integrating transit dispatch operations into an ITMS can also produce positive benefits to both traffic and transit systems by allowing transit operators(bus/train drivers) to report accidents and congestion areas. The opposite also occurs when congested areas are reported to transit operations and adjustments can be made to routes and schedules.

Maintenance operations play a vital role in an ITMS since system availability must be maintained. The increased reliance on technology for expanded program capabilities requires coordinated and responsive maintenance activities. The failure of computer or communication systems can quickly make an entire ITMS or many subsystems useless. Ongoing and emergency maintenance must be coordinated with operational and design disciplines to minimize down time. In many agencies, maintenance activities of technology components are being performed through private sector contractors. Consequently, contracting efforts must be coordinated relative to technical specifications and standards, response periods and legal and administrative procedural requirements.

These disciplines play a supportive role in the overall development and implementation of an ITMS These functions while not directly involved in daily operations, design or maintenance are essential in the planning and development phase. Building support for program activities is vital to establishing funding and receiving empowerment to accomplish overall and subcomponent programs. These disciplines provide this empowerment through administrative, financial, legislative and legal resources. Involving these disciplines early and throughout program operations enables an appropriate level of program understanding to be developed that fosters timely decision making by the appropriate discipline. As program operations continue over time, it is important to keep these disciplines informed such that if modifications to program activities must occur they can be processed in a timely manner. This is especially true relative to equipment failure or emergency situations where purchasing or contracting activities must occur immediately.

Maintaining a positive image of program activities and creating a vehicle for communication to the community is essential for ongoing success of the ITMS. Developing effective relationships with newspapers, local magazines, radio and television stations can be one of the best actions undertaken by an ITMS. This relationship produces positive benefits in both directions. The media can receive news worthy information relative to traffic conditions and programs that their audience desires. This is especially true for real time travel/parking conditions and corresponding video. The public sector on the other hand is able to disseminate this travel information to users in a timely manner such that travel demand can be modified and congestion conditions improved. Agencies also have the ability to effectively communicate with the public relative to new programs that are being developed and accelerate their acceptance by users.

The development of an ITMS encompasses a range of project actives that typically includes phases associated with planning, design/construction, ongoing operations and maintenance. For each of these phases a varying combination of disciplines must be identified and brought together. Table 2 identifies a possible breakdown of disciplines by program activities. Participation by disciplines will occur at varying levels within designated phases depending upon the nature of the program activity and phase. The combination of disciplines will vary by program activity with one or more disciplines being the predominate contributors. The important concept to pursue is that numerous disciplines must be brought together during all relevant phases to ensure an effective end product. Whether it is planning, operating or maintaining a system or procedure, a team approach is necessary. Disciplines can and should complement one another in each phase with the skill and trust developed in one phase, transferring to another.

The development of an ITMS is a complex undertaking that requires the inclusion and coordination of various diverse disciplines. To achieve the intended goals of an ITMS it is necessary to identify and include disciplines that comprise both technical and non technical expertise. While it is beyond the scope of this paper to identify the combinations of disciplines for each function under taken by a TMC, the list of disciplines and their interaction between one another provide a starting point to initiate an operational needs analysis. Determining specifically what disciplines to bring together and how to accomplish this will vary by community. The key element is to develop reasonable expectations through the accomplishment of meaningful tasks that build trust and cooperative team work. Recognizing the needs and resources within each discipline and allowing those elements to be used productively will create a justification and desire for disciplines to work together.