Wide-area Incident Management System on the Internet

The incident management process consists of four sequential steps-incident detection, response, clearance and recovery. Each of these components comprises of a number of operations and coordinated decision-making between the agencies involved. The provision of computer based support tools for the personnel involved will help develop appropriate strategies and increase efficiency and expediency. Existing systems are developed on various traditional computing platforms. However, with the advent of World Wide Web and Internet based programming tools such as Java, it is now possible to develop platform independent decision support tools for the incident management agencies. Any agency will be able to use these Web based tools on a computer with a Java enabled browser. Thus, Web based tools offer an invaluable opportunity to develop next generation online decision support tools for real-time traffic management. The major objectives of this paper are: 1. to explore and demonstrate the applicability of Web-based tools for the development of online decision support systems for incident management and, 2. to develop and test a prototype incident management decision support system (DSS) which has most of the capabilities of similar UNIX based DSS. The paper briefly describes the implementation and development of a prototype wide-area incident management support system using Web-based tools. It also describes the implementation architecture and the individual functions of this prototype

Increasing resilience of ATM networks using traffic monitoring and automated anomaly analysis

Systematic network monitoring can be the cornerstone for the dependable operation of safety-critical distributed systems. In this paper, we present our vision for informed anomaly detection through network monitoring and resilience measurements to increase the operators' visibility of ATM communication networks. We raise the question of how to determine the optimal level of automation in this safety-critical context, and we present a novel passive network monitoring system that can reveal network utilisation trends and traffic patterns in diverse timescales. Using network measurements, we derive resilience metrics and visualisations to enhance the operators' knowledge of the network and traffic behaviour, and allow for network planning and provisioning based on informed what-if analysis

ITS implementation plan for the Gold Coast area

ITS needs to be used to reinforce the planned major changes to the road functional hierarchy in the District, namely: • the use of Southport-Burleigh Rd. (SBR) as the major regional corridor; • the removal of through traffic from the GCH; • the use of Oxley Dr./Olsen Av./Ross St./NBR as another major north-south by-pass; • the use of Smith St.; NSR/Queen St.; NBR and Reedy Creek Rd. – West Burleigh Road as the major east-west access corridors. There is a need to integrate the proposed ITS measures into the current related plans for the Pacific Motorway and into the overall traffic control strategies for the area as a whole. In addition, the staging of the proposed plan needs to take into account the planned DMR capital Works Program. An index representing the degree of priority to be attached to each network link was developed to assist in the phased implementation of ITS technologies over the next 5 years. 'ITS Index' is made up of five variables, namely: • Accident rate factor • AADT • Volume/Capacity ratio • Delay • % Commercial Vehicles The main components of the ITS plan are shown diagrammatically in Figure 1. The latter assumes that the high level of ITS implementation on the Pacific Motorway will be extended in time to the remainder of that Highway. To assist in the implementation of the road hierarchy system, a new static signage plan should be implemented. This plan needs to reinforce the changes by clearly assigning single road names to corridors and by placing new signs at appropriate locations. Capturing Traffic Data The following corridors should be equipped with automatic traffic monitoring capability in priority order: High Priority ? SBR corridor from Smith St. connection to Reedy Creek Rd. ? Smith St. from Pacific Highway to High St. ? GCH from Pacific Highway to North St. Medium Priority ? Nerang-Broadbeach Rd/Ross St. to Nerang-Southport Rd. ? Nerang-Southport Rd from Pacific Highway to SBR ? Nerang-Broadbeach Rd from Pacific Highway to SBR The Smith St. link from the Pacific Motorway to Olsen Ave. should be considered as a freeway for monitoring purposes. The GCH along the coastal strip needs to be treated as a local distributor rather than as the major corridor. As a result, the future traffic surveillance priority should be low. At least one permanent environmental (vehicle emissions) monitoring station should be set up as part of the ITS plan. The most appropriate site for such a station would seem to be on the SBR corridor at the vicinity of Hooker Blv. intersection. Pacific Highway The Pacific Motorway project will set the benchmark for freeway incident detection and traffic management in the State. The high level of ITS implementation on the Motorway section will create a significant gap in performance and expectation, relative to the remainder of the Highway. It is recommended that the southern sections of the Pacific Highway be equipped to the equivalent level of traffic data collection and surveillance as the newly upgraded Motorway section, under a staged program. Travel Time Savings The travel time benefits of the full implementation of ITS over the network are likely to be of the order of at least 5 percent of vehicle-hours travelled on the affected links. At a discount rate of 6 percent, the total present value of the gross travel time benefit over 10 years is of the order of $200 million