State's Traffic Controls Get Intelligent
Client: Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT)
Challenge: Integrate the state's extensive network of low-level devices and unify operations, maintenance and systems deployment under a single umbrella application to provide intelligent traffic management.
Solution: Colorado Transportation Management System (CTMS)
Results: Traffic operators and drivers are provided with real-time access to speed and congestion data and alerts of incidents on roadways quicker than ever, response times for Amber Alerts have improved and maintenance work data collection and reporting have been automated.
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There’s nothing new about systems integration. But CSC recently helped find a new way to use it: to keep highway traffic moving smoothly.
Transportation authorities around the globe are trying to reach that goal by building intelligent transportation systems using an array of technologies to give them the data and tools they need to manage the flow of traffic while providing information to drivers.
CSC worked with the Colorado Department of Transportation to integrate its extensive network of low-level devices to provide more intelligent traffic management. The Colorado Transportation Management System (CTMS) is an Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) platform that unifies operations, maintenance and systems deployment under a single umbrella application.
Building an ITS platform
Across the state of Colorado, roadway devices are made by different vendors using different technologies and different means of communication, such as wireless networks, fiber optic lines and phone lines. This makes it difficult to integrate them into a single system.
Systems often use five or more applications just to manage and control devices. If those applications are not integrated, data from all the devices has to be aggregated manually. The more time that takes, the less timely the information will be given to drivers.
CTMS integrates these devices using the same techniques CSC developed to integrate business applications. The result is an automated traffic management system with a map-based user interface that gives operators a unified view into every device. The system also gives operators status reports for every device and the ability to manage them from a single application.
This allows operators to more easily inform motorists of road conditions. In the past, operators monitored hundreds of cameras, tag readers at toll booths, speed detection sensors, ramp meters and other devices to collect traffic data. Once that data was collected, they then had to continually make manual updates to dynamic message signs along roadways.
Now the CTMS automatically aggregates data from multiple field devices and provides it on a single, unified platform. Statewide data can now be accessed through color-coded map interfaces, charts, graphs and dropdown menus, thus enabling traffic management staff to make decisions and changes "on-the-fly."
As a result, managing the state's dynamic sign network becomes an almost automatic process, as message scheduling, notifications, polling features and faxed notifications to truck stops and DOT traffic engineers are done in-system. Automating these formerly manual operations has freed operators to perform more urgent tasks.
CSC and project partner Enroute Traffic Systems, Inc. also needed to meet the needs of a government agency, explains Rod Mead, manager of CDOT's Traffic Management Center. "CSC was an integral part of keeping Colorado's ITS efforts one of the finest in the country," he says. "When working with government agencies, with thin budgets and needing to please multiple levels of management, the ability to be flexible and proactive is essential, and CSC proved to be extremely effective at this.
"CSC helped create a seamless product bringing the project light years ahead. In many ways, the progress made in the past two years exceeded the growth of the past decade in our system," Mead says.
Managing congestion with integration
"Every day, CTMS provides traffic operators with real-time access to speed and congestion data and alerts of incidents on roadways," says Jason Westra, a principal in CSC's Consulting Group, who led the system's design. "It enables operators to inform the public of these incidents more easily with its powerful map-based GUI (graphical user interface) and WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) tools. This enables the traveling public to make better decisions about when and how to travel to their destinations as safely as possible.
"CTMS also provides vastly quicker response times for Amber Alerts than the previous system," he says. "Today, the public is informed statewide within minutes, not hours, if a child abduction has occurred. CTMS has helped CDOT maintain a 100 percent return on Amber Alert abductions when operators posted the alert to roadside dynamic message signs."
The CTMS also automates much of the data collection and reporting needed for maintenance work. Maintenance crews no longer have to use a different application for each vendor’s device.
The CTMS integration framework and design have cut integration times for new devices from a few months to a few weeks or even days, providing substantial cost-savings. The long-term value of the CTMS architecture and platform is that they are flexible enough to support changes in devices and systems without having to change the architecture itself.
Prior to Colorado, CSC completed a similar project for the Maryland Department of Transportation. CSC believes it can integrate the CTMS platform within other transportation departments around the United States, providing immediate success for them just like Colorado and Maryland. But it’s not only transportation departments that will find it useful. It could be a model wherever it is necessary to integrate large numbers of disparate, low-level devices.
Technical Excellence Award
CTMS received a 2006 Award for Technical Excellence, CSC's top honor for innovation, sponsored by the Leading Edge Forum, which provides technology thought leadership for CSC. The team consisted of Jason Westra, system architect, and Ramesh Vellanki, lead developer.