Integrated Traffic Management at the Urban/Inter-Urban Interface

In Northern Ireland, the Department for Regional Development (DRD), Roads Service, is in a unique position amongst network operators in that it is currently the sole roads authority, and as such is responsible for the design, procurement, deployment and operation of control systems for urban and inter-urban traffic management. DRD (NI) Roads Service is a partner in the Euro-Regional Project called STREETWISE. The other partners in this project are the Department of Transport (GB), Highways Agency, Transport Scotland, Traffic Wales and the National Roads Authority (Republic of Ireland). STREETWISE is one of 7 Euro- Regional projects whose objective is to provide seamless traffic control facilities and travel information across the Trans European Road Network (TERN). Within STREETWISE each of the partners follows their national ITS Strategy but in a coordinated and networked manner. One of the principal objectives of the Roads Service ITS Strategy is to establish a fully integrated system for the management of traffic and the delivery of traffic information to the public. Significant progress has been made in delivering this objective, largely through the use of common standards and protocols such as Urban Traffic Management and Control (UTMC) and the Travel Information Highway (TIH). Within the Traffic Information and Control Center (TICC) in Belfast, a traffic management and control system, based on a UTMC compliant common database acts as a central focus for a number of otherwise disparate systems deployed in both the urban and interurban domains. Data from the connected systems is stored within the UTMC and is used to determine and implement suitable traffic management strategies which span both the urban and inter-urban systems. The data stored in the common database is made available to the traffic operators through a geographical interface, and, in conjunction with information from the CCTV network, is used to refine the integrated traffic management strategies. Progress has also been made towards the provision of a fully integrated traffic information service, principally through the centralization of the road works and incident reporting process, and the use of the data exchange functionality of the UTMC database to integrate information. This emerging work includes significant developments which allow regional road works data to be entered into a central database through a common system, thereby ensuring standardization in the way such information is recorded and presented to travelers. This paper provides an overview of the UTMC implementation by Roads Service in Northern Ireland, and describes the connected systems and the information that flows between them. The emerging work undertaken to improve the provision of traffic information through the integration of UTMC data with incident and road works information is also described. Throughout the paper the focus is on the benefits these developments bring to the traveling public and to the Roads Service traffic operators.