Towards an open architecture for real-time traffic information management.

Abstract

Modern Urban Traffic Control (UTC) and traffic information systems create considerable quantities of real-time data. Unfortunately, this data is then frequently discarded or stored in a proprietary format that makes it difficult to use for purposes such as historical data analysis or other end-user applications. This paper describes an open architecture for the management of real-time traffic information that uses a three-tiered structure in conjunction with the eXtensible Markup Language (XML) in order to allow traffic data to be stored and used by any number of third party applications. An example of how the architecture was used in conjunction with a SCATS UTC system to create Dublin?s online urban traffic congestion map is also described in order to illustrate the effectiveness of this approach.