RITIS Standards Evaluation

1
RITIS Standards Evaluation Usage

• Presented at the NCR
• REGIONAL ITS ARCHITECTURE WORKING GROUP
• By
• Jason Ellison
• November 3, 2007

2
What are ITS Standards?

• ITS Standards are technical documents that
  describe how communication takes place between
  multiple systems.
• ITS Standards provide guidance on what data
  should and can be exchanged.

3
Why use standards?

• Interoperability
• Seamless integration with commercial
  off-the-shelf (COTS) software.
• Cross agency and jurisdiction data sharing and
  mining.
• Avoids vendor lock-in.
• Consistency
• Build upon prior deployments knowledge and
  experience.
• Harmonizes certain data types (such as event
  types) between agencies and jurisdictions.
• Transparency
• Allows the same performance measures to be
  applied to multiple systems.
• Provides the base for a link to 511 and other
  ISPs.

4
State of ITS Standards

• Broad
• Not always practical or necessary to implement
  entire standard.
• Overlapping
• May define differing ways to represent the same
  data.
• Lack of harmonization between components in
  standards.
• Flexible
• Consist of many optional requirements.
• Can be mixed and combined to meet a deployments
  operational needs.

5
Core RITIS Standards

• SAE J2354 Message Set for Advanced Traveler
  Information System (ATIS)
• ITE Traffic Management Data Dictionary (TMDD)
  v2.1
• IEEE Incident Management (IM) Standards
• ASTM WK7604 Standard Specifications for
  Archiving ITS-Generated Traffic Monitoring Data
  (ADUS)

6
SAE J2354 (ATIS)

• Purpose
• Provides for one and two-way communication
  between an Information Service Provider (ISP) and
  a data consumer.
• Generally covers all data considered to be
  valuable to the public.
• Status
• Version 2 adopted February 2004.
• Version 3 under active development.

7
ATIS Coverage

• Traveler Information
• Event and Incident status
• Weather data
• Basic transit data
• Parking information and lot status
• Searchable points of interest directory
• Trip routing

8
RITIS ATIS Applications

• Current
• Incident Data
• Event Data
• Near Future
• Weather Alerts

9
ATIS (cont.)

• Pros
• Actively undergoing further development.
• Most complete of the major standards.
• Highly extendable and customizable while
  remaining consistent across deployments.
• Remedial filtering abilities.
• Cons
• Lacks device control messages for C2C
  communication.
• Basic detector data and no other devices such as
  DMS.
• Does not provide for response status.

10
Standards within ATIS

• SAE Location Referencing Messaging Standard
  (LRMS)
• ITE TMDD
• IEEE IM 1512
• NTCIP 1204 Environmental Sensor Station Interface
  Standard (ESS)
• APTA Transit Communications Information Profile
  (TCIP)
• SAE J2540 International Traveler Information
  Systems (ITIS) Phrase List

11
TMDD v2.1

• Purpose
• Provide event and incident data to external
  Traffic Management Centers (TMC)
• Communicate with and control remote devices such
  as DMS, CCTV, and traffic detectors
• Status
• Version 2 adopted in 2003.
• Version 2.1 has been up for ballot since 2005.
• Version 3 recently began development.

12
RITIS TMDD Applications

• Current
• Detector Data and Status
• Detector Device Inventory
• Near Future
• DMS Data and Status
• DMS Device Inventory
• Incident Data

13
TMDD Issues

• Cons
• Not logically extensible
• Unclear development plan
• Ambiguous lane representation
• Secondary incidents are nested instead of just
  referenced
• Outdated references to other standards especially
  LRMS
• Missing request\response messages
• No filtering
• Needs to address multi-agency shared incidents
  and device control

14
Other Standards Used by TMDD

• SAE LRMS
• NTCIP 1204 ESS
• SAE J2540 ITIS Phrase List
• SAE J2354 Message Sets for ATIS

15
IEEE Incident Management 1512 (IM)

• Purpose
• Defines the exchange of data between
  transportation and public safety agencies during
  an incident
• Provides for resource management and situational
  awareness
• Status
• 1512 Common Incident Messages
• Adopted June 2000
• 1512.1 Traffic Incident Management Message
• Adopted in March 2003
• Version 2 currently in balloting

16
RITIS IM Applications

• Future
• Incident Data
• Responder Status
• Equipment/Resource Status

17
ASTM WK7604 Archiving Traffic Monitoring Data
(ADUS)

• Purpose
• Provide database elements and connections for
  traffic network data collected by sensors and
  probes
• Status
• Currently under active development
• Not adopted or even up for ballot yet

18
ADUS RITIS Application

• No draft or final document, so standard cannot be
  adopted
• RITIS database layout inspired by ongoing
  membership and communication with the ASTM
  working group.
• Found that standard might cause serious database
  performance issues if adopted in its current
  state.

19
Other Notable Standards

• NTCIP C2C
• VDOT VTRC Incident Standard
• TransXML
• Justice XML

20
NTCIP C2C Standard

• Purpose
• To standardize and document communication methods
  for TMDD
• Define Web Services Descriptor Language (WSDL)
  endpoints and wrapper messages to facilitate
  transportation of TMDD XML
• Status
• Currently under development
• Being applied to the next ATIS version

21
VDOT VTRC Incident Standard

• Defines 15 key data elements that should be
  stored
• Supports statewide communication and performance
  measures
• Harmonizes elements across systems
• Does not provide guidance on or define messaging
  wrappers.

22
NCHRP TransXML

• Purpose
• Survey/Roadway Design
• Transportation Construction/Materials
• Highway Bridge Structures
• Transportation Safety
• Status
• Initial schemas and report filed in Sept 2006
• Seeking stewardship to continue development and
  maintenance

23
Global Justice XML Data Model (JXDM)

• Purpose
• Sponsored by the Department of Justice
• Covers data exchanges within the public safety
  and Department of Justice communities
• Status
• IJIS Working group has been formed to fold IEEE
  1512 into the Global JXDM

24
Standard Deployments
Table From ITS Users Group October 13-14, 2005
Meeting Summary Page 12
25
Roadblocks to Adoption

• No official central repository of master schemas
  and revisions
• No efficient way to certify that a vendors
  product or deployment is standards compliant
• DRM on SAE and other SDO documents requires that
  schemas must be retyped or downloaded from
  unofficial sources
• SDOs have different development cycles leading
  to outdated and missing elements between
  standards
• Official SDO development tool, Mini-Edit, buggy
  and lacks documentation
• Documentation and programming guides not up to
  date with the latest versions of the standards
• Not always beneficial to vendors\consultants

26
Conclusions

• RITIS is attempting to incorporate the best
  standards that show the most potential.
• Some adjustments to the standards will be made
  to accommodate regional data sharing
  requirements.
• The region would be better served by having each
  TMC work together during software development to
  agree on common incident types, naming
  conventions, severity levels, location
  referencing, etc.

27
Questions

• For additional information contact
• Jason Ellison
• jjelliso_at_umd.edu
• 301-403-2971