Open Model For Network-wide Heterogeneous Intersection-based Transport Management

In the Chania site a web application has been deployed that provides information on the traffic conditions in real time, which is depicted upon a digital map of the city. It also provides information regarding various points of interest in the city, and is equipped with a search mechanism that pinpoints on the map street addresses, points of interest, and also provides guidance information from an origin to a destination. This application and its functionalities have been developed based on a toolkit that facilitates the design of web-based traveller's information systems regardless of the digital mapping technology used for the displayed maps. Additionally, it is independent from the system that provides the traffic data, which for the Chania case is the MIGRA system. NOTE: This toolkit and the relevant technology has been developed and provided for the needs of the OMNI project by TUC's subcontractor FORTH-IACM, and is this institution that generally owns this product.

The CRONOS interface allows connecting to the OMNI MOUN the CRONOS tool. This tool is a real-time urban traffic control system developed at INRETS. This interface enables to provide traffic light colours to be used on the corresponding site. It receives each second traffic video based measurements like queues, spatial occupancy, traffic flows, and stops. It receives the description of the network from the database in terms of infrastructure and traffic control. This interface can be used with any OMNI configured systems which need to use a real-time urban traffic control like CRONOS.

The definition of UTC Subsystem Manager aimed at enhancing the integration of any generic UTC subsystem with the OMNI platform. Using this support kit, the development of any UTC subsystem that contains device-dependent and application-dependent mechanisms will result far easier and more effective. OMNI MOUN contains hundreds of entities, representing different aspects of the urban traffic network. In this situation, sometimes it could be difficult to determine which subset of entities is really related (or expressly devoted) to the external component that we are going to integrate. For this reason, the generic concept of "Manager" has been introduced within the OMNI environment. UTC Subsystem manager introduces the building blocks to integrate UTC subsystems with the OMNI platform: it is as generic as possible, in order to support the integration of a wide range of subsystems. In particular, UTC Subsystem Manager is formed by documentation, providing guidelines for subsystem integration, and a library of software components to help this integration (a sort of SDK, Software Development Kit). The UTOPIA UTC Interface has been developed exploiting this support kit. The definition of the UTC Subsystem Manager concerns generic functionality that can be summarised by the following sequence of operations: - To connect to the OMNI platform; - To interface the OMNI representation of a subsystem, both at an operational and a physical point of view; - To update the OMNI run-time contents; - To monitor changes of the OMNI run-time contents; - To report the relevant changes to the connected subsystem; - To disconnect from the OMNI platform.

The SDCTU UTC Interface provides an application interface through which updates and reads information to/from the MOUN. This interface enables to control the road equipment through the MOUN and to share information about the control and the status of the traffic to other applications, as for the web server which presents to the users real time information about the status of the urban network.) This interface carries out the following exchange of information between the SDCTU and the MOUN: - To read the real physical status and establish the expected status (status and operation mode) of the devices that the SDCTU controls in the network - Communication status, alarms, status and operation mode of the LC - Status of operation of the magnetic loops - Status of operation of other detectors of the network (for example, video sensors.) - To read the logical status (information of traffic control) of the sensors that is the network (magnetic loops, video detection of incidents etc.) - Flow and occupancy time from the magnetic loops and from other detectors of the system (for example, vide sensors.) - To read the real logical status and to establish the expected status (control information) of the devices for traffic management (local controllers, signalling panels, etc.) - Operation mode of the LC - Plans for the LC (cycle, offset, structures, times of variable stages) - Plans for other regulator types (cycle, offset, structures, split) - Logical status of some abstract concepts as link, junction, congestion status, cycle of group of intersections, which should be shared with other applications. In particular - Congestion status of the links

The Model Of Urban Network, namely MOUN, is an open and configurable platform that represents the urban traffic network allowing the easy integration of heterogeneous traffic devices (local controllers, sensors, actuators, etc.), subsystems (UTC, legacy systems, etc.) and network-wide traffic applications (emergency management, fleet management, etc.). Traffic monitoring and control is traditionally carried out by vertical, legacy systems, that manage all the different components, both hardware and software. This situation leads the users to a total dependence to the vendors and their proprietary technologies, and asks for significant re-installation each time a new application should be introduced. MOUN is basically an object-oriented software model, device- and application-independent platform that supports the co-ordination and concurrent functioning of different applications and subsystems. MOUN deals basically with traffic information: it exchanges, stores and updates information about traffic conditions. The model reports the real-time evolution of the urban traffic network, and it also provides the suitable control mechanisms to act directly on the road equipment, to set the control strategies and to co-ordinate the network management. MOUN is a software model that runs on widely extended platforms (PCs). It could become a standard for integrating traffic control/monitoring devices with traffic applications. The adoption of MOUN would facilitate a healthy growth of the ITS market as well as the easy integration of new applications based on advanced technologies, enabling users independence and traffic systems flexibility. MOUN platform has been developed and widely tested in three demonstration sites, Valencia, Chania and Milan, plus a virtual site in Paris, integrating a wide range of applications, devices and subsystems. The result is presented in the way of an easy-to-install software packages, accompanied by a user manual that explains how to install, to configure and to use the MOUN, as well as how to make MOUN-compliant components.

The CLAIRE OMNI interface allows connecting to the OMNI MOUN the CLAIRE tool. This tool is a congestion supervisor system developed at INRETS. This interface enables to provide recommendations to be used on the corresponding site by the traffic control system. It receives each second traffic measurements which a congestion indicator of each link. It receives the description of the network from the database in terms of infrastructure and traffic control. This interface can be used with any OMNI configured systems, which need to use a congestion supervisor like CLAIRE.

The OMNI GUI provides the necessary tools to configure and interact with the OMNI MOUN. It is composed by two different views: One is textual and is used for monitoring and control the model: windows for monitoring the applications and devices, which are connected to the project, for halting and starting these applications/devices and for changing the priority of the control applications; as well as windows for visualising the status of all the entities of the packages of the model. The other one is graphical and provides two levels of detail: 1).The first level is a map-based representation of the entire network. Where the user can visualise the status of the traffic in the different links monitored by the surveillance application (UTC, AID, or whatever) and which data are stored in the OMNI model. This status can be visualised by a colour code. The network representation also provides an indication of the intersections, which can be visualised in more detail, by clicking on these intersections, the user switches to the second level of graphical representation. 2) The second level is intersection based; it is not fully implemented for the first prototype, but will be implemented in the final one. There will be a background map of the intersection and on the top of it the status of the devices will be shown: logical status of the TLG, working status of the local controller, cameras and loops, queues and level of congestion of the zones and incidents.

The SURF2000 UTC interface allows connecting to the OMNI MOUN the SURF2000 UTC tool. This tool is the result of the French UTC SURF 2000 used in the Ville de Paris for traffic control purposes. This interface enables to provide traffic light colours to be used on the corresponding site. It receives the description of the network from the database in terms of infrastructure and traffic control. This interface can be used with any OMNI configured systems that need to use a UTC.

This result refers to the know how gained in OMNI regarding the development of generic interfaces for enabling third party devices and applications to be OMNI compliant. In OMNI there have been developed not only the necessary interfaces for the applications and devices to be used in the 4 pilot demonstrations, but also there have been defined generic guidelines to be used by third interested parties. This result is available in the documentation produced in the project. The interfaces are small pieces of software very easy to implement by software developers and that will enable the interoperability of the third parties solutions with the other OMNI Compliant solutions/applications/systems/devices plugged-in to the OMNI MOUN.

A web service provides Internet users with information in real time about the state of the traffic in different itineraries through the road network, and the incidents present at each one. The service offers the possibility of defining user profiles for customization.

The METACOR OMNI interface allows connecting to the OMNI MOUN the traffic simulation tool METACOR developed at INRETS. This tool simulates a chosen field, which is an intersection, a network of several intersections or motorways. This interface enables to provide traffic flows, queues, and traffic light colours to be used by traffic applications. It also allows simulating the traffic controllers, which receive signal colours to be applied. It receives the description of the network from the database in terms of infrastructure and traffic control. This interface can be used with any OMNI configured systems, which need to simulate traffic for evaluating different control strategies for example, or to forecast the traffic for the near future.

In the Chania site, a web application has been deployed that provides information on the traffic conditions in real time, which is depicted upon a digital map of the city. It also provides information regarding various points of interest in the city, and is equipped with a search mechanism that pinpoints on the map street addresses, points of interest, and also provides guidance information from an origin to a destination. This application is connected via the OMNI model to the existing traffic control system of the Chania city, MIGRA. MIGRA provides every 90 seconds all the necessary traffic information, through the OMNI model, to the web application.

The development of an interface for the UTOPIA UTC system aimed at enhancing the integration of this UTC with external management/control systems like the OMNI platform. The most important feature of the interface is that the representation of the controlled network is fully independent from the physical layer. There is no explicit link from the representation to the physical devices; the topological description of the network can be used in any external platform. For the integration of UTOPIA with the OMNI platform, the interface has been integrated in the Subsystem Manager for UTOPIA and experimented with two different UTOPIA systems: UTOPIA with plan selection and adaptive UTOPIA. From the technical point of view, we have chosen to develop a function library. The interface itself exports a representation of the controlled road network, and for each element there are some methods for the execution of typical operations (like reading the current status of a traffic light controller or sending a specific command of plan execution). The functionality of the interface that the Subsystem Manager uses during the integration with the OMNI model is summarised by the following sequence of operations:1) to connect to a specific UTOPIA UTC (plan selection or adaptive); 2) to import the UTOPIA representation of the controlled road network; 3) to read and import the UTOPIA run-time contents; 4) to receive OMNI commands, translate and send them to the specific UTOPIA system; 5) to report the relevant changes to the connected subsystem; 6) to disconnect from the specific UTOPIA UTC.

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