Summary

A central ATMIS capability is a timely and efficient response to non-recurring congestion. The complexity of traffic in urban corridors requires substantial interaction between the various agencies that share responsibilities for corridor management. Coordinated response to congestion phenomena between these agencies avoids the implementation of responses that may be conflicting and therefore counter-productive.

The Testbed Real-time Integrated Control and Evaluation Prototype System (TRICEPS) was developed in prior Partners for Advanced Transit and Highways (PATH) research as an implementation platform to provides "plug and play" capabilities for the testing and evaluation of a range ATMIS modules. TRICEPS permits modules to be configured for various Advanced Transportation Management and Information System (ATMIS) applications and run in simulated, real-time, and integrated modes. Any particular ATMIS application thus can be implemented connected to both simulated and real-world transportation systems so that overall effectiveness can be rst assessed in the laboratory and then evaluated in the field. One of the key modules implemented for use with TRICEPS is the real-time multi-agent incident management system Coordinated Adaptive Real-Time Expert System for Incident management in Urban Systems (CARTESIUS). Traffic management in urban corridors is complicated by jurisdictional as well as operational problems. Corridor traffic demand increasingly require coordinated management that optimizes corridor traffic while preserving the various levels of authority, data control, and decision-making power. CARTESIUS approaches this problem by employing advanced cooperation and conflict resolution methodologies for coordinated traffic management operations among multiple agents.

The Caltrans/UCI ATMS Testbed (Testbed) includes this broadly defined ATMIS application centered on the CARTESIUS traffic management system, deployed within the TRICEPS implementation and evaluation platform, and linked to a transportation system modeled by the Paradyn (the hybrid Paramics and Dynasmart) simulator. This work has been extensively tested using laboratory simulation with positive outcomes reported across the scenarios evaluated. This system is at the cutting edge of the application of agent technology of traffic management but, to date, it has not been deployed in the field. Such a deployment is the next logical step.

This proposal addresses RFP Topic V. Productivity, Traffic Management Strategies with deployment on a specific corridor. TRICEPS/CARTESIUS will be field tested in two evaluation modes. In the first mode, the system will process real-time data coming from sensors in the field and will provide advisory management strategies and control actions for the consideration of California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), District 12-Orange County (Caltrans-D12) and City of Irvine Traffic Management Center (ITRAC) personnel. The second evaluation mode will involve usability and stress testing of the TRICEPS/CARTESIUS system with the CARTESIUS agents remotely connected to the Paradyn traffic simulator at the UCI laboratories and Transportation Management Center (TMC) operators/personnel will be asked to respond to the scenarios using CARTESIUS to implement control strategies in Paradyn.

Research tasks include: deploying the current version of TRICEPS and CARTESIUS in both the Caltrans-D12 and ITRAC TMCs; linking with the Paradyn simulator at UCI and realtime data feeds from UCI or Caltrans-D12; developing field test scenarios and evaluation protocols; and conducting and evaluating the field tests. Full documentation of the experiments and the results, as well as the implemented software platform, will include Operator Guides and a Final Report.