2.4.1 Application of System Engineering to a Major ITS Project

Abstract

AbstractThis paper describes the application of system engineering to a major innovative transportation project in the San Francisco Bay Area, the I‐80 Integrated Corridor Mobility (ICM) Project. In addition to being one of the first applications of Active Traffic Management (ATM) to a freeway corridor in U.S.A., it is also one of the first detailed applications of formal system engineering processes to a major highway traffic management project in the U.S.A.Rigorous application of the system engineering process allowed the study team to put a structure around a loosely defined concept and a wide‐ranging but incomplete set of system requirements. The study team followed the Federal Highway Administration's (FHWA) “System Engineering for Intelligent Transportation Systems” and also made extensive use of INCOSE's “Systems Engineering Handbook”. Using IBM Rational DOORS software allowed the team to decompose the initial concepts, identify the linkages between requirements at different levels and establish a full audit trail so that all elements of stakeholder input could be shown to be adequately addressed.The paper describes how the gradual education of the stakeholders in the system engineering process was needed to enable the requirements to be fully developed, in particular to allow the study team to differentiate between legitimate requirements and premature design decisions. The stratification of requirements allowed stakeholders at various levels (board member, executive, manager and operator) to understand how their objectives were being met or how they would be able to operate to fulfill their assigned duties.It is concluded that the FHWA and INCOSE guidelines provide excellent, practical guidance for the development of complex transportation infrastructure systems.