ITS Systems Research Articles

ITS: Intelligent Transportation Systems - multi-criteria control problems

The ITS systems offers high capabilities for implementation of advanced multi-criteria traffic control methods. The crucial problems in this area are related with adequate flexibility of control actions to estimated and predicted traffic demand. Very illustrative examples in this area are demand-supply behavioral interactions visible in operation of an urban network where network link flows are a results of such interactions. The ITS systems offering dedicated services like VMS (Variable Message Signs), v-v/v-i (vehicle to vehicle/vehicle to infrastructure) communication, RGS (Route Guidance Systems) which can influences the network users behavioral patterns but the level of these influences is to a high degree uncertain. The representative set of traffic flows are crucial inputs for area-wide traffic coordination and control problems. In the paper the proposal of real-time recognition of behavioral patterns on different layers of HITS (Hierarchical Integrated multi-layer Transportation System) system is presented especially in the context of intelligent multi-criteria users-oriented traffic control actions to be a reactions on recognized users behavioral and estimation of these behavioral patterns. The advantages of proposed approach are illustrated by examples of real-time solutions and comparisons with the existing off-line intuitive solutions.

ITS and Electronic Toll Systems

In the paper the Czech toll system and its future are presented. The paper describes also the ITS solutions for use of the possibilities of electronic toll system for reducing congestion on the highway network of the Czech Republic, as well as solutions of differentiated toll tariffs and their impact on changes of fleet towards ecological vehicles with EURO V and higher engines. In conclusion, it is presented a new certified methodology used to determine the toll tariffs in terms of EU directives.

Soft Computing Techniques for Mishaps Prediction

An attempt is made to implement the soft computing techniques in the prediction of the mishaps behaviors. The main objective of this paper is to implement the Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) neural network topology in mishap analysis and prediction. Efforts are made to summarize past research on the road mishaps causes and their analysis techniques and point out their weaknesses. Indicate new ideas in this area and Identify research directions leading to successful development and use of analytical techniques in the area of mishap analysis leading to Road safety General Terms Mishaps, Computer Science, Safety System, Soft Computing, ITS Systems,

Commercialisation of Intelligent Transportation Systems: The Case of Cooperative Systems

Enabled by scientific, technological and societal progress, and enforced by policies of authorities such as the European Union, cooperative ITS is a technology of the future. However, in spite of the great efforts that have been put into research, fewer considerations have been given to how these systems can become widely spread, used and thereby fulfil the promised effect in terms of traffic management, environmental impact and road safety. This paper aims to bridge that gap and reports on a pre-study capturing the experiences of a joint effort towards cooperative ITS system's deployment in Sweden carried out by national authorities, regional road authorities, vehicle OEMs and telecommunications companies. More specifically, the paper presents the results from a series of stakeholder workshops exploring the possibilities for an early deployment of a cooperative ITS service that could be commercially and publically available by 2014. One observation from the joint effort is the shift in emphasis from the identification of a single cooperative ITS service towards defining the “business eco-system model” required to enable such cooperative ITS services. Overall, this pre-study presents the necessary means in taking one more step towards publically available cooperative ITS, highlighting questions such as “who has the motivation and takes the initiative to create an ecosystem for cooperative ITS systems?” and “what are the technical boundaries to comply to enable implementation by 2014?”.

Modelling of Transportation Systems in Agglomerations for ITS Solutions

The traffic analysis and traffic forecasting is a fundamental stage of a cost-benefit analysis (CBA) for planned transport investment projects including ITS systems. The paper presents an analytical complexity of a 4-step travel demand/land use model. A model for 13 cities of the Upper-Silesian Agglomeration (Poland), which has a road network and a public transportation network (tram, bus and railway) of a great density, is presented as an example. It is worth emphasising that this is one of the biggest models of transport networks in Poland – regarding the size of modelled area and the number of cities, which transport systems were represented. According to the new mobility culture (Green Paper (2007) five challenges have been identified and presented in this paper. Also user services of ITS architecture and a micro-simulation model for evaluation of ITS solutions have been presented.

Urgent alarms in trucks: effects on annoyance and subsequent driving performance

Previous research has shown that urgent auditory warnings are likely to annoy drivers. Increased urgency could also raise drivers’ stress levels, which in turn could impact their ability to detect and react to subsequent changes in the traffic environment. We conducted a simulator experiment with 24 truck drivers to investigate the potential of urgent alarms to raise annoyance and negatively affect drivers’ subsequent responses to unrelated, critical events on the road. The drivers received two types of warnings that were designed to significantly differ in perceived urgency. Several times in the trial, an unexpected event occurred just seconds after drivers were presented with an unrelated warning, and the drivers had to brake immediately to avoid a collision. The results indicate that acoustic characteristics and semantic meaning may impact the perceived annoyance of in-vehicle warnings. Interestingly, we found a significant, negative correlation between the drivers’ experience (years of truck driving experience) and the rated annoyance for both types of warnings. Also, the drivers who received the high-urgency warning braked significantly harder and tended to brake later than the drivers who received a low-urgency warning. These results have implications for ITS systems for heavy vehicles that intend to implement auditory warning signals.

The advantages of combining traffic simulation models for transportation analysis and ITS systems assessment

The advantages of combining traffic simulation models for transportation analysis and ITS systems assessment

Microscopic traffic simulation: A tool for the design, analysis and evaluation of intelligent transport systems

This paper summarises some of the main modelling and interface developments made recently in the AIMSUN microscopic traffic simulator to provide a better response to the requirements for the assessment of ITS systems, advanced transport analysis and ATMS. The description addresses two main areas: improvements on the dynamic assignment capabilities, and the embedding of the simulator in the AIMSUN/ISM (Intermodal Strategy Manager) a versatile graphic environment for model manipulation and simulation based traffic analysis and evaluation of advanced traffic management strategies. AIMSUN/ISM includes two specific tools, the Scenario Analysis Module to generate and simulate the traffic management strategies, and the (ODTool) to generate and manipulate the Origin-Destination matrices describing the mobility patterns required by the dynamic analysis of traffic conditions. The matrix calculation procedures have been implemented on basis to a flexible interface with the EMME/2 transport planning software.

Information Management and Human Factors for Multiple its Systems

This paper describes frameworks for the information management system from multiple ITS and non-ITS systems from the view of human interface and human information processing. This message management system will prioritize the information message, allocate the information item to different types of display device, and determine the presentation style and the timing for the message presentation.

DCG + GTE: Dynamic Courseware Generation with teaching expertise

This paper discusses the place of GTE as an approach for bridging the gap between CAL and ITS systems. DCG is our architecture for dynamic courseware generation, which allows dynamic planning of the contents of an instructional course with a given goal. Finally, a further development of DCG by combining it with GTE is described which includes explicit representation of generic teaching knowledge. This allows dynamic planning of how a selected contents will be presented to the student.

An Historical Perspective and a Model for Evaluation of Intelligent Tutoring Systems

The purposes of this article are to 1) examine the changes which have occurred in the development and evaluation of ITS systems for the last twenty years, 2) speculate on future directions, and 3) propose a conceptual model to evaluate and institutionalize this technological innovation into training and educational settings. First, we review theoretical and technical dimensions that could be considered relevant to internal evaluation of ITS technology. Secondly, we discuss evaluation dimensions which, while external to ITS per se, are relevant for situational evaluation of any technological innovation. After theoretical and methodological discussions of intelligent features and effectiveness of ITS, its research and development activities are examined from a historical perspective. The development of ITS is divided into three stages and the development focus for each stage is discussed to show the shifts. It is observed that theoretical and methodological criticisms of ITS, needs unique to practical applications, and development of computer technology have influenced the shifts of ITS development focuses: purpose, staffing, hardware and software technology used, and contributions. In stage III, most recent development focuses and future prospects are discussed, including investigation of specific instructional strategies, creation of flexible environments for instructional strategy research, modeling of the human tutor, simulation of human learning and cognition, and creation of multimedia environments. After discussing problems associated with moving ITS from the laboratory to an institutionalized part of the practical world, a conceptual model for evaluating technological innovation in training and educational environments is proposed. This model considers the technology purpose, processes, outcome measures, and the maturity of the technological innovation (the latter especially relevant for ITS). It has three major stages: adoption, implementation, and institutionalization and two major processes: assimilation and accommodation of the innovation. These stages and processes occur within a context of multiple levels of users/stakeholders or decision-makers. Taken together they make up the dimensions of the evaluation model for any technological innovation, including ITS.

Proposal of Channel Estimation Method for ITS systems by using STBC MIMO-OFDM

This paper proposes a new road-to-vehicle communication system for the future ITS by using the STBC MIMO-OFDM technique which can provide the safety and comfortable driving, and collection of variable information from the network in the realtime to the users on the vehicle. To realize the proposed STBC MIMO-OFDM system, it is required to estimate the channel frequency response at every symbol precisely in the time varying fading channel which is the typical operation conditions for the roadto-vehicle communications system. In this paper, we propose a novel channel estimation method by using the scattered pilots and null sub-carriers inserted into the data sub-carriers both in the frequency and time axes which enables the accurate channel estimation even in the higher time varying fading channel. From the computer simulation results, this paper demonstrates the effectiveness of proposed system which can achieve the higher transmission data rate with keeping the higher signal quality even under thehigher mobile ITS environments.