Urban Traffic Management and Control

The Urban Traffic Management Control or UTMC programme is the main initiative of the UK Department for Transport

Department for Transport

In the United Kingdom, the Department for Transport is the government department responsible for the English transport network and a limited number of transport matters in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland which are not devolved...

(DfT) for the development of a more open approach to Intelligent Transport Systems or ITS in urban area

Urban area

An urban area is characterized by higher population density and vast human features in comparison to areas surrounding it. Urban areas may be cities, towns or conurbations, but the term is not commonly extended to rural settlements such as villages and hamlets.Urban areas are created and further...

s.

UTMC systems are designed to allow the different applications used within modern traffic management systems to communicate and share information with each other. This allows previously disparate data from multiple sources such as ANPR cameras, Variable-message sign (VMS), car parks, traffic signals, air quality monitoring stations and meteorological data, to be amalgamated into a central console or database. The idea behind UTMC is to maximise road network potential to create a more robust and intelligent system that can be used to meet current and future management requirements.

Background and history

The UTMC was launched in 1997; during the first three years, a number of research projects were undertaken to establish and validate an approach based on modular systems and open standards. These have contributed to the UTMC Technical Specifications, which define UTMC standards.

To assist local authorities in gaining the most from ITS
ITS
its, it's or ITS can mean:* it's, a contraction of it is or it has* its, the possessive adjective and possessive pronoun form of the personal pronoun it- Computing :...

and to achieve their transport objectives, the DfT
DFT
DFT may stand for:*Discrete Fourier transform*Decision field theory*Density functional theory*Demand Flow Technology*The United Kingdom's Department for Transport*Design For Test*Deareating Feed Tank*Digital Film Technology maker of the Spirit DataCine...

initiated the six-year, £6M UTMC programme in 1997. The first half of the UTMC programme (1997–2000) concentrated on specific applied research tasks, on both technical and operational issues.

In January 2001, the programme embarked on a demonstrator phase to consolidate the results of the earlier research. Full scale demonstrator projects taking a pragmatic UTMC approach were run in Preston by Mott MacDonald
Mott MacDonald
The Mott MacDonald Group is an employee-owned company management, engineering and development consultancy serving the public and private sectors world-wide...

, Reading
Reading, Berkshire
Reading is a large town and unitary authority area in England. It is located in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the River Thames and River Kennet, and on both the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 motorway, some west of London....

and Stratford-upon-Avon
Stratford-upon-Avon
Stratford-upon-Avon is a market town and civil parish in south Warwickshire, England. It lies on the River Avon, south east of Birmingham and south west of Warwick. It is the largest and most populous town of the District of Stratford-on-Avon, which uses the term "on" to indicate that it covers...

by Siemens
Siemens
Siemens may refer toSiemens, a German family name carried by generations of telecommunications industrialists, including:* Werner von Siemens , inventor, founder of Siemens AG...

and York
York
York is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence...

by Envitia (formerly Tenet Technology).

Early in 2003, the UTMC Development Group or UDG of stakeholders, consisting of local authorities and suppliers was set up, with the support of the DfT, to oversee the future development of UTMC.

UTMC has helped local authorities achieve their goals by adopting an appropriate, but not over constraining, set of standards to allow users, suppliers and integrators of UTMC systems to plan and supply systems cost-effectively in an open market. These standards are essential in breaking boundaries and local authority borders to allow network interoperability.

Specifications and Standards

The UTMC Specifications and Standards Group (S&SG) is responsible for ensuring that the UTMC technical framework continues to meet local authorities needs, currently and in the future. The S&SG oversees the maintenance and upkeep of the UTMC Technical Specifications. Its members are drawn from both local authorities and the supplier community, but it is always led by local authorities.

The S&SG works closely with the full range of UTMC suppliers to ensure its requirements are technically achievable. It operates a transparent consultation regime on all technical changes. From time to time it may commission and fund technical research and standards development activities, though it operates principally through coordinating the input freely provided by suppliers and users.

Outreach and marketing

As well as undertaking technical work to develop national specifications, there are a number of activities that help "market" the initiative to the traffic management community.

There is an annual conference, papers and articles are published in key industry journals and regular workshops are held focusing on key (technical or operational) themes.

In 2006, the UTMC community ran a number of special sessions at the ITS World Congress held in London, as well as running a village of suppliers demonstrating UTMC-compatible products.

The UTMC Products Register

The UTMC Products Directory http://www.utmc.uk.com/prodreg/index.php?section=catalogue is a catalogue of UTMC Compliant Products which Local Authorities may use in finding Products for their Traffic Management Systems. The Products Register outlines the process for submitting a Product to the Register and subsequently to the Directory.

The UTMC Objects Registry

The Objects Registry TS004 http://www.utmc.uk.com/technical/doc/UTMC-TS004006ObjectsMainMar10.doc provides format standards for shared data (i.e. data communicated between applications of a UTMC system, or between a UTMC system and an external system) through:

holding definitions of current UTMC Objects, and making them available to users;
receiving submissions for potential new UTMC Objects, and coordinating consultation as necessary;
facilitating contact between Object developers;
advising on changes needed to potential new UTMC Objects;
registering new UTMC Objects.

The current issue as of April 2011 is TS004.006:2010.

Examples of UTMC in action

Local authorities with UTMC have more control over their road network. Some examples of what they can do are:

Advise

By monitoring how long it takes a vehicle to pass two ANPR cameras and then dividing the time by the distance between the cameras, an average speed can be measured and used to inform motorists via VMS how long it will take them to reach a destination, or to set diversions.
Example by Envitia: VMS in Aberdeen http://www.envitia.com/news/newsdetails.aspx?id=369,0,0. Example by IDT: Car park counting in Aberdeen http://www.idtuk.com/casestudies.html

Warn

Wind detectors attached to a bridge give drivers of high sided vehicles warnings before they cross. The warning messages are displayed on VMS signs activated when wind speed thresholds are exceeded.
Example by Siemens: Bridge VMSs offer wind warnings http://www.traffictechnologytoday.com/news.php?NewsID=5228.

Guide

By linking parking guidance systems to a common database traffic control room operators can inform motorists via strategic VMS about the current state of car parks; especially useful for special events like carnivals when normal use is exceeded.
Example by Motts MacDonald: Car Park Guidance in Edinburgh http://www.cdmf.info/client_edin.htm

Previously these systems would have been impracticable due to the sheer volumes of data processing and the operator time needed to apply constant manual updates.

Joint Chairs’ Group (JCG)

The JCG brings together the UDG with three other key ITS community organisations, namely the Travel Information Highway, the Real Time Information Group

Real Time Information Group

The Real Time Information Group is an organisation in the United Kingdom supporting the development of bus passenger information systems; its 85 members include local authorities, bus operators and system suppliers together with representatives from the UK government and other key industry groups...

and Intelligent Transport Systems Society for the United Kingdom. Meeting at chair’s level, the JCG aims to ensure that the strategic direction of the four groups is aligned.

The JCG meets approximately quarterly. It is a consultative rather than an executive forum: it is up to individual chairs and the groups they lead to take any action as a result of JCG discussions.

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