Author

Philip Tarnoff
Director
Center for Advanced Transportation Technology (CATT)
E-mail: tarnoff@eng.umd.edu
Phone: (301) 403-4619

Description

The course is intended to provide an understanding of the National ITS Architecture and its relationship to systems engineering principles. ITS offers a large variety of options to address transportation needs. Thus, adequate guidance is necessary to guarantee compatibility among systems solutions developed by regional neighbors. The National ITS Architecture provides this overall guidance to ensure system, product, and service compatibility/interoperability, without limiting design options. The course is based on the latest version of the Architecture (Version 6.0, dated April 2007).

Objectives

Upon completion of the course, participants will be able to:

• State several systems engineering concepts and their relationship to the National ITS systems architecture;
• Give examples of synergistic benefits arising from integration of ITS services;
• Describe the manner in which information is shared between user services;
• Understand the role played by standards in general and identify the standards relevant to the ITS Architecture;
• Develop market packages to satisfy specific functional requirements;
• Develop architecture-flow diagrams and understand various dataflow representations;
• Relate P-specs to functional requirements
• Translate a logical into a physical architecture

Audience

Public-sector Transportation Professionals including US DOT engineers, planners, project managers, and field staff, FTA Regional staff, Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) Specialists, and others as appropriate. Transportation professionals from state, regional, and local agencies would also benefit from participation in the course.

Length

Approximately eight hours.

Prerequisites

Students should be familiar with the ITS user services and packages.

Course Outline

Numbers in parentheses refer to pages.

1. Introduction to the National ITS Architecture and User Services (1-11)
   1. The National ITS Architecture
   2. User Services
   3. Quiz 1
2. Basic systems engineering concepts (12-26)
   1. What is a System
   2. What is System Engineering
      • Some Criteria
      • Iteration and Backtracking
   3. System Engineering Processes
      • The Waterfall Model
      • The Spiral Model
   4. Why is System Engineering Important
   5. Quiz 2
3. What is Architecture?(27-33)
   1. What is Architecture
   2. The National ITS Architecture
   3. Complexity of Transportation Systems
   4. Quiz 3
4. Regional Applications (34-85)
   1. What is Regional Architecture, Examples
   2. Turbo Architecture
   3. Subsystems
      • Travelers, Centers, Vehicles, Roadside,
   4. Terminators
      • Human, Environmental, Related and Other Systems
   5. Problem Background
   6. Quiz 4
   7. Planning the Regional System
      • Architecture Flows
      • Market Packages
        • Probe Surveillance Market Package
        • Using Market Packages
      • Standards
        • TMDD, NTCIP, TCIP
      • User Services
        • Shall Statements
        • User Service Requirements
      • Simple Freeway System design
   8. Quiz 5, 6, 7
5. Logical Architecture (86-101)
   1. Logical Architecture
   2. Logical Architecture Document
   3. User Services Problem
   4. Quiz 8
6. Session Examination (102)