Intelligent transportation system

An intelligent transportation system (ITS) is an advanced application which, without embodying intelligence as such, aims to provide innovative services relating to different modes of transport and traffic management and enable users to be better informed and make safer, more coordinated, and 'smarter' use of transport networks. An intelligent transportation system (ITS) is an advanced application which, without embodying intelligence as such, aims to provide innovative services relating to different modes of transport and traffic management and enable users to be better informed and make safer, more coordinated, and 'smarter' use of transport networks. Although ITS may refer to all modes of transport, the directive of the European Union 2010/40/EU, made on the 7 July 2010, defined ITS as systems in which information and communication technologies are applied in the field of road transport, including infrastructure, vehicles and users, and in traffic management and mobility management, as well as for interfaces with other modes of transport. ITS may improve the efficiency of transport in a number of situations, i.e. road transport, traffic management, mobility, etc. Recent governmental activity in the area of ITS — is further motivated by an increasing focus on homeland security. Many of the proposed ITS systems also involve surveillance of the roadways, which is a priority of homeland security. Funding of many systems comes either directly through homeland security organisations or with their approval. Further, ITS can play a role in the rapid mass evacuation of people in urban centers after large casualty events such as a result of a natural disaster or threat. Much of the infrastructure and planning involved with ITS parallels the need for homeland security systems. In the developing world, the migration from rural to urbanized habitats has progressed differently. Many areas of the developing world have urbanised without significant motorisation and the formation of suburbs. A small portion of the population can afford automobiles, but the automobiles greatly increase congestion in these multimodal transportation systems. They also produce considerable air pollution, pose a significant safety risk, and exacerbate feelings of inequities in the society. High population density could be supported by a multimodal system of walking, bicycle transportation, motorcycles, buses, and trains. Other parts of the developing world, such as China, India and Brazil remain largely rural but are rapidly urbanising and industrialising. In these areas a motorised infrastructure is being developed alongside motorisation of the population. Great disparity of wealth means that only a fraction of the population can motorise, and therefore the highly dense multimodal transportation system for the poor is cross-cut by the highly motorised transportation system for the rich. Intelligent transport systems vary in technologies applied, from basic management systems such as car navigation; traffic signal control systems; container management systems; variable message signs; automatic number plate recognition or speed cameras to monitor applications, such as security CCTV systems; and to more advanced applications that integrate live data and feedback from a number of other sources, such as parking guidance and information systems; weather information; bridge de-icing (US deicing) systems; and the like. Additionally, predictive techniques are being developed to allow advanced modelling and comparison with historical baseline data. Some of these technologies are described in the following sections. Various forms of wireless communications technologies have been proposed for intelligent transportation systems.Radio modem communication on UHF and VHF frequencies are widely used for short and long range communication within ITS. Short-range communications of 350 m can be accomplished using IEEE 802.11 protocols, specifically WAVE or the Dedicated Short Range Communications standard being promoted by the Intelligent Transportation Society of America and the United States Department of Transportation. Theoretically, the range of these protocols can be extended using Mobile ad hoc networks or Mesh networking. Longer range communications have been proposed using infrastructure networks such as WiMAX (IEEE 802.16), Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), or 3G. Long-range communications using these methods are well established, but, unlike the short-range protocols, these methods require extensive and very expensive infrastructure deployment. There is lack of consensus as to what business model should support this infrastructure.