The OU Intelligent Transportation Systems Laboratory

Lab Overview• Established in 1998 as a joint venture between

ODOT and the OU School of ECE.• The ITS Lab has been involved from the very

beginning of the ITS program in Oklahoma.• Current partners include OkTC, DPS, OHP, OHSO,

ODOT, FHWA, FMCSA.• Lab projects were featured on local TV news

broadcasts 18 times between 2005 and 2007.• In a recent report, the California DoT (CalTrans)

and UC Davis cited Oklahoma’s ITS as a national exemplary model.

Lab Activities

• System Planning• System Design• System Integration• System Testing• Field Maintenance• Software Development• Software Maintenance

ITS Lab Personnel

• 15 graduate students• 4 non-student staff

engineers• 4 faculty members

Mascot:

Statewide ITS Implementation

Feedback• 73 DMS Overhead

Signs• Dynamic Lane Control• ATIS• HAR/511

Sensors• 232 video cameras• 70 m-wave speed

detectors• Inductive loops• RWIS (weather)

Infrastructure• Heterogeneous communications network• Distributed Control (Oklahoma Virtual TMC)

Current Deployment

• Oklahoma City Metro• Tulsa Metro• Tinker AFB• Norman and Edmond• Lawton• Fort Sill• McAlester• McAlester Army Ammunition

Plant

TMC Cost Issues in Oklahoma• Cost is a major issue with ITS deployment in

Oklahoma. • The cost of building and operating a large,

centralized TMC was deemed prohibitive.• Funds were not available to construct the

facility.– Typical cost: USD × 107.

• No agency was able to accept financial responsibility for 24/7 staffing.– Typical Cost: USD 2M – 3M per year.

The Virtual TMC Concept• Question: how can you realize the full

functionality of a large, integrated multi-agency TMC without incurring the costs?

• Answer: build a virtual TMC that allows the stakeholder agencies to remain in their current physical locations.– Each agency receives an instantiation of the

Statewide ITS Console.– Nominally, this is a COTS PC with special hardware

and software to support ITS functionality.

Virtual TMC Philosophy• Build a geographically distributed, fault

tolerant peer-to-peer network of ITS consoles.• Any group of mutually connected consoles can

self-organize to control all ITS resources that are visible to the group.– one console self selects as Master.– others in the group self identify as Slaves.– The master manages message passing with MSMQ

to maintain database synchronization between all members of the group.

Example ITS Console at Statewide EMC

Large Console (statewide EMC)…

User ID and Privilege Structure• User ID’s are associated with individuals.• There are eight user levels.• There are a large number of privileges– can be individually enabled/disabled on a per user basis

(e.g. “can pan/tilt/zoom camera”).

• Identity, user level, and privileges are maintained consistently when logging into any console in the State.

• User levels and privileges used to prioritize access to ITS system resources (e.g. camera, DMS).

Operator Control Surface Philosophy• GOAL: for each type of system resource,– Provide a consistent, uniform control surface– Independent of specific make/model/vendor.

• Develop custom software module for each type of device (camera, web cam, DMS).– Avoid vendor specific control software

• Implement control surface with a superset of the special features/functionalities.– Unavailable features “grayed out.”

• Make/model and vendor specific protocols stored in database.

ITS Console: Basic User Interface

ITS Console – OKC Map without workzone devices

ITS Console – Basic Map with Info view

ITS Console – Map Options and Legend

ITS Console – CCTV Camera Surfing

ITS Console – Web Camera Surfing

ITS Console – PTZ Camera Control

ITS Console – DMS Interface

ITS Console – Incident Management Control

ATIS – OKC Map

ATIS – Tulsa Map

ATIS – Camera Detail

ATIS – Message Signs

ATIS – Workzone View

Heterogeneous Video Environment• Oklahoma City Metro: analog video• Tulsa Metro: packet switched digital video• CCTV system to support special “low

bandwidth” consoles:– Point-to-point microwave– Internet/VPN– “Home” console… requires security HW (PIX/ASA)

Other “Neat” Features• Network “heals” automatically after outage.• Handhelds for DMS control and network

monitoring.• Quick multiparty communications:– Text/chat– VOIP conferencing

• Development in progress for multi-agency radio system interoperability.

RWIS-Inclement Weather Console

• Unified Visualization Framework combines data from the following sources:– AVL instrumentation data (Lat, Long, Alt, Speed)– Weather sensor data from a network of RWIS

stations (surface temp., wind speed/dir.)– National Oceanographic and Atmospheric

Administration (NOAA) (radar overlays)– National Weather Service (NWS) (forecast)– Oklahoma Climatological Survey (OCS)

(mesonet/micronet)

OR

RWIS-Inclement Weather Console

OHP-Geo-Aware Reporting System

• Major Reporting Goals– Record Lat/Long information in collision, citation, warning and

impound reports– Provide a method for improving GPS data when the police vehicle is

not positioned at the exact location of the incident– Provide a method for reporting infrastructural damage to ODOT

property, eyewitness weather conditions, etc.

• Data Distribution System– Integrate Geo-Aware information gathered by the OHP system into a

real-time multilayer map view/interface– Provide a method of exporting and analyzing large sets of data and

performing studies that involve correlation with other large data sets such as WIM, FARS, SAFE-T, etc.

OHP-Geo-Aware Reporting System