Future Scenarios for Traffic Information and Management

The limited coordination between public and private actors in the fields of traffic information and management has led to reduced efficiency and sometimes undesirable situations. The main objective of the Strategic Council for Traffic Information and Traffic Management installed by the Dutch Ministry of Transportation is to develop a joint strategy for the development and the organization of traffic information and traffic management by public authorities and private parties. This strategy will outline future developments and related actions, as well as the organization and roles of the relevant actors for traffic management and information activities. To satisfy these requirements, a proposed scenario-based approach entails sketching different scenarios to describe the situations in 2015, 2020, and 2028 for public and private stakeholders involved in traffic management and traffic information. The approach to determine these scenarios, the scenarios themselves, and their implications are described. The developed scenarios were built around the dimension of freedom of choice of the traveler. After extreme scenarios were identified, possible scenarios were sketched and were linked to instruments and to multiple objectives. On the basis of the scenarios, no-regret activities (those beneficial regardless of scenario) were identified as part of the robust strategy forming essential elements for all possible scenarios. These no-regret activities reflect an important outcome of the project; they entail setting up the value chain of traffic information, setting up a data warehouse to share all relevant data (including the functional and technical standards), and preparing for integrated network management and cooperative systems.