REVIEW OF AND PRELIMINARY GUIDELINES FOR INTEGRATING TRANSIT INTO TRANSPORTATION MANAGEMENT CENTERS

The advent of intelligent vehicle-highway system (IVHS) technologies has fostered the development and implementation of automated systems that control traffic and provide traffic information to drivers. However, one very important element of traffic has been overlooked in the past - public transportation. Traditionally, the impact of public transportation on traffic flow and volumes has not been factored into these automated systems. Also, providing transit information along with traffic information to travelers (rather than just drivers) has not been done in the past. The recognition that multi-modal information can influence a traveler's decision on route(s) selection and mode(s) is not recent, but the provision of transit and traffic information has not been done until very recently. Thus, there are two key issues that could be addressed by today's IVHS technologies - the coordination of transit and traffic operations and the dissemination of transit and traffic information to the public. The basic objective of the study described in this report was to address these two issues by reviewing existing "transportation management centers" (TMCs) and those under development. This review determined the extent to which transit has been or will be integrated into TMCs. \n