INTEGRATION OF CONTROL AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS FOR TRANSPORT PROVIDING A STRATEGIC CO-ORDINATED APPROACH

The co-ordination of transport is a basic requirement of the travelling public. However many cities fail to deliver. A change in attitude towards transport has resulted in the needs of the public now being acknowledged and this in turn has led to a flurry of activity in development. The purpose of this paper is to outline one such development project that has already been completed and summarise the resultant products that are now being installed around the world. In addition, there is a discussion of the need for integration and a look at the next steps for integration in the United Kingdom (UK). The completed development program took place through the ROMANSE project (Road Management System for Europe). This project was initiated in 1992 under funding from the European Commission's Framework Programmes with the support of the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) and established Southampton, UK as a model for transport management systems through the use of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS). The development of ROMANSE is widely recognised as one of Europe's most successful demonstrations of potential for integrated Traffic and Travel Information Centres (TTIC). The main objective of the ROMANSE project has been to influence travel behaviour by the widespread dissemination of traffic and travel information. This is being achieved through the formation of the Traffic and Travel Information Centre (TTIC), which collects, evaluates and disseminates real-time and predicted information for various modes of transport. Through this process, it is hoped to enhance the efficiency of the network, provide high quality information for strategic decisions, and to encourage a change in modal shift in favour of public transport. The core system in the TTIC is SCOOT (Split Cycle and Offset Optimisation Technique).