INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS 9ITS0 IN TORONTO: HELPING PEOPLE DO THEIR JOBS

The Gardiner-Lake Shore Corridor consists of an urban freeway (the F.G. Gardiner Expressway) and two parallel signalized arterials (Lake Shore Boulevard and The Queensway), which together form a major access route into downtown Toronto. In the early 1990's, Toronto Transportation embarked on a program to increase safety and capacity along the corridor by undertaking three traffic management initiatives. The three initiatives were the Traffic Adaptive Signal Control System (SCOOT), which involved traffic adaptive control for the 20 signalized intersections on Lake Shore Boulevard; Traffic Management on the F.G. Gardiner Expressway, involving the installation of loop detectors, closed circuit television cameras and changeable message signs to provide incident detection and response capability; and Traffic Situation and Control Room, which involved locating all of the municipal Traffic Systems in one integrated traffic control centre and co-locating the traffic functions with the roads dispatch functions. This paper describes the three initiatives and their status to date.