Since its inception in the late 1990s, UK Government and highways authorities have invested substantial amounts of resource and money into Urban Traffic Management and Control (UTMC) systems. To maximise the value from these systems they need to be both capable of continued use and of updating to accommodate new capabilities.
This requires not only that new standards are developed, but also that the current standards are maintained. Historically this has been the task of the UTMC Development Group (UDG), which has recently been revived from dormancy under the Transport Technology Forum (TTF). As the UDG develops its future remit, it is considered timely that in light of the wider standards work being undertaken by ARTSM, (the Association for Road Traffic Safety and Management) and TOPAS (the Traffic Open Products And Specification) the ownership and management of the current UTMC Technical Specifications (TS003 & TS004 and all related materials) will transfer from the UDG to TOPAS.
TOPAS will arrange for Technical Standards TS003 and TS004 to be made available through the TOPAS website as the TOPAS UTMC Interface standards. Their format and structure may be subject to change, for example each interface may have its own specification, but the technical content will continue unchanged.
Manufacturers and service providers wanting to bring their own interfaces to the market will be able to follow the TOPAS registration processes and have their interfaces added to the TOPAS register. This is the first step towards improving confidence that the disparate components of UTMC system do achieve interoperability.
Meanwhile, the UDG will shift its emphasis and develop a new role. “TOPAS didn’t exist when we started UTMC”, says Steve George, TTF’s UTMC lead. “We are delighted that the detailed work of technical standards now lies in safe hands. This leaves UTMC free to move up the value chain, and to work on how to facilitate the functional and operational integration of current and future ITS systems. We have discussed this concept through several TTF events, and we can now see a clear path ahead.”
(Picture – TOPAS)
