ITS-Service Strategy

General Service Description

“Traffic Management for Corridors and Networks” means the elaboration, application and quality control of Traffic Management Plans (TMPs) for the management of the European network and corridors including cross-regional and cross-border and multi-modal aspects.

A TMP is the pre-defined allocation of a set of measures to a specific situation in order to control and guide traffic flows as well as to inform road-users in real-time and provide a consistent and timely service to the road user. Initial situations can be unforeseeable (incidents[1], accidents) or predictable (recurrent or non-recurrent events[2]). The measures are always applied on a temporary basis. TMPs can be based upon the full range of feasible traffic control, route guidance and traveller information measures, not only depending on the initial situation but also on available facilities (see also 5.8.3.1)

Deployment of TMPs ensures a higher level of service in terms of increased traffic efficiency on the network and improved safety in terms of incident response and mitigation through a consistent and effective delivery of traffic control, route guidance and information measures to the road user.

Types of TMPs

Long-distance TMPs

A pre-defined and co-ordinated strategic traffic management is a proven concept applied all over Europe, in particular on routes with specific complex demands. The most common initial situations are winter problems, a generally high traffic volume, long-lasting road works, emergencies, typical main routes of holiday traffic, cross-border traffic, a close interrelation between long-distance and regional traffic in conurbations, air pollution problems in conurbation areas.

The initial situations are as manifold as the traffic management measures applied.

In the North-West of Europe re-routing and traveller information measures outweigh. The reason for it is the dense highway network in this area combined with a high traffic volume in relatively small states. Besides, various alternative sea crossing possibilities (such as bridges, tunnels, ferries) require re-routing TMPs in case of bad weather conditions or strikes.

In some areas as the Alpine regions, re-routing possibilities are limited due to capacity and environment problems on alternative routes and secondary networks and are only activated in extreme incidents as long duration closures requiring regional and cross-border intervention. The issue is to rapidly respond and manage the incident on a local level before it propagates to a major scale requiring significant re-routing measures.

In South Europe, other main aspects are emergencies and weather problems (snow, floods, etc). Thus, here HGV (storage, driving ban, overtaking ban) play a key role (besides re-routing of cross-border traffic).

Great diversity is also recognisable regarding organisational and technical aspects. Whereas France has a more or less centralised organisational structure with one responsible for the TMP, other states as Germany are organised on a federal level, all partners are equal in their rights and responsibilities. This decentralised approach is also applied in case of cross-border TMPs.

Different carriers and financing concepts for highways (public, private) have strong impact on investments in technical equipment on highways as well as possibilities and reservations concerning TMPs. In some areas, re-routing involves more than one motorway operator on the corridor, with traffic police solely responsible for closure and opening of motorways.

Some national guidelines for traffic management exist. They describe the entire process of traffic management, from the initial intent to improve a local traffic situation right up to an integrated traffic management concept. Some of them focus on the evaluation of TMPs. They are applied on a national, regional and local level resulting in a highly structured and user oriented approach of traffic management.

All the named aspects should be harmonised step-by-step on a European level. Not with the aim to define one overall valid technical and organisational approach, but with the aim to simplify the connection of existing TMPs along corridors and/or within neighbouring regions, to transfer experiences and to avoid double development work and conflicting strategies.

Objectives for future work on a European level concerning TMPs are

• A stronger link up of national or regional TMPs and thus establishing new international TMPs
• To assist new member states in Eastern Europe establishing appropriate TMPs.
• To strengthen the cooperation between “old” and ‘’new’’ member states in order to harmonise strategies and establish cross-border TMPs, when needed, between the various regions in Eastern and Western Europe.
• To harmonise international TMP- and system-approaches and structures on a European level.
• To implement a more dense network of ITS systems to enhance the efficiency of TMP (VMS, traffic information services, parking areas, etc.).

TMPs in conurbation areas

TMPs for conurbations are in many regions a relatively different field of work with a different scope of measures ranging from traffic signals, parking and interurban rerouting to public transport measures in addition to interaction with motorways. First of all they are initiated in case of pre-planned events (sports events etc., or road works) but also unplanned events or recurrent congestion caused by commuter traffic, but also due to air pollution or due to the strong impairment of the conurbation area brought by the long-distance and urban traffic.

There is a need to address the interface between the TEN-T and local feeder and distributor roads in urban areas. Since the quality of traffic flow on the TERN can impact and be impacted by the surrounding urban environment, comprehensive traffic management plans are required between the relevant urban road and motorway organisations. A number of regions have already the organisation and technical mechanisms for such a process.

TMPs for freight transportation

The stakeholders of freight transportation differ completely from those of the strategic traffic management on the European road network and thus the influence of road organisations on this aspect is limited. In the long term they can be influenced through political decisions.

However, three aspects of freight transport belong to the context of traffic management plans, because they affect the road network strongly, they are applied temporarily and they are part of public responsibilities:

• Dynamic ban of driving for HGV / dynamic overtaking ban for HGV
• Dynamic access control for HGV (in the context of passage through sensitive or limited capacity areas as tunnels and mountain passes)
• Dynamic access control for HGV (in the context of air pollution) and
• Temporary HGV storage areas (e.g. temporary hard shoulder usage for HGV storage)

Multi-modality

TMPs have a multi-modality aspect if applied measures include actions with the aim of modal shifting of traffic.

On the cross-border level co-modality (between road, rail, sea, waterways, air) currently affects only freight transportation (HGV transportation). Measures are applied permanently in order to optimise existing infrastructure capacities or temporarily in case of an incident (TMP).

In conurbations the main aspect of co-modality is the combination of road and public transport for individual traffic in case of a plan able or long-lasting incident.

As in road TMPs, the forecast reliability of the incident is an important element for co-modal TMP elaborations. For predictable incidents, such as congestion due to commuter traffic or fairs, co-modal TMPs can be developed. Spontaneous modal shifting on a large scale, particularly in conurbations, often fails because of lacking capacities of the public transport.

Nevertheless, the increasing traffic demand and the increasing interrelation of transport modes require a very close cooperation between the stakeholders of different transport modes.

A) What happened / what could happen?

• Initial situations/incidents/events that negatively affect traffic flow, traffic safety or environment can be:
• Accidents, road works, adverse weather conditions (thick fog, heavy snow, glace, floods), natural disasters (earthquakes, landslides, overflows), strikes, demonstrations, major public events, sport events, holiday traffic peaks, exceeding air pollution, emergencies (such as evacuations of public events, evacuation of ports of airports, closures of tunnels) or capacity overload on the road network or of public transport.
• A main aspect of incidents is the location and duration and capacity reduction of the incident. A consistent definition of these parameters is essential for effective information and intervention.

B) Allocation of what happened can be done according to the

• Severity, affected network, traffic flows and traffic density, (expected) duration (hard to define shortly after occurring the incident), probability of incidence, forecast reliability of the incident, current and expected traffic impacts based on observations or historic data

C) How to act / react to this?

• Potential measures that apply to the initial situations are shown in figure 2. A set of those measures composes a TMP, the combination always varies. An additional supporting element is the estimation of traffic impacts of selected strategies.

D) Who has to do what?

• Operational tables show the detailed application of the measures in terms of actions. Furthermore, they contain all the relevant information concerning the affected area according to a specific scenario for the correct implementation of this action.

What is the Vision?

The vision of the European ITS Core Service “Traffic Management for Corridors and Networks” is the effective delivery of traffic control, route guidance and information measures to the road user in a consistent manner, thus increasing the performance of transport infrastructure by adding the potential of cross-border, network or multi-stakeholder co-operation, when needed. Through strengthening the cooperation and the mutual understanding of road operators in conurbations and on the cross-national/international level the provision of a co-ordinated approach for elaboration, application and quality control of traffic management measures will be achieved.

Properly developed multiple level TMPs react to various traffic situations in a timely and effective manner. They optimise the use of existing traffic infrastructure capacities and provide the platform for a cross-border seamless service with consistent information for the road user.

Visions on behalf of the road user are:

• to provide seamless, language independent and consistent cross-border and traffic management and traveller information,
• to consider the network as a whole to optimise the use of existing traffic infrastructure capacities and
• to permanently enhance the quality of service provided by the traffic management service.

Visions on behalf of the road operators are:

• to come to a harmonised understanding as well as a co-ordinated, consistent deployment and application of traffic management measures on an operational level in locations where various stakeholders such as road operators and traffic police share traffic management responsibilities
• to strengthen the cooperation and the mutual understanding of road operators in conurbations and on cross-national/ international levels,
• to exchange know-how and experience in developing tools for the development and testing of traffic management plans between the stakeholders on a European level and
• to establish co-operation not only between public road operators but also with private service providers using in-car facilities to disseminate public traffic management plans, so that they align their traffic behaviour with the overarching strategies of public road operators (see Traffic Management 2.0[3]).

What is the Mission?

Cross-border/cross-organisational deployment

• Different political, legal, technical and organisational basic conditions, language (even dialects) and cultural differences of partners:
  à Take into account the individual backgrounds and requirements of each partner; determine a common understanding in a LoI (Letter of Intent) or a MoU (Memorandum of Understanding).
  à In advance of pre-defining TMPs, all partners have to have a clear understanding of each other’s needs and requirements.
  àDefine a common harmonised glossary and map in advance.
• Different responsibilities inside the organisational structure of each partner:
  àDefine a „single entry point“ on the operational level. Avoid escalating every single operational problem to the management level.
• In most countries, broadcasting companies cannot be forced to broadcast specific traveller information or re-routing recommendations, which leads to inconsistent information:à Involve broadcasters and other service providers from the start and foster a good relationship with them. In some cases, broadcasting companies share databases or have their operators in the TCC.
• Possible problems of language and/or interpretation by the road user:
  à Communication to the road user as far as possible through clear and mono-interpretable pictorial signs. Use of language only as explanation for the signs used.

Re-routing TMPs:

• Insufficient capacity on the alternative routes or road operators affected by the re-routing are not willing to accept re-routing on routes or secondary roads with limited capacity and/or excessive traffic-related environmental impact:
  à Intense advance planning and coordination processes between the various authorities involved and co-ordinated TMP activation process on the basis of mutual confidence in event assessment and activation requests is necessary.
  à A common pre-definition of prioritization between the impacted partners is necessary and agreements on how to prioritize traffic management measures to handle various incident types.
  à Other measures such as information, vehicle storage areas, modal shift or access control should be considered.
• The cost of tolls to the road user has a considerable influence in their route selection.
  à The decision criteria “price” has to be considered and eventually communicated.
• Inconsistent service content between publicly financed road operators and private service providers. The prompt deactivation of a measure in case of an incident cancellation through private service providers seems to be a problem.
  à Involve private service providers in the TMP elaboration process and develop framework agreements between public financed road operators and service providers to share information (see Traffic Management 2.0).

Co-modality

• Insufficient consideration of public transport and rail capacities in traffic management
  à TMPs should consider the utilisation of alternative modes of transport when capacities are available (see ITS Deployment Guideline TIS-DG07: Multi-modal traveller information services).

Evaluation

• Knowledge about driver’s behaviour is still quite limited.
  à Experiences gained from of statistical data and monitoring of TMP impacts should be analysed regularly.

Human resources

• The human resources required are hard to estimate, because TMPs often work “on top” of existing measures. With the implementation of a TMP service the work can get more complex for the operator. Normally, organisations are not at present able to provide such a service with the human capacities currently available to them
  à Allocation of motivated and well-trained – if necessary additional – staff is essential and often crucial to the success of the service.

Distinctiveness to other ITS-services

“Traffic Management for Corridors and Networks” is not comparable to other traffic management services described in this handbook. Together with the „Incident warning and management service“ (See 5.5.1) its nature is a – on a management level located – management service which – based on an overarching network strategy – uses and applies other services located on the monitoring and control level with a more local impact. The principle is shown in the Figure 102:

[1] Incident: situation on the road that is not expected or foreseen which may or may not lead to an accident (collision) but impacts on the safety and/or capacity of the road network for a limited time period.

[2] Event: situation that happens on the road, but that doesn’t necessarily have negative impact on safety and/or capacity.

[3] https://tm20.org/

Contribution to overarching European ITS objectives

ITS-Service radar

The graph below provides a quantification of “Traffic management for corridors and network” services added value regarding the three main overarching European ITS objectives which are: safety, efficiency and environment. The applied scales for the service radars are based on an expert view and not on specific scientific analysis. Detailed evaluation results of re-routing TMPs are given in the bibliography of examples (see Annex C: Examples of Deployment)

Safety

Timely and effective measures in case of major incidents serve to mitigate safety impacts. The quick and consistent provision of traveller information such as „Forecast and Real Time Event Information“ (see 4.1.1) and „Incident Warning and Management“ (see 5.5.1), as a part of the TMP measures, contribute to safety by warning travellers to reduce their speed.

Environmental impact

Reduction of environmental impacts due to re-routed vehicles can be estimated, if the additional length of the alternative route is appropriate to the congestion length. TMPs are also highly relevant in order to improve air quality in cities, e.g. by traffic information or traffic management measures.

Network efficiency

The main benefit in terms of network efficiency is the reduction in delays and travel time through the use of effective and timely control and information measures in the case of major incidents. Within TMPs not just the disrupted road section but the whole surrounding network (and sometimes even other transport modes) should be considered. This ensures a more efficient use of existing traffic infrastructure.