Project Structure

Work Package 1: Project Management

Project Co-ordination

This team, as the direct link with DGXIII, will carry out all the contractual, technical, administrative, and financial issues required by the project. The co-ordinator of this team (Project Co-ordinator), will prepare and convene meetings, will be in charge of co-ordinating all activities with external groups, and will work with the Project Technical Manager to assure completeness of all technical actions.

Technical management

This team will include the local project managers and the Evaluation Manager, will be in charge of quality assurance and control, evaluation co-ordination and management, and will manage the technical elements at both the horizontal and vertical levels. It will structure the vertical project tasks at the European level and will provide a point of reference for the management of all horizontal tasks connected to each workpackage. The team will meet regularly throughout the project lifetime. The manager of this team will be the Project Technical Manager.

Work Package 2: Dissemination and Implementation

Task 2.1 – Dissemination and Use Plan
Describe plans for dissemination of knowledge gained in the project. Describe dissemination strategies and target groups:
- PRIME Special Interest Group (SIG) of end users.
- WEB site that will promote project results to the INTERNET community.
- Interaction with networks.
- Publications in scientific journals.
- Production of information and promotion material.
- Contribution to technical seminars and conferences.
- Participation to Programme's conferences and EU concertation activities.

Task 2.2 – Dissemination of project results
Follow Plan of Task 2.1:
Set up a PRIME SIG and establish communications channel between the project and this group (E-Mail correspondence, newsletters).
Set up and maintain project WEB site.
Interaction with networks: Disseminate project progress via European networks, e.g., POLIS, IMPACTS. This dissemination could take the form of written material and oral presentations at relevant conferences.

Task 2.3 – White paper
Produce a white paper giving guidelines on how to instrument a motorway to collect real time data (journey time, speed, flow) for incident/congestion management. This will cover:
- Description of detection hardware available (e.g., sensing, scene analysis), benefits / disbenefits.
- Description of software applications to be used and circumstances for improved performance.
- Equipment set-up.

Task 2.4 – Technology Implementation Plan
Describe plans for exploitation of the results for the consortium as a whole, or for individual partners or groups of partners. To the extent possible, express plans in concrete terms. Include:
- Short term plans for product exploitation (commercial projects related to traffic management, competitive advantage, investment plan, turn-key solutions).
- Selling to system integrators, e.g., incident management, alarm handling, security systems.
- Participating in Telematics Consortia.

Construct a clear commercialisation agreement amongst the project partners that will regulate partner rights and obligations in the exploitation of project results.
Develop material for a preliminary business plan, including:
- Identify potential competitors (strengths and weaknesses)
- Analyse target market (identification of the important factors that influence market behaviour, identification of market demands and trends), impacts on system users, worldwide exploitation.
- Carry out financial appraisal of user needs and value for money, and measurement of system cost-effectiveness concerning investment and procurement decisions.
- Provide plan for exploitation of commercial spin off products, services and experience from PRIME. Focus on co-operation with service providers within commercial projects, estimates on target prices & return of investment (ROI).

Work Package 3: Enhanced User Requirements

Task 3.1 – Enhanced User Needs.
Identify user characteristics and special needs. Users include three user groups (one per primary site).
Identify service use patterns and determine effects on user behaviour, attitudes, preferences.
Identify problems encountered by users and integrate suggestions for service improvements.
Organise meetings involving outsiders. These can be annual events at concertation meetings or at international conferences.
Summarise user activities (user groups, SIG).

Task 3.2 – Technology Assessment and expected targets.
Assess technologies and specifications for implementation: Summarise the latest developments in research and technology. Special emphasis on related projects from 4th FP, particularly IN-RESPONSE. Available applicable methods/models will be examined in detail.
Prepare document to be used as a basis for deriving specifications.

Task 3.3 – Performance scenarios.
Identify scenarios to be used for testing the performance of the methods to be developed.

Work Package 4: Prototype Functional Specifications and Design

Task 4.1 – Functional Specifications
Specify the information structure & flow with respect to all users and actors, and to the different functions and subsystems: collection, storage, transmission, presentation of information/data (incl. dynamic/static information).
Specification of the performance requirements, design constraints, and system attributes.
Specify all system functions, and their input, output, external interfaces, and internal processing. Specification of data storage and user interface requirements, and site adaptation requirements and constraints.

Task 4.2 – System Architecture and Design
The system architecture will follow the guidelines suggested by CONVERGE, (deliverable DSA2.2). Defined will be the Reference Model of the system, and its Architecture. Special attention will be paid to the expected site application of the system architecture and the definition of methods to be followed for assessment of this architecture. The latter will be based on 'Architecture Assessment Guidelines' DSA3.1, delivered by CONVERGE.

The system design will be based on a model of the information structure, and be carried out with respect to all functionalities and technical components necessary for site demonstration. All major architecture elements will be mapped to system design elements, with regard to data storage and exchange, data protocols and communications, system control and operation, human machine interface and interaction.

The methodological approach for the design is likely to be object oriented, using Object Modelling Techniques (OMT), as reference to describe the design of all components. The method for the physical design will be appropriate to the design of physical architecture and the development of ITS components. Procedures will be defined to achieve standardisation and interoperability.

Work Package 5: Prototype Development

The prototype will include methods and tools that:

- Provide alarm or other message to the traffic control centre on the potential for occurrence of incidents or congestion. The methods are based on preliminary results from models in earlier EU projects, e.g., IN-RESPONSE that use static road and weather features, and real-time traffic characteristics. The new methods can improve performance of incident detection, and activate traffic management strategies in advance, to reduce congestion and incident occurrence. The prototype incident prediction module can be applied individually, based on the incoming road data, or in conjunction with activation of subsequent traffic management strategies.

- Use improved sensing that can increase reliability of modern incident management. The prototype component will be based on new software that estimates journey time based on numberplate matching, and uses this estimate to facilitate incident prediction-detection-verification. It will also be based on improved machine vision hardware, with performance characteristics that further increase the potential of the incident management chain. The new tools will seek to improve sensing performance of existing methods, e.g., ARTEMIS, IN-RESPONSE. Findings from the prototype component can be integrated to benefit the rest of the incident management chain.

Improve integration of verification messages, particularly from cellular phones, to incident-management databases of control centre, to increase effectiveness of incident Management. Included in the prototype will be a system that uses Interactive Voice Response / Computer Telephony Integration (IVR/CTI) and GPS/GSM. The system will offer the road user the capability to enter road event information to the control centre database over the telephone, thus improving standardisation, speed and fidelity of the information.

The prototype verification module can be applied individually, based on the incoming road and incident detection data, or in conjunction with activation of subsequent incident response strategies. Integrate incident management strategies built for either urban networks or motorways as, e.g., in IN-RESPONSE and ROMANSE. Included will be a DSS that receives real-time data to assist actors in co-operative decision making, and increase the effectiveness of emergency area traffic management strategies. The prototype component will offer the control centre the capability to select and apply the best incident/traffic management strategy based on the on-line integration of motorway and non-motorway strategies and the recommendations of the DSS. The prototype will allow either independent use of the recommended strategies or use of the strategies in conjunction with ongoing incident and traffic management schemes.

Task 5.1 – Development of Prototype specifications
Ensure selected architecture supports QoS requirements from target applications. Identify prototype components. Develop the specifications of a generic prototype, taking into account the common features across participating sites.

Task 5.2 – Development of Prototype components
Develop the application components of the prototype. Implement user interface design. Develop any necessary applications and protocols to facilitate system communications requirements. Follow up the WP4 procedures to seek standardisation, interoperability, harmonisation with DG XIII standards for reliability in information flow.

Task 5.3 – Database development
Develop all system Databases. Specify referential integrity constraints. Consider data integrity and reliability. Implement solutions for data replication and distribution.

Task 5.4 – Partial integration of Prototype components
Define integration discipline and assemble all components in compliance to these rules, to produce common base for site specific demonstrators. Partially integrate components and databases, technologies for data exchange, communications interfaces and system control.

Work Package 6: Prototype Testing

Task 6.1 – Partial network operational integration of hardware and software for testing
Define procedures to ensure hardware-software integration, including information retrieval, data handling and supply, to reach a state that is ready for testing. Consider communication network specifications on data collection timing and translation requirements, network monitoring and reporting. Include graphical interfaces for network management and viewing. Define procedures for off-line and on-line testing.

Task 6.2 – Laboratory testing
Define framework to test ITS component functionality – hardware/software/interfaces – interoperability, compatibility, reliability, maintainability.
Perform lab testing and sensitivity analysis for verifying ITS components and logic.
Laboratory testing will be undertaken off-line by relevant project partners or on-line/off-line along primary test sites in Southampton, Munich and Thessaloniki.

(a)  Off-line testing will be performed by simulation package AIMSUN or by individual lab tests with data being collected off-line at the project sites.
(b)  On-line testing will be performed with real-time data on specific applications dealing with:
-  IVR/CTI System.
-  Integrated Management Strategies.
-  Journey Time Estimation.

Task 6.3 – System Documentation
Develop System Administrator’s Guide incorporating installation and set up instructions. Produce User’s Guide.

Work Package 7: Project Assessment and Evaluation

Task 7.1 – On line monitoring
Following Task 4.1, the data collection process will be organised, and will run continuously throughout the project to continuously improve the data for calibration of algorithms and further refinements.

Task 7.2 – User groups
Groups of users will be active throughout the life of the project to ensure the relevance of the project results to their needs. There will be 3 User Groups (one per main site), and each group will have its representative. User group representatives will participate in the Special Interest Group (see Task 2.2), and play a specific role in the project management process, interacting with the Project Technical Manager and the Local Management.

Task 7.3 – Technical evaluation method
Technical and socio-economic assessment will suit the assessment objectives and characteristics of alternative systems. Determination of assessment objectives will be an iterative process which reflects what decision makers would like assessed, and is constrained by what assessment objectives can be validated in practice.

Definition and hierarchy of assessment objectives on the basis of requirements of the decision makers and other stakeholders, and practical constraints.
Selection of system-performance assessment categories and evaluation methods to be used.
Preparation of evaluation methodology and definition of evaluation indices and performance measurements.

Task 7.4 – Overall Evaluation
Technical and socio-economic evaluation of developed system, considering original functional specifications and architecture and communications aspects.
Consideration of User acceptance, Impacts assessment (Impact categories directly and indirectly expressed in monetary terms, purely qualitative impact categories), Socio-economic evaluation (effectiveness, benefits-costs of system implementation).
Application of statistical techniques to ensure reliability of results. Cost/benefit analysis, SWOT analysis and sensitivity analysis.