computer science

Urban Traffic Management and Control

Urban Traffic Management and Control is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Urban Traffic Management and Control rather than just read about it. In short: The Urban Traffic Management Control or UTMC programme is the main initiative in the United Kingdom for the development of a more open approach to Intelligent Transport Systems or ITS in urban areas. Originating as a Government research programme, the initiative is now managed by a community forum, the UTMC Development Group, which represents both local transport authorities and the systems industry.

Key takeaways

Urban Traffic Management and Control belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Urban Traffic Management and Control to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Urban Traffic Management and Control from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Urban Traffic Management Control or UTMC programme is the main initiative in the United Kingdom for the development of a more open approach to Intelligent Transport Systems or ITS in urban areas. Originating as a Government research programme, the initiative is now managed by a community forum, the UTMC Development Group, which represents both local transport authorities and the systems industry. UTMC systems are designed to allow the different applications used within modern traffic management systems to communicate and share information with each other. This allows previously disparate data from multiple sources such as Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras, Variable Message Signs (VMS), car parks, traffic signals, air quality monitoring stations and meteorological data, to be amalgamated into a central console or database. The idea behind UTMC is to maximise road network potential to create a more robust and intelligent system that can be used to meet current and future management requirements.

Background and history The UTMC was launched in 1997 by the UK Government's Department for Environment, Transport and the Regions (now the Department for Transport (DfT)). During the first three years, a number of research projects were undertaken to establish and validate an approach based on modular systems and open standards. These have contributed to the UTMC Technical Specifications, which define UTMC standards.

To assist local authorities in gaining the most from Intelligent transportation system and to achieve their transport objectives, the Department for Transport initiated the six-year, £6M UTMC programme in 1997. The first half of the UTMC programme (1997–2000) concentrated on specific applied research tasks, on both technical and operational issues. In January 2001, the programme embarked on a demonstrator phase to consolidate the results of the earlier research. Full scale demonstrator projects taking a pragmatic UTMC approach were run in Preston with key systems provided by Mott MacDonald, Reading and Stratford-upon-Avon using Siemens and York with systems from Tenet Technology (these systems are now owned and marketed by Dynniq). Early in 2003, the UTMC Development Group (UDG) was set up, as a group of local authorities and suppliers, with the support of the DfT, to oversee the future development of UTMC. This has managed the initiative continuously since 2004. UTMC has helped local authorities achieve their goals by adopting an appropriate, but not over constraining, set of standards to allow users, suppliers and integrators of UTMC systems to plan and supply systems cost-effectively in an open market. These standards are essential in breaking boundaries and local authority borders to allow network interoperability.

UTMC Activities

Specifications and Standards The UTMC Specifications and Standards Group (S&SG) is responsible for ensuring that the UTMC technical framework continues to meet local authorities' needs, currently and in the future. The S&SG oversees the maintenance and upkeep of the UTMC Technical Specifications. Its members are drawn from both local authorities and the supplier community, but it is always led by local authorities. The S&SG works closely with the full range of UTMC suppliers to ensure its requirements are technically achievable. It operates a transparent consultation regime on all technical changes. From time to time it may commission and fund technical research and standards development activities, though it operates principally through coordinating the input freely provided by suppliers and users. The Specification provides standards for shared data (i.e. data communicated between applications of a UTMC system, or between a UTMC system and an external system) through:

holding definitions of current UTMC Objects, and making them available to users; receiving submissions for potential new UTMC Objects, and coordinating consultation as necessary; facilitating contact between Object developers; advising on changes needed to potential new UTMC Objects; registering new UTMC Objects. As well as undertaking technical work to develop national specifications, there are a number of activities that help "market" the initiative to the traffic management community. There is a conference, usually held annually, papers and articles are published in key industry journals and regular workshops are held focusing on key (technical or operational) themes. In 2006, the UTMC community ran a number of special sessions at the ITS World Congress held in London, as well as running a village of suppliers demonstrating UTMC-compatible products. The UTMC initiative formerly published a Products Catalogue, representing products submitted as compliant by suppliers. This was discontinued in December 2014.

UTMC specification documents The following documents are maintained and published for open use on the UTMC website.

The UTMC Framework Technical Specification TS003 presents the core technical standards recommended for use by Traffic Managers in their systems. The UTMC Objects Registry TS004 presents a standardised set of data structures associated with traffic management, in several forms including UML data model, XML schema, SNMP MIBs, some IDL scripts for CORBA based systems, and tabular representation (originally designed for database designers). The current issue of the Technical Specification is available for free download on the UTMC resources website [1].

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Urban Traffic Management and Control

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Urban Traffic Management and Control claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Urban Traffic Management and Control before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Urban Traffic Management and Control ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Urban Traffic Management and Control

In research: Urban Traffic Management and Control appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Urban Traffic Management and Control in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Urban Traffic Management and Control is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Intelligent transportation systems, Real-time computing, Road traffic management, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Urban Traffic Management and Control outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Urban Traffic Management and Control in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Urban Traffic Management and Control means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Urban Traffic Management and Control out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Urban Traffic Management and Control in simple terms?

Why does Urban Traffic Management and Control matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Urban Traffic Management and Control?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Urban Traffic Management and Control.