McConnell Public Safety and Transportation Operations Center
in Northern Virginia

Open Roads systems and services are vital to the transportation and emergency response operations at the McConnell Public Safety and Transportation Operations Center in Northern Virginia (partially shown below). This facility is one of the largest centers in the nation and provides a joint control room floor for the Virginia Department of Transportation, Virginia State Police, and Fairfax County Police, Fire and Rescue.

Traffic Management Evolution

OpenTMS Enterprise System, provided by Open Roads, is the central Advanced Transportation Management System (ATMS) used for incident management and coordination, work zone management, management of hundreds of roadway devices, data archival and reporting for incidents, device and mobility performance measures.

Video and Data Management

The OpenTMS Enterprise System provides a state-of-the-art digital video management component for both operator desktops, executive situation rooms, and the 10’ by 25’ video wall. The system contains a statewide Data Backbone for sharing information, allows for video and data sharing by the media and private vendors, and supports a centralized statewide data archival capability.

2009 Presidential Inauguration

The PSTOC was used as the command center during the 2009 Presidential Inauguration. Using the OpenTMS Enterprise System, video was piped to all situation rooms.

Increased Collaboration Via System-to-System Integration

Emergency response and incident management was improved by the integration of the VSP Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) 911 system with the OpenTMS Enterprise System for transportation-related events. Most of the incidents managed by VDOT are detected via this integration.

Safety Critical Operations

Core safety critical operations such as such as switching the I-95/I-395 reversible HOV lanes, and shoulder lane control are transitioning to the OpenTMS Enterprise system by Fall 2010. Plus, new concepts are in the planning for Active Traffic Management along I-66 using OpenTMS.

Regional Collaboration

OpenTMS Enterprise System made a significant improvement in sharing real-time incident data with computer systems at the D.C. Department of Transportation, Maryland State Highway Administration and the Washington Area Metropolitan Transit Authority. Often an incident close to one of the bridges between these areas can quickly spill over to another jurisdiction.

511 Traveler Information

VaTraffic, developed by Open Roads, provides a statewide view of operations and the sharing mission critical information internal to VDOT and publically with the traveler via VA511 web (http://511virginia.org) and IVR applications.

Mega Projects Coordination

Northern Virginia stakeholders use the OpenTMS and the Open Roads Lane Closure and Advisory Management Systems to manage the multiple billion dollar Mega Projects, e.g., Hot lanes, I-95 widening, and Dulles rail. Multiple stakeholders such as DOT operations, construction, maintenance, and private utilities input road closure requests and the system identifies potential road closure conflicts. The stakeholders use this information to better coordinate lane closures to help reduce congestion due to maintenance, construction, utility work, and other activities.

Key Features:

• COTS ATMS Deployment
• Rapid Deployment of ATMS
• Incident Management
• 911 Integration
• Regional Systems Integration
• ITS Device Integration
• Road Closure Management
• 511 Traveler Information Systems
• 24x7x365 Support
• System Maintenance
• Lifecycle System Support for a Diverse Set of Applications
• Staff Augmentation
• Software Engineering Best Practices
• ITS Architecture
• Data Exchange Standards
• ITS Standards
• Center-to-Center Communications
• Remote Workstations Deployed at Partner Agencies
• Stakeholder Coordination