Information Gateways

Real-time Regional Data Sharing

Integration of Transportation Management Systems and emergency (911) Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) systems dramatically increases situational awareness of both operations. Transportation operators are able to see and manage significantly more incidents than previously managed when the operators relied on police scanner and phone calls for roadway information.

Open Roads provides a proven solution for managing dispatch information within OpenTMS Enterprise product but also provides a stand-alone application for receiving and viewing dispatch information, and distribution of data to mobile systems via email, pager, or instant messaging. The CAD data distribution is accomplished using the Open Roads Data Gateway technology. This gateway allows operators to learn about incidents faster, and the amount and length of phone calls between the operators and the police dispatch operators are reduced.

Gateway Technology and Services

The Open Roads Gateway technology provides a highly configurable, real-time platform for distributing multiple types of data (transportation, emergency, weather, messages, etc.) to an unlimited number of agencies and associated users. This platform enables bi-directional data sharing of National, State, or Local information for use by Transportation Management Centers, 911 Dispatch Centers, 511 Traveler Information Systems, Archive Data Management Systems and others.

It incorporates a "publish-subscribe" (P/S) technology so that each agency can select what information they choose to provide or publish and what information from other participants they choose to receive or subscribe to. TMC center-to-center and redundant operations are supported.

Our services in deploying this capability cover the resolution of many collaboration issues including:

• Using translation strategies for reconciling different terminology,
• Handling different linear referencing systems (LRS), for example, to identify the location of an incident different strategies are used, e.g., segment and offset, mile marker, or street address and nearest intersection,
• Integration with legacy or 'black-box' systems where tight integration is not possible,
• Integration with a variety of devices including mobile systems,
• Providing a secure means of data transmission and user access across multiple agencies, and
• Providing a redundant capability for data distribution.

Our experience with cross-network integration and the reuse of these gateways puts us ahead in terms of understanding many of the challenges of data sharing that cross institutional, operational, and technical arenas.