Intelligent Transportation System (ITS)
Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) is an advanced application that focuses on transportation and traffic management, which utilizes the analytics data generated by IoT, to better improve overall traffic conditions. Commonly breaks into Inside City and Inter-cities ITS. Inside a city, apart from the rail and track-based transportation, public roads especially would need more ITS to better improve the existing traffic flow. For buses, cars, trucks and various other forms of transportations to move safely and smoothly, various traffic signaling systems as well as payment systems will need to rely on an automated system, to avoid possible manmade errors. While traffic inter-cities requires a higher speed during traveling, along with various weather conditions, such as snow, strong wind as well as fog, the environmental monitoring is especially important. For tunnel safety monitoring and airing, electronic toll collection, traffic condition displays, wind/rain/fog detection systems, speed cameras, ramp control, IP CCTV as well as Police systems can be unified and integrated on a high-speed network backbone to achieve live monitoring, accident handling, emergency management, and can also provide immediate traffic information to the public. As ITS generally installed outdoors, every single part of the system need to withstand extreme weather, therefore, industrial network devices come to fulfill the needs of an ITS by providing an extreme stable network connection, long-distance transmission as well as extreme weather conditions.
Common ITS Applications are as follow:
Inside City System
- Bus / Vehicle Tracking system
- Traffic Light control
- Cross road CCTV/City surveillance system, CCTV
- BRT System
- Bridge / Subway roadway system
Inter-city System
- Highway network backbone system
- ETC system
- Weather Monitoring
- Tunnel system
- PIDS system
- Police system
- Entrance & Exit way / Gate control system
- Speed camera
- Broadcast system
- Emergency telephone system
Scenario 1:
VDS/VMS (Vehicle Detecting / Management system)
VDS is a commonly used system, it utilizes the pressure sensor by sensing pressures when a vehicle passes, then sends the collected speed and vehicle counts to the data center for further analysis. The entire highway system generally has the VDS installed, so the traffic flow can be collected at a larger scale, therefore apart from the traffic management purpose, general public can utilize the IoT network to leverage the collect date to know how to better route a trip. As VMS being part of the central management system of the highway, it can provide instant services such as instant information via PIDS (Passenger Information Display System), automatic ramp control system, speeding detection, vehicle identification, broadcasting, CCTV, Electronic Toll System, etc. In which, those individual services can be worked together and provide a more efficient and improved emergency and traffic management. The advanced VDS/VMS can provide public users immediate traffic information to find a better route, and for public service providers to utilize the traffic information to better better assistance for travelers in need.
Scenario 2:
CCTV & Environmental Monitoring System
CCTV & Environmental Monitoring System is one of the most crucial yet mostly implemented system that plays an important roll in many scenario applications. In ITS especially, the technician at the traffic center can utilize the CCTV to determine any abnormal traffic flows, such as accident, weather, heavy traffic, etc. Along with the data collected by the sensors, the live image through the CCTV can provide a better look at the situation to avoid any unnecessary false alarms. While for crime prevention and accident analysis, CCTV also plays a big part by providing an instant visual playback. Modern CCTVs support PoE connections, for which Industrial Ethernet Switches can provide data connections along with Power to its connected devices. The IEEE 802.3af/at High Power PoE stands can even provide for devices require higher power to operate, thus for standard DOM, Gun Type or higher power PTZ Cameras, the Industrial Ethernet Switches can easily handle.
Scenario 3:
PIDS (Passenger Information Display System)
PIDS is a display system, which utilizes a large display to provide instant informational message, from accident or construction ahead to sudden upcoming weather change, to the drivers on the route, thus allowing them to make an necessary decision before arriving on site. While the displays are usually installed on the side of the roads, when networked together, technicians from the service center can directly provide informational message change to the drivers on the road.
Scenario 4:
ETC (Electric Toll Collection)
In the Intelligent Transportation System (ITS), ETC plays an important roll to ensure cars on the highway to maintain speed, yet able to collect necessary tolls. This can ensure necessary funding being collected for maintenance , other road improvements and road expansions. In the past, manual labor were enforced at toll booths, which causes unnecessary traffics and increases gasoline waste. Nowadays, ETC can allow traffic to main its speed, avoid the waste of necessary resources, and most importantly, to save time. Modern ETC system includes various specialty sensors, such as microwave and vehicle identification system, to more quickly and efficiently identify vehicles that pass by. Combining with the law enforcements, Criminal vehicles can be quickly identified when on the run.
Scenario 5:
Tunnel system
With it s small space, and narrow working area, the Tunnel System is the most complicated yet most intelligent system within the ITS. When an accident occurs inside a tunnel, chances are emergency team and vehicles cannot get through to the point of accident immediately, and smoke or exhaust generated by the fire can cause more deaths during the rescue.
Many countries across the globe now requires tunnels longer than 500 meters to install monitoring systems as well as fire rescuing system. For Exhaust Fan, Alarm and Broadcasting system, PISD, Speed Limiter, Gate Control Lighting Control, etc., need to use a higher standard devices to be used, thus ISON Industrial Ethernet Network Switches is the ideal backbone for the system implementation.
