Assessing the Benefits of a National ITS Architecture

Mark Hickman, The California PATH Program, University of California, Berkeley, Stein Weissenberger, The California PATH Program, University of California, Berkeley, and Joy Dahlgren, The California PATH Program, University of California, Berkeley

9/29/2008
(Original Publish Date: 6/21/1996)

This paper describes the results of an assessment of benefits from an ITS architecture, based on the National ITS Architecture Development program. Benefits of the architecture, in this paper, include those typically attributed to systems engineering and integration. Because the national architecture has addressed ITS as a whole, the product can be seen to be a comprehensive treatment of ITS-related data flows and functional requirements. The architecture provides a common framework so that, in planning and implementing systems, state and local agencies can be assured that ITS products and services are compatible and inter-operable with other ITS products and services. More directly, three beneficial features of the national architecture can be identified: 1) a framework for system integration; 2) common data and functions; and, 3) open interface standards. These architecture characteristics are likely to result in lower system costs and higher benefits for ITS users as well as product suppliers. First, the national architecture provides a comprehensive specification of ITS functions, interfaces and data flows. This level of specification means that system integrators can leverage the architecture to create system designs in which products and services are inherently compatible. Second, the national architecture presents a framework by which system designers may leverage common data and functions to achieve various system goals. Systems can be designed efficiently, avoiding redundancy. At the same time, each ITS technology may serve multiple functions, thereby allowing significant cost savings by sharing this common resource. Finally, the development of open interface standards, based on the architecture, has benefits in allowing products and services to be compatible across an architecture interface. Architecture-compatible system designs can leverage interface standards to reduce the ultimate cost of system purchase, operation, maintenance, upgrade and expansion. In these ways, the national architecture may provide significant benefits in the long run for ITS system designs and implementations.