ITS Service definition
“Traffic Management Plan for Corridors and Networks” means the elaboration, application and quality control of Traffic Management Plans (TMP) for the management of the European network and corridors including multi-modal capacities to allow for a more efficient use of the road network in Europe (and not restricting measures to country or local basis).
A TMP is the pre-defined allocation of a set of measures to a specific situation in order to control and guide traffic flows as well as to inform road-users in real-time and provide a consistent and timely service to the road user. Initial situations can be unforeseeable (incidents, accidents) or predictable (recurrent or non-recurrent events). The measures are always applied on a temporary basis.
Four spatial levels are suited to the elaboration of such complex TMPs:
ITS Service objective
The vision of the European Core Service “Traffic Management Plan for Corridors and Networks” is the effective delivery of traffic control, route guidance and information measures to the road user in a consistent manner, thus increasing the performance of transport infrastructure by adding the potential of cross-border, network or multi-stakeholder co-operation, when needed. Through strengthening the cooperation and the mutual understanding of road operators in conurbations and on the cross-national/international level the provision of a co-ordinated approach for elaboration, application and quality control of traffic management measures will be achieved. Properly developed multiple level TMPs react to various traffic situations in a timely and effective manner. They optimise the use of existing traffic infrastructure capacities and provide the platform for a cross-border seamless service with consistent information for the road user.
ITS service radar
ITS service key words
“Traffic Management for Corridors and Networks” means the elaboration, application and quality control of Traffic Management Plans (TMPs) for the management of the European network and corridors including cross-regional, cross-border and multi-modal aspects.
A TMP is the pre-defined allocation of a set of measures to a specific situation in order to control and guide traffic flows as well as to inform road-users in real-time and provide a consistent and timely service. Initial situations can be unforeseeable (incidents, accidents) or predictable (recurrent or non-recurrent events). The measures are always applied on a temporary basis. TMPs can be based on the full range of feasible traffic control, route guidance and traveller information measures, not only depending on the initial situation but also on available facilities (see also 4.8.3.3).
Deployment of TMPs ensures a higher level of service in terms of increased traffic efficiency on the network and improved safety in terms of incident response and mitigation through a consistent and effective delivery of traffic control, route guidance and information measures to the road user.
The vision of the European ITS Core Service “Traffic Management for Corridors and Networks” is the effective delivery of traffic control, route guidance and information measures to the road user in a consistent manner, thus increasing the performance of transport infrastructure by adding the potential of cross-border, network or multi-stakeholder/cross-competence co-operation, when needed. Through strengthening the cooperation and the mutual understanding of road operators in conurbations and on the cross-national/international level the provision of a co-ordinated approach for elaboration, application and quality control of traffic management measures will be achieved.
Properly developed multiple level TMPs react to various traffic situations in a timely and effective manner. They optimise the use of existing traffic infrastructure capacities and provide the platform for a cross-border seamless service with consistent information for the road user.
The visions on behalf of the road user are:
The visions on behalf of the road operators are:
Cross-border/cross-competence deployment
Re-routing TMPs:
Multimodality
Human resources
“Traffic Management for Corridors and Networks” is not comparable to other traffic management services described in this handbook. Together with the “TMS-06 Incident Warning and Management service” (see 4.7) it is by its very nature a service that is allocated at the management level which – based on an overarching network strategy – uses and applies other services located on the monitoring and control level with a more local impact. The principle is shown in the Figure 90:
“Traffic Management for Corridors and Networks” means the elaboration, application and quality control of Traffic Management Plans (TMP) for the management of the European network and corridors including multi-modal capacities to allow a more efficient use of the road network in Europe (and not restricting measures to country or local basis).
Initial situations for the application of the Traffic Management for Corridors and Networks service are incidents or/and events that negatively affect traffic flow, traffic safety or environment. In the following the situations are listed:
A main aspect of incidents is the location, duration and capacity reduction of the incident. A consistent definition of these parameters is essential for effective information and intervention.
A pre-defined and co-ordinated strategic traffic management is a proven concept applied all over Europe, in particular on routes with specific complex demands. The most common initial situations are winter problems, a generally high traffic volume, long-lasting road works, emergencies, typical main routes of holiday traffic, cross-border traffic, a close interrelation between long-distance and regional traffic in conurbations, air pollution problems in conurbation areas.
The initial situations are as manifold as the traffic management measures applied:
Great diversity is also seen in organisational and technical aspects. Whereas France has a more or less centralised organisational structure with one entity for the TMP, other countries as Germany are organised on a federal level, all partners are equal in their rights and responsibilities. This decentralised approach is also applied in case of cross-border TMPs.
Different carriers and financing concepts for highways (public, private) have strong impact on investments in technical equipment on highways as well as possibilities and reservations concerning TMPs. In some areas, re-routing involves more than one road operator on the corridor, with traffic police solely responsible for closure and opening of motorways.
Some national guidelines for traffic management exist. They describe the entire process of traffic management, from the initial intent to improve a local traffic situation right up to an integrated traffic management concept. Some of them focus on the evaluation of TMPs. They are applied on a national, regional and local level resulting in a highly structured and user oriented approach of traffic management.
All the named aspects should be harmonised step-by-step on European level. Not with the aim to define one overall valid technical and organisational approach, but with the aim to simplify the connection of existing TMPs along corridors and/or within neighbouring regions, to transfer experiences and to avoid double development work and conflicting strategies.
Objectives for future work on European level concerning TMPs are:
TMPs for conurbations are in many regions a relatively different field of work with a different scope of measures ranging from traffic signals, parking, and interurban rerouting to public transport measures in addition to interaction with motorways. First of all they are initiated in case of pre-planned events (sports events etc., or road works) but also unplanned events or recurrent congestion caused by commuter traffic, but also due to air pollution or due to the strong impairment of the conurbation area brought by the long-distance and urban traffic.
There is a need to address the interface between the TEN-T and local feeder and distributor roads in urban areas. Since the quality of traffic flow on the TEN-T can impact and be impacted by the surrounding urban environment, comprehensive TMP’s are required between the relevant urban road and motorway organisations. A number of regions have already the organisation and the technical mechanisms for such a process.
The stakeholders of freight transportation differ completely from those of the strategic traffic management on the European road network and thus the influence of road organisations on this aspect is limited. In the long term they can be influenced through political decisions.
However, four aspects of freight transport belong to the context of Traffic Management Plans, because they affect the road network strongly. They are applied temporarily and they are part of public responsibilities:
TMPs have a multimodality aspect if applied measures include actions with the aim of modal shifting of traffic.
Nevertheless, the increasing traffic demand and the increasing interrelation of transport modes require a very close cooperation between the stakeholders of different transport modes.
The entire functionality of Traffic Management for Corridors and Networks service can be divided into three different phases which by their nature strongly differ:
Setting up a service Traffic Management for Corridors and Networks normally leads to high costs, not only in the elaboration phase but most importantly regarding operation and evaluation, which are recurrent costs. To prevent incorrect decisions, particularly in the elaboration phase, different process steps must be run through and each concluded with resulting documentation as an intermediate deliverable which then provides decision possibilities for the next step.
The phase concept of the service is depicted in Figure 91:
Figure 91 shows the functional architecture of the Traffic Management for Corridors and Networks service in the elaboration phase as a generic approach. This model is used to identify where it is appropriate to segment the whole functionality of the service into sub-phases and to provide intermediate deliverables to create and ensure a common understanding between the different parties involved.
Functional requirement:
Sub-phase 1 “TMP feasibility study”
Sub-phase 2 “TMP framework development”
Sub-phase 3 “TMP development”
Note: Concerning the information structure of TMPs different wordings exist in Europe. For the purpose of unambiguous understanding, only the following wording conform to CEN/TS 161578:2019[1] is used:
Note: in Europe, different methods for detection, verification and reporting of incidents are used.
These methods are not covered by this Reference Handbook.
Figure 96 shows the typical functional architecture of the Traffic Management for Corridors and Networks service in the operation phase.
Functional requirements:
Interface requirements:
Organisational requirement:
OR1: All different stakeholder roles needed to be involved in the three phases of the service must be considered and defined (role concept).
Typical TMP-stakeholders-roles are:
Primary Stakeholders (motorway TMPs)
Additional primary stakeholders in case of conurbation TMPs:
TMP Feasibility study process
Possible initial situations are:
TMP development process
Common Partner Arrangement / Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)
Clear definitions of organisational aspects are a crucial precondition for the successful implementation of a TMP service and should be documented and agreed upon by all involved parties/partners in the form of a Common Partner Arrangement / MoU which fixes the co-operation.
However, due to the fact that the partners are public or private road organisations who are legally autonomous to varying degrees and, in the international context, sometimes even work on different national laws, it is not required to define organisational aspects on a legal and binding basis.
The documents should define the modes of co-operation and must contain operation instructions for the afore-mentioned aspects. Thus, they should be thoroughly verified before signature. Both documents are a declaration of intent to fulfil them but are not legally binding. The appointment should be concluded in written form, on the one hand because it requires a clear common understanding of the cooperation and on the other hand because the signing of the contract can be seen as a milestone with media impact. For an example, see Annex B.
As content of the Common Partner Arrangement / MoU rules of procedure should be determined answering the following questions:
Through a detailed technical annex the Common Partner Arrangement / MoU should contain the list of scenarios, activation and de-activation thresholds, organisational structure, communication templates, operating protocols, etc., to be evaluated and updated on a regular basis.
Organisational advice:
Public-private partnerships
A new challenge is the ever-increasing number of public-private partnerships in the field of traffic management. Here, where private stakeholders execute sovereign tasks or receive data, binding contracts should be developed and signed. Another relevant aspect is the use of privately generated data for traffic management. A contract (with service level agreement) should be a MUST wherever the TMP relies on receiving privately generated data.
Different organisational structure principles exist to manage the service operation:
Centralised operational organisational structure
In this structure, the coordinator is obliged to decide about the activation and deactivation of the TMP. According to specific conditions, the partner has to carry out the actions under his command.
Decentralised operational organisational structure
In this organisational structure, TMPs are applied in close collaboration between legally autonomous partners. The scenario is requested from the partner affected by the incident. It can be accepted or rejected from every collaboration partner with varying rights according to the MoU agreement.
Mixture of centralised and decentralised operational organisational structure
Several organisations involved are structured differently at various levels of event information and TMP activation / deactivation communication. This also includes special forms of organisations in which private parties are contractually included to manage TMPs.
TMP elaboration document structure
Common Look & Feel requirement:
Table 40: Traffic Management Plan – Fact Sheet (Example URSA MAJOR, page 1)
Table 41: Traffic Management Plan – Fact Sheet (Example URSA MAJOR, page 2)
No specific requirements or advice.
Information provision standards:
Table 42 gives the Level of Service recommendations for a Traffic Management for Corridors and Networks service. The background of this concept is descripted in chapter 2.6. Table 42: Level of Service recommendations for Traffic Management for Corridors and Networks.
Table 42: Level of Service recommendations for Traffic Management for Corridors and Networks
LoS requirement:
Table 43: Level of Service to Operating Environment mapping table (see also chapter 2.5.3 and ANNEX C)
[1] (Intelligent transport systems – DATEX II data exchange specifications for traffic management and information – Part 8: Traffic management publications and extensions dedicated to the urban environment, „TmplanTAblePublication“ class model)
[1] https://tm20.org/