California Traffic Management Labs

OVERVIEW

The California Traffic Management Labs were established in early 1991 to provide an instrumented, multi-jurisdictional, multi-agency transportation operations environment linked to university laboratories for real-world development, testing and evaluation of near-term technologies and applications, and to serve as an ongoing testing ground for California and national intelligent transportation systems (ITS) efforts. Located in Orange County, California, and under the direction of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), the ATMS Testbed is intended to:

* accelerate deployment through advanced technology research;
* demonstrate the readiness of advanced systems;
* implement and evaluate operations of an integrated multi-jurisdictional, multi-agency transportation operations system.

The labs provide a testbed based on real-time, computer-assisted traffic management and communication. The transportation operations system that forms the backbone of the CTM Labs is structured to provide intelligent computer-assisted decision support to traffic management personnel by integrating network-wide traffic information (both surface street and freeway) in a real-time environment. The labs currently have direct links to the Caltrans District 12 and City of Irvine Traffic Management Centers (TMC. Together, they provide real-time data links from area freeways and major arterials directly to dedicated research laboratories located at UCI.

The broad mission of the CTM Labs Program is to work toward overcoming institutional, technical and philosophical barriers to introducing innovative technologies into the management of complex transportation systems. Working together with the California Center for Innovative Transportation (CCIT), California PATH and University Partners, the Applied Research and Prototype Development Program is designed to establish an intermediary link between basic research in Advanced Transportation Management and Information Systems (ATMIS) technologies and their full deployment.