STREAMS Integrated Intelligent Transport System is an enterprise traffic management system designed to operate in the

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

environment. Like most

traffic management Traffic management is a key branch within logistics. It concerns the planning, control and purchasing of transport services needed to physically move vehicles (for example aircraft, road vehicles, rolling stock and watercraft) and freight. Tr ...

systems, STREAMS is an array of institutional, human, hardware, and software components designed to monitor, control, and manage traffic on streets and highways. Advanced traffic management systems come under the banner of ITS (

intelligent transport systems An intelligent transportation system (ITS) is an advanced application that aims to provide services relating to different modes of transport and traffic management and enable users to be better informed and make safer, more coordinated, and 's ...

). ITS is the application of

information and communications technology Information and communications technology (ICT) is an extensional term for information technology (IT) that stresses the role of unified communications and the integration of telecommunications (telephone lines and wireless signals) and computer ...

to transport operations in order to "reduce operating costs", "improve safety" and "maximize the capacity of existing infrastructure". STREAMS provides traffic signal management, incident management, motorway management, vehicle priority, traveler information, flood monitoring and parking guidance within a single integrated system is what the product says. STREAMS is developed by Transmax.

History

In 1969, the Department of Main Roads (

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

) installed the first

Intelligent Transport System An intelligent transportation system (ITS) is an advanced application that aims to provide services relating to different modes of transport and traffic management and enable users to be better informed and make safer, more coordinated, and 'sma ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

(located at

Surfers Paradise Surfing is a list of surface water sports, surface water sport in which an individual, a surfer (or two in Glossary of surfing, tandem surfing), uses a board to ride on the forward section, or face, of a moving wind wave, wave of water, whic ...

). In 1985, a second-generation traffic management system was installed in

Cairns Cairns (; ) is a city in the Cairns Region, Queensland, Australia, on the tropical north east coast of Far North Queensland. In the , Cairns had a population of 153,181 people. The city was founded in 1876 and named after William Cairns, Sir W ...

, Australia. This was known as the TRAC System, or Traffic Responsive Adaptive Control System. Progressive installation of the TRAC system followed at several more sites around Queensland including the capital city,

Brisbane Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...

. In 1988, a traffic management system was installed for the South East Freeway in Brisbane, Australia. The features included were ramp metering and graphical displays of traffic conditions. It also provided automatic incident detection. In 1992, a new integrated intelligent transport system development was commenced. The objectives were to lower ongoing costs while providing increased performance and opportunity for future ITS applications. The resulting system was STREAMS. In 2002, the division of

Department of Main Roads (Queensland) Department may refer to: * Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility Government and military *Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...

responsible for continuing development of STREAMS was privatized to form Transmax. The company remains 100% owned by the Queensland Government Department of Transport and Main Roads. In April 2007, Transmax in partnership with

VicRoads VicRoads is a government joint venture in the state of Victoria, Australia. In the state, it is responsible for driver licensing and vehicle registration. It is owned and operated through a joint venture between the Victorian government an ...

implemented a coordinated ramp metering trial in

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Queen Victoria (1819–1901), Queen of the United Kingdom and Empress of India * Victoria (state), a state of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, a provincial capital * Victoria, Seychelles, the capi ...

on a 15 km section of the

Monash Freeway The Monash Freeway is a major urban freeway in Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, linking Melbourne's CBD to its south-eastern suburbs and beyond to the Gippsland region. It carries up to 180,000 vehicles per day and is one of Australi ...

. Later that year, in December, VicRoads installed STREAMS to manage another six ramps. These developments were part of a much larger M1 Upgrade Project that continued over the next three years, eventually winning the 2010 National ITS Australia Award. The project to upgrade the 75-kilometre M1 Freeway, increased the capacity and safety of the Monash Freeway, the CityLink Tollway (Southern Link) and the West Gate Freeway utilising STREAMS as the Integrated Control System. In 2016, Transmax partnered with

Parsons Brinckerhoff WSP USA, formerly Parsons Brinckerhoff, is an American multinational engineering and design firm. The firm operates in the fields of strategic consulting, planning, engineering, construction management, energy, infrastructure and community plann ...

to trial STREAMS motorway management functionality for the

Utah Department of Transportation The Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) is an agency of the state government of Utah, United States; it is usually referred to by its initials UDOT (pronounced "you-dot"). UDOT is responsible for approximately 5,900 miles (9,495 kilomet ...

in the United States.

Software Architecture

STREAMS employs a

distributed computing Distributed computing is a field of computer science that studies distributed systems, defined as computer systems whose inter-communicating components are located on different networked computers. The components of a distributed system commu ...

software architecture Software architecture is the set of structures needed to reason about a software system and the discipline of creating such structures and systems. Each structure comprises software elements, relations among them, and properties of both elements a ...

. Field hardware such as intersection controllers, video cameras and speed detectors are connected via field processors back to a central

application server An application server is a server that hosts applications or software that delivers a business application through a communication protocol. For a typical web application, the application server sits behind the web servers. An application ser ...

. Users connect to the

via the

workstation A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or computational science, scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by a single user, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating syste ...

software. Field communications are via

Optical Fibre An optical fiber, or optical fibre, is a flexible glass or plastic fiber that can transmit light from one end to the other. Such fibers find wide usage in fiber-optic communications, where they permit transmission over longer distances and at ...

DSL Digital subscriber line (DSL; originally digital subscriber loop) is a family of technologies that are used to transmit digital data over telephone lines. In telecommunications marketing, the term DSL is widely understood to mean asymmetric di ...

, or

Wireless Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information (''telecommunication'') between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided transm ...

connections. The software is built in distinct modules for each distinct area of traffic / transport control and monitoring. The

software communicates to the application server software via a publisher / subscriber model (i.e.

workstations A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by a single user, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems. The term ''workstat ...

subscribe to specifically requested streams of data which are published by the

). The software architecture model is designed to support the software's claim of being an "integrated" Advanced Traffic Management System. The transport network data is set up via a

GIS A geographic information system (GIS) consists of integrated computer hardware and software that store, manage, analyze, edit, output, and visualize geographic data. Much of this often happens within a spatial database; however, this is not ...

(

Geographic Information System A geographic information system (GIS) consists of integrated computer hardware and Geographic information system software, software that store, manage, Spatial analysis, analyze, edit, output, and Cartographic design, visualize Geographic data ...

). The

allows for a graphical user interface displaying

transport network A transport network, or transportation network, is a network or graph in geographic space, describing an infrastructure that permits and constrains movement or flow. Examples include but are not limited to road networks, railways, air routes ...

data overlaid on street maps and updating in real-time.

Adaptive Traffic Management

STREAMS implements adaptive traffic management through a feature called "Dynamic Plan Selection". Depending on the density of traffic (occupancy) and the dominant direction of traffic (for example, inbound, outbound, or bidirectional) on a road, nearby signalized intersections are operated using several predefined traffic plans. A user sets up the

signal timing Signal timing is the technique which traffic engineers use to distribute right-of-way at a signalized intersection. The process includes selecting appropriate values for timing, which are implemented in specialized traffic signal controllers. Si ...

and picks the traffic density levels and direction that they apply to. Selecting the appropriate

is then automatic. When a time-based traffic plan schedule would be inappropriate because of varying traffic levels, STREAMS Dynamic Plan Selection can adapt to unexpected traffic levels as they arise. With help from the academic community, STREAMS Smart Motorways offers the coordinated ramp-metering algorithm suite ALINEA/HERO. The modular architecture of STREAMS allows Transmax to integrate new algorithms as they become available. STREAMS applies the computed metering rates using ramp signal controllers deployed at the roadside. Controlling multiple consecutive ramps, ideally the whole motorway, makes it possible to maintain a more consistent motorway flow and prevent flow breakdown. Using HERO, STREAMS is able to balance queues across multiple ramps and maximize motorway performance.

References

External links

Transmax

Department of Transport and Main Roads
Intelligent transportation systems

History

Software Architecture

Adaptive Traffic Management

See also

References

Further reading

External links