2010.02.12
(Date: 12 February 2010)
Canada’s Strategic ITS Plan incorporates the development of a national architecture to ensure seamless integration, a unified framework to guide the coordinated deployment of ITS programs across Canada. It offers a starting point from which stakeholders can work together to achieve deployment compatibility.
The architecture describes interaction among components of the transportation system including travellers, vehicles, sensors, and control centres: the information system requirements, how data should be shared and used, and standards required to facilitate information sharing. Overall, the system architecture defines the functionality of ITS components and the information flows among ITS elements.
It provides a common framework for planning, defining, and integrating, and reflects the contribution of a broad cross-section of Canada’s ITS community. It also defines the functions that are required for ITS, the physical entities or subsystems where these functions reside, and the information flows that integrate these subsystems.
Version 2.0 of Canada’s ITS Architecture, now more closely aligned with the United States National ITS Architecture, Version 6.1., provides a TURBO Tool and guidelines for the development of regional ITS architectures. ITS User Services have also been expanded and reorganized to reflect new services and a new Border Information Flow Architecture (BIFA).
Transport Canada is undertaking the development of the BIFA in partnership with the U.S. Federal Highway Administration. The Architecture will guide a deliberate effort to ensure that technologies deployed at Canada-U.S. border crossings are able to interact with each other seamlessly. Its development will follow the regional ITS architecture practices widely used throughout Canada and the USA. Federal, state and provincial agencies from both sides of the border have been actively participating in the working group.
For more information:
English: http://www.tc.gc.ca/innovation/its/eng/architecture.htm
French: http://www.tc.gc.ca/innovation/sti/fra/architecture.htm
* “This article has been brought to you as part of the cooperation between ITS America and ITS Japan.”