DOT Releases Advisory on Center-to-Center ITS Standards

July 12, 2006

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) released a new ITS standards advisory designed to provide the intelligent transportation systems (ITS) community with information and guidance on center-to-center (C2C) standards.

C2C communications span the entire ITS domain, covering the exchange of data between computers physically located in different transportation management center facilities (traffic management centers, transit management centers, emergency management centers and parking management centers). C2C standards enable data exchange by specifying what information is exchanged, how and when it is exchanged and the underlying transport mechanisms.

C2C standards can be divided into two categories: (1) the message and data content and (2) the rules for exchanging the messages and data (communication profile standards).

The focus of this ITS standards advisory is the latter category. Other ITS standards that define the former category of specific message/data content include:

1. Traffic Management Data Dictionary and Message Sets for External TMC Communication (TMDD and MS/ETMCC)
2. Data Dictionary and Message Set for Advanced Traveler Information Systems (ATIS)
3. Transit Communications Interface Profile (TCIP)
4. Standards for Incident Management Message Sets.

The two categories of standards work together to successfully exchange meaningful ITS-related information.

Consensus-based working groups from the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) and the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) are chartered with developing a set of underlying C2C communications standards for the transportation community, called the National Transportation Communications for ITS Protocol (NTCIP) standards.

The DOT advisory is available from the DOT ITS Standards Program web site at http://www.standards.its.dot.gov/Documents/advisories/adv_c2c_bg.asp.

Source: U.S. Department of Transportation ITS Standards Program (USDOT ITS).