New York Sub-Regional ITS Architecture

Element Expanded Functional Requirements: MTA NYCT Bus Command Center - Operations

Functional Area: Emergency Response Management
  1. The center shall provide strategic emergency response capabilities provided by an Emergency Operations Center for large-scale incidents and disasters.
  2. The center shall manage coordinated inter-agency responses to and recovery from large-scale emergencies. Such agencies include traffic management, transit, maintenance and construction management, rail operations, and other emergency management agencies.
  3. The center shall provide the capability to implement response plans and track progress through the incident by exchanging incident information and response status with allied agencies.
  4. The center shall develop, coordinate with other agencies, and store emergency response plans.
  5. The center shall track the availability of resources and coordinate resource sharing with allied agency centers including traffic, maintenance, or other emergency centers.
  6. The center shall allocate the appropriate emergency services, resources, and vehicle (s) to respond to incidents, and shall provide the capability to override the current allocation to suit the special needs of a current incident.
  7. The center shall receive event scheduling information from Event Promoters.
  8. The center shall support remote control of field equipment normally under control of the traffic management center including traffic signals, dynamic message signs, gates, and barriers.
  9. The center shall provide the capability to remotely control and monitor CCTV systems normally operated by a traffic management center.
  10. The center shall provide the capability to request transit resource availability from transit centers for use during disaster and evacuation operations.
  11. The center shall assimilate the damage assessment of the transit, traffic, rail, maintenance, and other emergency center services and systems to create an overall transportation system status, and disseminate to each of these centers and the traveling public via traveler information providers.
  12. The center shall provide information to the media concerning the status of an emergency response.
  13. The center shall provide the capability for digitized map data to act as the background to the information presented to the emergency system operator.
  14. The center shall provide the capability for center personnel to provide inputs to the management of incidents, disasters and evacuations.
  15. The center shall collect information about the status of the recovery efforts for the infrastructure during disasters.
  16. The center shall provide the overall status of infrastructure recovery efforts to traveler information providers and media.
  17. The center shall provide the capability to communicate information about emergency situations to local population through the Emergency Telecommunications System.
  18. The center shall provide the capability to identify neighborhoods and businesses that should be informed of an emergency situation based on information collected about incidents including their severity, impacted locations, and recovery schedule.
  19. The center shall retrieve information from public health systems to increase preparedness for, and implement a response to biological, chemical, radiation, and other public health emergencies.
  20. The center shall manage coordinated inter-agency responses to incidents at an international border.
Functional Area: Transit Center Fixed-Route Operations
  1. The center shall generate transit routes and schedules based on such factors as parameters input by the system operator, road network conditions, incident information, operational data on current routes and schedules, and digitized map data.
  2. The center shall provide the interface to the system operator to control the generation of new routes and schedules (transit services) including the ability to review and update the parameters used by the routes and schedules generation processes and to initiate these processes
  3. The center shall be able to generate special routes and schedules to support an incident, disaster, evacuation, or other emergency.
  4. The center shall dispatch fixed route or flexible route transit vehicles
  5. The center shall collect transit operational data for use in the generation of routes and schedules.
  6. The center shall provide instructions or corrective actions to the transit vehicle operators based upon operational needs.
  7. The center shall manage large deviations of individual transit vehicles, deviations in rural areas, and deviations of large numbers of vehicles.
  8. The center shall generate the necessary corrective actions which may involve more than the vehicles concerned and more far reaching action, such as, the introduction of extra vehicles, wide area signal priority by traffic management, the premature termination of some services, etc.
  9. The center shall exchange information with Maintenance and Construction Operations concerning work zones, roadway conditions, asset restrictions, work plans, etc.
  10. The center shall disseminate up-to-date schedules and route information to other centers for fixed and flexible route services.
  11. The center shall provide an interface to the archive data repository to enable the operator to retrieve historical operating data for use in planning transit routes and schedules.
Functional Area: Transit Center Information Services
  1. The center shall provide travelers using public transportation with traffic and advisory information upon request. Such information may include transit routes, schedules, transfer options, fares, real-time schedule adherence, current incidents, weather conditions, and special events.
  2. The center shall provide transit information to the media including details of deviations from schedule of regular transit services.
  3. The center shall exchange transit schedules, real-time arrival information, fare schedules, and general transit service information with other transit organizations to support transit traveler information systems.
  4. The center shall provide transit service information to traveler information service providers including routes, schedules, schedule adherence, and fare information as well as transit service information during evacuation.
  5. The center shall enable yellow pages (including non-motorized transportation) information to be output to the traveler.
  6. The center shall broadcast transit advisory data, including alerts and advisories pertaining to major emergencies, or man made disasters.
Functional Area: Transit Center Multi-Modal Coordination
  1. The center shall coordinate schedules and services between transit agencies, traffic management, maintenance and construction operations, parking management, and other surface or air transportation modes.
  2. The center shall share transfer cluster and transfer point information with multimodal transportation service providers, other transit agencies, and traveler information service providers. A transfer cluster is a collection of stop points, stations, or terminals where transfers can be made conveniently.
  3. The center shall accept requests from traffic management to change routes and schedules as part of the implementation of demand management strategies.
  4. The center shall coordinate transit services for special events, planning services for the event and managing transit services on the day of the event.
  5. The center shall provide transit operations personnel with the capability to control and monitor transit service coordination activities.
Functional Area: Transit Center Security
  1. The center shall monitor transit vehicle operational data to determine if the transit vehicle is off-route and assess whether a security incident is occurring.
  2. The center shall receive reports of emergencies on-board transit vehicles entered directly be the transit vehicle operator or from a traveler through interfaces such as panic buttons or alarm switches.
  3. The center shall support the back-office portion of functionality to authenticate transit vehicle operators.
  4. The center shall exchange transit incident information along with other service data with other transit agencies.
  5. The center shall receive information pertaining to a wide-area alert such as weather alerts, disaster situations, or child abductions. This information may come from Emergency Management or from other Alerting and Advisory Systems.
  6. The center shall send wide-area alert information to travelers (on-board transit vehicles or at stations/stops) and transit vehicle operators.
  7. The center shall coordinate the response to security incidents involving transit with other agencies including Emergency Management, other transit agencies, media, traffic management, and traveler information service providers.
  8. The center shall receive threat information and status on the integrity of the transit infrastructure.
  9. The center shall provide support to remotely disable (or reset the disabling of) a transit vehicle in service.
Functional Area: Transit Center Vehicle Tracking
  1. The center shall monitor the locations of all transit vehicles within its network.
  2. The center shall determine adherence of transit vehicles to their assigned schedule.
  3. The center shall support an interface with a map update provider, or other appropriate data sources, through which updates of digitized map data can be obtained and used as a background for transit tracking and dispatch.
  4. The center shall provide transit operational data to traveler information service providers.
  5. The center shall provide collected transit probe data to traffic management centers and traveler information service providers for use in measuring current traffic conditions.
Functional Area: Transit Garage Maintenance
  1. The center shall collect operational and maintenance data from transit vehicles.
  2. The center shall monitor the condition of a transit vehicle to analyze brake, drive train, sensors, fuel, steering, tire, processor, communications equipment, and transit vehicle mileage to identify mileage based maintenance, out-of-specification or imminent failure conditions.
  3. The center shall generate transit vehicle maintenance schedules that identify the maintenance or repair to be performed and when the work is to be done.
  4. The center shall generate transit vehicle availability listings, current and forecast, to support transit vehicle assignment planning based, in part, on the transit vehicle maintenance schedule.
  5. The center shall assign technicians to a transit vehicle maintenance schedule, based upon such factors as personnel eligibility, work assignments, preferences and seniority.
  6. The center shall verify that the transit vehicle maintenance activities were performed correctly, using the transit vehicle's status, the maintenance personnel's work assignment, and the transit maintenance schedules.
  7. The center shall generate a time-stamped maintenance log of all maintenance activities performed on a transit vehicle.
  8. The center shall provide transit operations personnel with the capability to update transit vehicle maintenance information and receive reports on all transit vehicle operations data.
Functional Area: Transit Vehicle Operator Assignment
  1. The center shall maintain records of a transit vehicle operator's performance. This may be done utilizing standardized performance evaluation criteria set forth by governmental regulations and transit operating company policies, assessing the transit vehicle operator's driving history, and assessing comments from the transit vehicle operator's supervisor(s) as well as noting any moving violations or accidents, supervisor comments, government regulations, and company policies.
  2. The center shall assess the transit vehicle operator's availability based on previous work assignments, accumulated hours, plus health and vacation commitments.
  3. The center shall assign transit vehicle operators to transit schedules based on their eligibility, route preferences, seniority, and transit vehicle availability.
  4. The center shall provide an interface through which the transit vehicle operator information can be maintained - either from the transit vehicle operator, center personnel, or other functions.
  5. The center shall generate supplemental vehicle operator assignments as required due to change events that occur during the operating day.
Functional Area: Transit Data Collection
  1. The center shall collect transit management data such as transit fares and passenger use, transit services, paratransit operations, transit vehicle maintenance data, etc.
  2. The center shall assign quality control metrics and meta-data to be stored along with the data. Meta-data may include attributes that describe the source and quality of the data and the conditions surrounding the collection of the data.
  3. The center shall receive and respond to requests from ITS Archives for either a catalog of the transit data or for the data itself.
  4. The center shall be able to produce sample products of the data available.
Functional Area: Emergency Data Collection
  1. The center shall collect emergency service data, emergency vehicle management data, emergency vehicle data, sensor and surveillance data, threat data, and incident data.
  2. The center shall assign quality control metrics and meta-data to be stored along with the data. Meta-data may include attributes that describe the source and quality of the data and the conditions surrounding the collection of the data.
  3. The center shall receive and respond to requests from ITS Archives for either a catalog of the emergency management data or for the data itself.
  4. The center shall be able to produce sample products of the data available.
Functional Area: Emergency Environmental Monitoring
  1. The center shall collect current and forecast road and weather information from weather service providers (such as the National Weather Service and value-added sector specific meteorological services).
  2. The center shall collect current road and weather information from roadway maintenance operations.
  3. The center shall assimilate current and forecast road conditions and surface weather information to support incident management.
  4. The center shall present the current and forecast road and weather information to the emergency system operator.
Functional Area: Center Secure Area Surveillance
  1. The center shall remotely monitor video images and audio surveillance data collected in secure areas including facilities (e.g. transit yards) and transportation infrastructure (e.g. bridges, tunnels, interchanges, roadway infrastructure, and transit railways or guideways). The data may be raw or pre-processed in the field.
  2. The center shall remotely monitor video images and audio surveillance data collected in traveler secure areas, which include transit stations, transit stops, rest areas, park and ride lots, and other fixed sites along travel routes (e.g., emergency pull-off areas and travel information centers). The data may be raw or pre-processed in the field.
  3. The center shall remotely monitor video images and audio surveillance data collected on-board transit vehicles. The data may be raw or pre-processed in the field.
  4. The center shall exchange surveillance data with other emergency centers.
  5. The center shall identify potential security threats based on collected security surveillance data.
  6. The center shall verify potential security threats by correlating security surveillance data from multiple sources.
  7. The center shall remotely control security surveillance devices in secure areas including facilities (e.g. transit yards) and transportation infrastructure (e.g. bridges, tunnels, interchanges, roadway infrastructure, and transit railways or guideways).
  8. The center shall remotely control security surveillance devices in traveler secure areas, which include transit stations, transit stops, rest areas, park and ride lots, and other fixed sites along travel routes (e.g., emergency pull-off areas and travel information centers).
  9. The center shall remotely control security surveillance devices on-board transit vehicles.
  10. The center shall match traveler video images against a database from the Alerting and Advisory Systems of known images that may represent criminals and terrorists.
  11. The center shall exchange traveler images with other emergency management centers to support traveler image matching.
  12. The center shall respond to control data from center personnel regarding security surveillance data collection, processing, threat detection, and image matching.
  13. The center shall monitor maintenance status of the security sensor field equipment.
Functional Area: Incident Command
  1. The center shall provide tactical decision support, resource coordination, and communications integration for Incident Commands that are established by first responders to support local management of an incident.
  2. The center shall provide incident command communications with public safety, emergency management, transportation, and other allied response agency centers.
  3. The center shall track and maintain resource information and action plans pertaining to the incident command.
  4. The center shall share incident command information with other public safety agencies including resource deployment status, hazardous material information, rail incident information, evacuation advice as well as traffic, road, and weather conditions.
  5. The center shall assess the status of responding emergency vehicles as part of an incident command.
Functional Area: Emergency Early Warning System
  1. The center shall monitor information from Alerting and Advisory Systems such as the Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISACs), the National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC), the Homeland Security Advisory System (HSAS), etc. The information may include assessments (general incident and vulnerability awareness information), advisories (identification of threats or recommendations to increase preparedness levels), or alerts (information on imminent or in-progress emergencies).
  2. The center shall provide the capability to correlate alerts and advisories, incident information, and security sensor and surveillance data.
  3. The center shall broadcast wide-area alerts and advisories to traffic management centers for emergency situations such as severe weather events, civil emergencies, child abduction (AMBER alert system), military activities, and other situations that pose a threat to life and property.
  4. The center shall broadcast wide-area alerts and advisories to transit management centers for emergency situations such as severe weather events, civil emergencies, child abduction (AMBER alert system), military activities, and other situations that pose a threat to life and property.
  5. The center shall broadcast wide-area alerts and advisories to toll administration centers for emergency situations such as severe weather events, civil emergencies, child abduction (AMBER alert system), military activities, and other situations that pose a threat to life and property.
  6. The center shall broadcast wide-area alerts and advisories to traveler information service providers for emergency situations such as severe weather events, civil emergencies, child abduction (AMBER alert system), military activities, and other situations that pose a threat to life and property.
  7. The center shall broadcast wide-area alerts and advisories to maintenance centers for emergency situations such as severe weather events, civil emergencies, child abduction (AMBER alert system), military activities, and other situations that pose a threat to life and property.
  8. The center shall broadcast wide-area alerts and advisories to other emergency management centers for emergency situations such as severe weather events, civil emergencies, child abduction (AMBER alert system), military activities, and other situations that pose a threat to life and property.
  9. The center shall broadcast wide-area alerts and advisories to commercial vehicle administration centers and roadside check facilities for emergency situations such as severe weather events, civil emergencies, child abduction (AMBER alert system), military activities, and other situations that pose a threat to life and property.
  10. The center shall process status information from each of the centers that have been sent the wide-area alert.
  11. The center shall coordinate the broadcast of wide-area alerts and advisories with other emergency management centers.
  12. The center shall receive incident information from other transportation management centers to support the early warning system.
  13. The center shall present the alert and advisory information and the status of the actions taken in response to the alert by the other centers to the emergency system operator as received from other system inputs.
  14. The center shall support the entry of alert and advisory information directly from the emergency system operator.
Functional Area: Center Secure Area Sensor Management
  1. The center shall remotely monitor and control security sensor data collected in secure areas including facilities (e.g. transit yards) and transportation infrastructure (e.g. bridges, tunnels, interchanges, roadway infrastructure, and transit railways or guideways). The types of security sensor data include environmental threat (e.g. chemical agent, toxic industrial chemical, biological, explosives, and radiological sensors), infrastructure condition and integrity, intrusion and motion, and object detection sensors. The data may be raw or pre-processed in the field.
  2. The center shall remotely monitor and control security sensor data collected in traveler secure areas, which include transit stations, transit stops, rest areas, park and ride lots, and other fixed sites along travel routes (e.g., emergency pull-off areas and travel information centers). The types of security sensor data include environmental threat (e.g. chemical agent, toxic industrial chemical, biological, explosives, and radiological sensors), intrusion and motion, and object detection sensors. The data may be raw or pre-processed in the field.
  3. The center shall remotely monitor and control security sensor data collected on-board transit vehicles. The types of security sensor data include environmental threat (e.g. chemical agent, toxic industrial chemical, biological, explosives, and radiological sensors) and object detection sensors. The data may be raw or pre-processed in the field.
  4. The center shall exchange security sensor data with other emergency centers.
  5. The center shall identify potential security threats based on collected security sensor data.
  6. The center shall verify potential security threats by correlating security sensor data from multiple sources.
  7. The center shall perform threat analysis based on correlations of security sensor and surveillance data.
  8. The center shall exchange threat analysis data with Alerting and Advisory Systems and use that data in local threat analysis processing.
  9. The center shall disseminate threat information to other agencies, including traffic, transit, maintenance, rail operations, and other emergency management centers.
  10. The center shall respond to control data from center personnel regarding security sensor data collection, processing, threat detection, and threat analysis.
  11. The center shall request activation of barriers and safeguards on request from center personnel.
  12. The center shall monitor maintenance status of the security sensor field equipment.
Functional Area: Center Secure Area Alarm Support
  1. The center shall collect silent and audible alarms received from travelers in secure areas (such as transit stops, rest areas, park and ride lots, modal interchange facilities).
  2. The center shall collect silent and audible alarms received from transit vehicles, originated by the traveler or the transit vehicle operator.
  3. After the alarm message has been received, the center shall generate an alarm acknowledgment to the sender.
  4. After the alarm message becomes a verified incident, the center shall determine the appropriate response.
  5. The center shall determine whether the alarm message indicates an emergency that requires the attention of public safety agencies, and forward alarm message data to the appropriate agency as necessary.
  6. The center shall forward the alarm message to center personnel and respond to the traveler or transit vehicle operator as directed by the personnel.
Functional Area: Transit Vehicle Assignment
  1. The center shall assign individual transit vehicles to transit blocks.
  2. The center shall download vehicle assignments to the transit vehicle prior to the start of the day’s operations.
  3. The center shall provide an exception handling process for the vehicle assignment function. This process shall generate new supplemental vehicle assignments as required due to change events which occur during the operating day.
  4. The center shall provide an inventory management function for the transit facility that stores functional attributes about each vehicle owned by the transit operator. The functional attributes permit the planning and assignment functions to match vehicles with routes based on suitability for the types of service required by the particular routes.
  5. The center shall generate transit vehicle availability listings, current and forecast, to support transit vehicle assignment planning.
  6. The center shall provide transit operations personnel with the capability to update transit vehicle assignments and receive reports on transit vehicle inventory status.
Functional Area: Transit Center Signal Priority
  1. The center shall analyze transit vehicle schedule performance to determine the need for priority along certain routes or at certain intersections.
  2. The center shall send requests for priority along routes or at intersections to traffic management.
  3. The center shall define business rules that govern use of transit vehicle signal priority, communicate these rules to the transit vehicle, and monitor transit vehicle requests for priority at signalized intersections.
  4. The center shall provide transit operations personnel with the capability to control and monitor transit signal priority operations.