Virginia ITS Architectures
Welcome to the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) Architecture web site. This site will provide you with information on all aspects of transportation-related information exchanges at the statewide level as well as the five regional levels within Virginia.
Virginia DOT embarked upon the development of these architectures in Spring 2008. At that time, VDOT was undergoing a organizational change that shifted operational focus from the Districts to a Regional structure oriented around 5 operations corridors. This reorganization around operations prompted a need to redefine how ITS was related across and within regional boundaries. At the regional level, 9 District ITS Architectures were harmonized into 5 Regional ITS Architectures. Virginia had no Statewide ITS Architecture and with the rise of 511, statewide emergency operations, the collection of operational data from all regions and many other statewide initiatives, there was a need to develop a Statewide ITS Architecture as well.
The Architecture development was led by the VDOT Central Office with participation from each of the regional offices and central office initiative programs. The project was led by Dr. Chris Francis of the Operations and Security Division. The architectures were developed following the FHWA guidance on Regional ITS Architecture development. The development process involved numerous stakeholders who provided inputs in over 40 stakeholder meetings across the Commonwealth.
The intent of these architectures is to guide ITS planning and project development so that ITS is implemented in the most efficient and economical manner. The architectures identify what functionality exists today and what is planned or desired in the future. In this way, the architecture provides a vision for ITS in Virginia. It is expected that as more stakeholders examine the architecture more ideas will be generated for ITS and, in some cases, more clarity regarding what is currently defined in the architecture will be brought forward making the architectures better and more accurate over time.
The architectures will be maintained with new or revised information through a maintenance program to provide the most accurate information for planning ITS. The Maintenance Plan included with all the architectures guides how that maintenance will occur. The use of the architectures is vitally important to ITS deployment. Architecture use in the planning process maximizes the integration opportunities to be considered and the most logical project sequencing that supports the overall vision for ITS. The application of the architecture in planning and project development is discussed in the Implementation Plans included for each architecture. These plans also deal with how the architecture components can be used in developing projects following the systems engineering process. These plans can be found under the Docs&Files link on each architecture webpage banner.
The transportation environment in Virginia is changing constantly. New demands, new challenges, different organizational structures, and economic realities all affect the transportation system and the services it offers. It is important for stakeholders to stay engaged in the ITS discussion and ITS architecture is a valuable forum for that conversation. It provides a basis for starting the discussion and a platform for modifying the vision to reflect what is needed.
Using the Website
The architecture website is divided into 6 architecture areas:
All of the architectures contain the same types of information on the website:
- Entities are the high-level functional areas that provide a categorization of the architecture elements or a way of sorting the ITS pieces into larger groupings that will narrow the focus of the information.
- Stakeholders are the organizations that have some ownership or direct involvement with an ITS system or architecture element. In some cases, stakeholder groups are defined to better represent how the stakeholders relate to an element of the architecture.
- Inventory contains the individual pieces or elements of the architecture. These functional components of the architecture are identifiable with ITS systems or devices in the transportation system.
- Services are also called Market Packages in the ITS architecture world. Services are collections of architecture elements or ITS systems that together provide transportation services such as freeway control or traveler information. The key to the services is not just in the elements that are included but what information is exchanged between the elements to provide the service. In this way, the information exchanges provide us with integration opportunities that leverage functionality of one system or element across the transportation environment.
- Operational Concept is also known as roles and responsibilities. It is important to know what the roles and responsibilities are for each stakeholder in the architecture. Those roles and responsibilities are supported by the functionality provided by the systems they own and/or operate.
- Requirements are critical to any system development. The architectures provide high-level functional requirements related to the functionality of the architecture elements defined in them. These requirements are a starting point for requirements generation in project development process using systems engineering.
In addition to the architecture information, there are other supporting links on each architecture webpage:
- Docs & Files provides the links to the Implementation Plan, the Maintenance Plan, the Turbo Architecture Databases, and the Nomenclature Guide for each architecture. The Nomenclature Guide provides a resource for naming conventions used across the architectures. It is as much a tool for understanding the content as it is for controlling the architecture configurations in maintenance activities. The Architecture Databases are Microsoft Access databases that can be explored and manipulated for project development using a software tool called Turbo Architecture.
- Meetings is a link to information about meetings regarding architecture topics. It is a link that will be populated over time providing a chronological record of stakeholder interactions.
- Comments will provide an email link to transmit any comments you might have about the architectures and their content to VDOT.
When using the architecture website depends on the information you are looking for. If you want to explore the elements associated with a specific stakeholder, you can click on the Stakeholder link and select the stakeholder you are interested in. The page will present you with the inventory elements associated with that stakeholder and list the roles and responsibilities defined for them. Roles are responsibilities may not be defined for each stakeholder depending on their level of involvement.
If you are interested in particular elements of the architecture, click on Inventory and select the element you wish to explore. These are the most informative pages of the website. Each inventory element page contains the systems or elements that it is connected with followed by the Architecture Flow or Information Flow diagrams. These diagrams provide insight into the information that is exchanged between pairs of architecture elements. They define the integration that is possible within ITS. Below the diagrams links are definitions of each of the architecture flows you found in the diagrams. This provides more information about what is being exchanged. Further down the page are the National ITS Architecture Subsystems that the element is mapped to which provide the functionality it has inherited. Next are the services that the element is included in which provides a sense of the impact of the particular element you are exploring. Finally, the functional requirements associated with the element are listed for evaluation.
The hyperlinked nature of the architecture provides numerous ways to get to the same information which further enhances the idea of integration in ITS. These architectures have been developed to assist in the integrated expansion of ITS in the Commonwealth providing better transportation services to all travelers.