Alerting and Advisory System --> Emergency Management Center:
alerts and advisories

Definitions

alerts and advisories (Information Flow): Assessments (general incident and vulnerability awareness information), advisories (identification of threats or recommendations to increase preparedness levels), and alerts (information on imminent or in-progress emergencies). This flow also provides supporting descriptive detail on incidents, threats, and vulnerabilities to increase preparedness and support effective response to threats against the surface transportation system.

Alerting and Advisory System (Source Physical Object): 'Alerting and Advisory System' represents the federal, state, and local alerting and advisory systems that provide alerts, advisories, and other potential threat information that is relevant to surface transportation systems. This includes systems such as the Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISACS), the National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC), the Homeland Security Advisory System (HSAS), and other systems that provide intelligence about potential, imminent, or actual attacks on the transportation infrastructure or its supporting information systems.

This system also represents the early warning and emergency alert systems operated by federal, state, county, and local agencies that provide advisories and alerts regarding all types of emergencies including natural hazards (floods, hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes), accidents (chemical spills, nuclear power plant emergencies) and other civil emergencies such as child abduction alerts that impact transportation system operation and/or require immediate public notification. Note that weather related watches and warnings, such as those issued by the National Hurricane Center, are provided by both this terminator and the Weather Service terminator since many alerting and advisory systems and the National Weather Service both provide severe weather and related hazards information.

The alerts and advisories that are provided by the systems represented by this terminator are based on analysis of potential threat information that is collected from a variety of sources, including information collected by ITS systems. The bidirectional interface with this terminator allows potential threat information that is collected by ITS systems to be provided to the alerting and advisory systems to improve their ability to identify threats and provide useful and timely information.

The types of information provided by this terminator include general assessments and incident awareness information, advisories that identify potential threats or recommendations to increase preparedness levels, alerts regarding imminent or in-progress emergencies, and specific threat information such as visual imagery used for biometric image processing.

Emergency Management Center (Destination Physical Object): The 'Emergency Management Center' represents systems that support incident management, disaster response and evacuation, security monitoring, and other security and public safety-oriented ITS applications. It includes the functions associated with fixed and mobile public safety communications centers including public safety call taker and dispatch centers operated by police (including transit police), fire, and emergency medical services. It includes the functions associated with Emergency Operations Centers that are activated at local, regional, state, and federal levels for emergencies and the portable and transportable systems that support Incident Command System operations at an incident. This Center also represents systems associated with towing and recovery, freeway service patrols, HAZMAT response teams, and mayday service providers.

It manages sensor and surveillance equipment used to enhance transportation security of the roadway infrastructure (including bridges, tunnels, interchanges, and other key roadway segments) and the public transportation system (including transit vehicles, public areas such as transit stops and stations, facilities such as transit yards, and transit infrastructure such as rail, bridges, tunnels, or bus guideways). It provides security/surveillance services to improve traveler security in public areas not a part of the public transportation system.

It monitors alerts, advisories, and other threat information and prepares for and responds to identified emergencies. It coordinates emergency response involving multiple agencies with peer centers. It stores, coordinates, and utilizes emergency response and evacuation plans to facilitate this coordinated response. Emergency situation information including damage assessments, response status, evacuation information, and resource information are shared The Emergency Management Center also provides a focal point for coordination of the emergency and evacuation information that is provided to the traveling public, including wide-area alerts when immediate public notification is warranted.

It tracks and manages emergency vehicle fleets using real-time road network status and routing information from the other centers to aid in selecting the emergency vehicle(s) and routes, and works with other relevant centers to tailor traffic control to support emergency vehicle ingress and egress, implementation of special traffic restrictions and closures, evacuation traffic control plans, and other special strategies that adapt the transportation system to better meet the unique demands of an emergency.

Included In

This Triple is in the following Service Packages:

This Triple is described by the following Functional View Functional Objects:

This Triple is described by the following Functional View Data Flows:

This Triple has the following triple relationships:

Communication Solutions

Solutions are sorted in ascending Gap Severity order. The Gap Severity is the parenthetical number at the end of the solution.

Selected Solution

(None-Data) - Secure Internet (ITS)

Solution Description

This solution is used within Australia, the E.U. and the U.S.. It combines standards associated with (None-Data) with those for I-I: Secure Internet (ITS). The (None-Data) standards include an unspecified set of standards at the upper layers. The I-I: Secure Internet (ITS) standards include lower-layer standards that support secure communications between ITS equipment using X.509 or IEEE 1609.2 security certificates.

ITS Application Entity
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Access

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Note that some layers might have alternatives, in which case all of the gap icons associated with every alternative may be shown on the diagram, but the solution severity calculations (and resulting ordering of solutions) includes only the issues associated with the default (i.e., best, least severe) alternative.

Characteristics

Characteristic Value
Time Context Recent
Spatial Context Regional
Acknowledgement True
Cardinality Unicast
Initiator Source
Authenticable True
Encrypt True


Interoperability Description
National This triple should be implemented consistently within the geopolitical region through which movement is essentially free (e.g., the United States, the European Union).

Security

Information Flow Security
  Confidentiality Integrity Availability
Rating Moderate High Moderate
Basis Large numbers of alerts and advisories may be supported by this flow, and while much of this information is eventually intended for public release, it could be misinterpreted. Better to keep confidential to the point where it is reformatted and presented in a fashion suitable to widespread distribution. It could include limited PII in incident descriptions, which also justifies obfuscation. Large numbers of alerts and advisories, if incorrectly reported, could have widespread effects on the management of the surface transportation system. If the scale is small this might be reduced to MODERATE. Should be reported in timely and consistent fashion to enable proper system management. Failure to receive this flow could lead to significant mobility degradation.


Security Characteristics Value
Authenticable True
Encrypt True