Transportation management center functions

Transportation management centers (TMCs), or traffic management centers, have become a vital part of the transportation fabric in many urban areas. This synthesis presents information on the current operational and technical practices used by highway, transit, and multimodal TMCs in several urbanized areas. It will be of interest to transportation system administrators, traffic engineers, maintenance engineers, and other officials in state departments of transportation, as well as those responsible for local transportation management and control. In addition, this synthesis will be useful to state and local law enforcement and emergency response personnel. It also provides information to developers and suppliers of hardware and software for traffic control technology and communications systems. This report of the Transportation Research Board describes the various types of TMCs, their functions, and details of design, operations, and staffing. It describes the practice of agencies in the United States and Canada, based on survey responses from 147 TMCs. These agencies are responsible for highways, surface streets, bridges and tunnels, transit, including bus and rail, and several integrated TMCs that include more than one mode. Design criteria describe in detail the physical facility design of TMCs, as well as the software configurations and the interrelationships among TMCs of various types. The required staffing and the personnel roles are highlighted. To the extent that data are available, ranges of costs and benefits for TMCs are included in the report.