Real-time fusion of UK traffic data

Data fusion refers to the application of techniques which combine data from various sources to produce information of greater quality. In the UK, traffic information is gathered and supplied by both the private and public sectors. However for the purposes of network management no individual organisation can yet claim to offer a complete picture of the traffic conditions on the road network in England. The Intelligent Data Fusion Tool (IDFT), which is sponsored by the Highways Agency, is the first Highways Agency system which gathers traffic information from various data sources and fuses them into a single dataset. The IDFT project utilises DATEX II, the standard model for exchanging traffic (and other) information in Europe, as the data model for the project. The objective of the IDFT is to enhance and improve the information available to the Highways Agency Network Operations staff. This paper describes the IDFT system and presents results from the initial testing of the IDFT The IDFT uses data from the private sector suppliers TrafficLink, TrafficMaster and iTIS whilst from the public sector it uses the National Traffic Control Centre (NTCC) for event & activities logs and the Motorway Incident Detection and Automatic Signalling (MIDAS) system for flow data and alerts. Gathering, mapping, storing and viewing the data from all these independent data sources within a sustainable and stable system was the main objective of the first stage in the development of the IDFT.