Evaluation of the TRANSCOM's System for Managing Incidents and Traffic (TRANSMIT)

TRANSCOM's System for Managing Incidents and Traffic (TRANSMIT) is a traffic surveillance and incident detection system that is based on traffic probes equipped with the E-ZPass electronic toll collection tags. The TRANSMIT system has been initially installed on a 22-mi roadway length on the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey and the New York State Thruway in New York State. Currently, it is being expanded to more than 200 roadway miles in the metropolitan area. The evaluation has been carried out to assess its communication system performance, its incident detection capability, and the traffic-flow parameters estimation, and to identify its current and potential benefits. The TRANSMIT communication system exhibited excellent performance in terms of the transmission rates system wide, which was found to be near 100%. The TRANSMIT incident detection algorithm performed very favorably in comparison to the results of the best incident detection algorithms reported in the literature. The link travel time estimates were found to be within the 95% confidence interval with the exception of the link across the Tappan Zee Bridge, where a spread spectrum radio was installed. The system offers a unique opportunity for researchers to collect travel-time data in real time, and direct measurements of the space mean speed, as well as incident detection related data. The TRANSMIT system has the potential to collect origin - destination data if it is integrated into the metropolitan transportation network infrastructure.