Advanced VR Research Centre

EU FP7 DANSE: Framework for Future Integrated Transport System Architecture

Overview

Intelligent and efficient management of the future transport system is an increasingly complex system of systems (SoS) involving the management of information exchanges between a wide range of disparate systems of systems involving vehicles, traffic management and monitoring, infrastructure, communication, journey planning systems, security systems and of course people (travellers and pedestrians), in different operational scenarios, corresponding to different levels of criticality. Intelligent mobility has been coined as a term to describe the important prospect of seamless integration of journeys across the entire transport network. As the demand for more efficient transport increases there is an urgent need to manage the evolution of the system architectures associated with future transport systems. This project forms part of the larger EU FP7 funded project DANSE.

Aims & Objectives

This project will apply the methodologies, techniques and tools being developed by DANSE to show how these can be used to evolve future transport system models. Challenges to achieve the “common goals” include the identification of the appropriate “states and modes” to deal with the transitions between a future transport system where the traffic management system could have full control over the whole transport infrastructure, and an “emergency mode” where individual vehicles have full control. In the first case, the driving goal could be efficiency whilst in the second case the goal is safety of the transport system. In the transitions, both “safety” and “efficiency” viewpoints have to be considered. 

Methodology

Using the DANSE methodology and toolset it is planned to develop a dynamic and intelligent transport system architecture, with a focus on safety (avoiding accidents) and efficiency (scheduling, energy consumption). Then optimisation of the architecture, design, and validation will be performed using simulation approaches. Adequate definition of these control and decision processes, taking into account uncertainties (e.g., weather forecast), human errors and technical failures is the core of the engineering of such complex systems – in particular the information subsystems and communication backbones. This approach will enable a systematic understanding of the key aspects of intelligent mobility across the entire transport system of systems.

 Figure 1: System of Systems Complexity Around Future Integrated Transport System Architecture

(Image courtesy CARMEQ)

AVRRC input into the Project

The AVRRC is responsible for the SoS architecture aspects of the project, including mining and developing appropriate transport system architecture patterns that can be used in the architecture optimisation process for future integrated transport systems with a view towards the goal of intelligent mobility.

Results

This project is currently on-going and public dissemination of the results will be made available at the conclusion of the project.

Conclusions

Details to be published in due course.

Project Consortium

The DANSE project consortium includes:

• Advanced Laboratory on Embedded Systems s.r.l.
• Carmeq - GMBH
• EADS deutschland - GMBH
• European aeronautic defense and space company eads  - france sas
• IBM Israel - Science and Technology Ltd
• Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique - France
• Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd
• Loughborough University
• Sodius SAS
• Thales SA

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