Real-time information system for risk management on motorways

Every day more and more people and goods have to be transported rapidly, safely and at a lower cost. Continuous economic growth brings a traffic volume increase and implies a gradual saturation of road and motorway networks. Managing motorways is today a complex task, especially during a time of crisis (traffic jam, accident). Our aim is to design a system for riskmanagement on motorways. Risk management is a very important endeavour today and many people work on this subject [Adams 95], [Beck 92]. In our system, risk management provides tools to help managers to anticipate potential accidents so as to avoid them or, otherwise to reduce accident consequences. In addition, the system must be able to give fit information to initiate preventive actions and then to follow them in real-time. Such a system requires much information in real-time. Information must be acquired and then sent to the various motorway departments to be processed. It is necessary to have a complex real-time architecture based on sensors and communication technology to link motorways with the management stations. The proposed global system for risk management on motorways is presented in this paper. Real-time information composition and use particulars are presented. Details on processing can be found in [Tanzi 97b]. An industrial prototype has been realised and for the motorway network of the south of France.