Successful traffic management requires the best achievable knowledge about the actual traffic situation. This concerns both, the current traffic situation as well as predictions about the development of traffic in the near future. The latter can be achieved using a statistical base of historical data.

Reception of data from traffic sensors and environmental sensors (road condition, weather) is the essential base for monitoring. Data from mobile sensors is already taken into account here, like floating car cata (FCD) or floating phone data (FPD).

Raw data is checked for plausibility and, if necessary, completed appliying appropriate algorithms. Data is permanently archived and made available for reporting and analysis. This ensures traceability and constant optimisation of all control measures.

Additional information may be integrated via data exchange with neighbouring traffic centres, allowing to take external traffic flows into account, as well as different modes of traffic.

Tools for traffic statistics and analysis are used to derive a statistical data basis, representing typical traffic situations on the road network, taking classified events into account.

The traffic data base established using the above mentioned methods is used for the determination of the traffic situation, which offers a comprehensive picture of the traffic conditions on the road network:

• determination of level of service
• elaboration of travel times
• calculation of predictions
• consolidation of different sources -> data fusion
• automatic incident detection
• traffic analysis detecting specific patterns
• analysis and prediction of the progression of congestions