The objective of this project is to build on an existing data archive platform, known as the Portland Oregon Regional Transportation Archive Listing (PORTAL) toward development of next generation performance measurement and congestion reduction tools (1,2,3,4). Established in 2004, PORTAL currently includes data recorded by approximately 600 freeway sensors in two states, plus hourly weather data, incident data, and variable message sign data. This project will advance PORTAL's capabilities in several arenas: expansion of geographic territory to include Southwest Washington; expansion of data sources to include more highly granular weather data and real-time and archived bus data from Portland and Vancouver; improvement of user interface and mapping tools; improvement of data quality assessment tools and capabilities; expansion of PORTAL's performance measurement tools; incorporation of tools to aid in simulation modeling; and proactive congestion monitoring tools. 

This project will also review the current paradigm described by the National ITS Architecture’s Archived Data User Service (ADUS) and examine the possibility of developing a new generation ADUS, going beyond the creation of a passive storehouse of data (5,6,7). Given current developments in the transportation operations and management area, this project will pursue several possible ADUS extensions including: live re-serving of data, additional services (e.g., selectable imputation methods), derived sources (e.g., pre-aggregated data), coverage of a wider variety of data sources (including contextual data such as weather and events), and active monitoring of performance metrics against the historical baseline. In order to frame this research, a survey of current and potential users will be administered, seeking input regarding requirements for next-generation transportation information portals on topics including types of products and services, performance requirements (e.g., latency, availability) and desired interfaces (FTP, web services, publish/subscribe). 

The proposed research will develop a system and software architecture that meets those requirements, and will address such issues as how such a portal should be structured internally, what storage and processing needs exist, how extensibility and availability can be ensured and how such portals could federate on a regional scale. Initial plans call for a four-layer architecture, including: data transfer and storage, quality monitoring and imputation services, value-added products and services, including performance metrics, and active monitoring of novel patterns and long-term trends against the historical baseline. These four layers will require support for meta-data, hence the architectural design will also include recommendations on what meta-data is required with archived data, derived data, products, and services; at what level of granularity should meta-data be maintained, and possible forms of statistical meta-data, coming from either quality assessment or imputation processes.  To validate the architecture, selected portions of it will be developed as a prototype within the PORTAL framework, enhancing the latter as necessary to investigate new capabilities. When complete this project will provide transportation system managers, planners, researchers, decision-makers, and even users with the ability to monitor the system and create customized multimodal routes for improved trip planning.