Major Validation Sites

 In the Barcelona (originally Madrid) and Turin sites that are planned for demonstration of the FLUIDS interfaces, the needed infrastructures are currently available and the proposed developments will reach the demonstration and exploitation phases. The two types of selected underlying systems are:

• Systems with a knowledge-based structure where explanation facilities may be obtained from the architecture and functionalities of the system. In this case, only some additional modules may be necessary to complete the capacity to support the intelligent interfacing.
• Conventional systems where explanations can be obtained after the design of a large number of complementary knowledge-based modules. The contents of the conventional modules will be mirrored with a knowledge-based architecture and its declarative components will allow the generation of explanations.

The two planned sites for demonstration are designed with an orientation towards the same problem but the TRYS system in Barcelona is knowledge-based, while the 5T system in Turin is designed in a fully closed loop environment where operators have to intervene mainly to modify global criteria for traffic management as a result of changeable policies. Nevertheless the very advanced set of modules of this system will allow the design of mirror components with a knowledge-based structure.

Two demonstrations in Barcelona and in Turin will be built (in year 2 of the project) to test the accuracy of the FLUIDS approach. Both are real time traffic management systems but their architectures are very different. The Barcelona/Madrid system, known as TRYS, is a knowledge-based system with a knowledge structured organisation of tasks. Its cognitive model is supported by the KSM environment, which organises the system into specialised building blocks where the task to be performed and the knowledge required to perform these tasks can be distinguished. TRYS was developed for the Spanish Directorate of Traffic (DGT) and is currently installed in the traffic control centre of Barcelona. It receives real-time data about the traffic state and generates control proposals that are continuously adapting to the changing conditions of traffic. The traffic operator must decide which one of the proposals will be installed and to do it he/she needs arguments that give support to his/her decision. These arguments are the explanations the system can provide, and being a real time decision support system the quality and the presentation of these explanations is a critical aspect. The Turin system ranks as one of the most advanced integrated systems for traffic management in Europe. The system was constructed in the 5T project to provide an integrated control system for public and private traffic management, including urban traffic control (UTC), automatic vehicle monitoring (AVM), parking management, collective and individual route guidance via VMS panels and in-car devices, environment control etc. The supervision of the coordinated operation of these systems is designed completely in a closed loop environment and the operators are requested only to insert modified objectives and criteria as a result of global changes in traffic management policies. The task to be performed in FLUIDS includes explanations by qualitative models of the algorithmic processes. These qualitative models are intended to be shallower versions of the deeper knowledge included in the models and control algorithms. Consequently, the knowledge model in this system will include specialized modules to provide this functionality.