TRANSPORT FOR LONDON- REAL TIME TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS

Background of the organization –
(TFL) Transport for London is a large organization formed with board of directors in the year 2003. This organization is mainly formed with an objective of “getting London moving” by keeping time to time operations on the roads of London. It has a perfect operation of the traffic on the roads and a perfect plan for the passengers and people for their time being to reach their destinations. It is having a vision to manage the network regarding the road works and providing the clear information to the public regarding the transport, traffic in every area. Transport for London will work with a strategy of its own to provide the information with clear signs on the roads for the people that they should not suffer due to problems with traffic; it will keep with the best of its information to manage the traffic at every single junction. DTM is an organization with number of initiatives on its events and programs to share on the network, which will take place every time that will be explained below. To control the signals, engineering works, traffic managers, bus operators and to control the traffic system overall LTCC London Traffic Control Center was established. It was established in the year 2003 January, and operates twenty four hour system to control and manage the road network to maintain the congestion charge throughout London. It is a central organization to control the traffic system.
It has four main stages in operating the traffic system and communication –
1. It collects lot of information from all the sources. All the collected data was entered and area monitoring staff will be alerted. At the time of any events or programs related measures will be planned perfectly by collecting the data
2. All the traffic flow will be monitored by the CCTV cameras and related action will be taken in the mean time. A map display shows the performance by the network and necessary charges can be taken immediately and early warnings can be given to avoid the congestion of the traffic.
3. Where the observance is required in particular areas the traffic control police will arrange the traffic wardens, police officers to control the traffic and crowded areas.
4. The information about the changes in the traffic services will be updated by the traffic update desk. This provide information to the public, organizations and to media through London traffic information systems (LTIS)
Traffic information system-
The Traffic Information System is a matter of planning a journey in a perfect manner. A person or a traveler to a particular place in a particular time can get the related information from a website. It contains about the time table, area to area distance, buss, train, tram, cycle etc, such details will be provided in one place. The traffic information system is developed for the safety and comfortable to the passenger for his planning of journey. A passenger requires information about conditions of traffic in that particular route, departure and arrivals, timings of busses with the route, status of rail. It allows the passenger or traveler finding of the important information about the planned journey from the employers or team members. By providing such type of information to the costumers there are so many benefits like reducing the costs by using the self hardware. The information will be up to date to its customers all the time. It promotes the use of the information systems to the costumers. By planning the traffic control according to the events and time being will save the people with the clear view in the journey without any miss understandings in their journeys. Every person will see the related information for their journey in the websight and then only they will start when they satisfy themselves.

The London traffic information system and Incident and Event control system:
The London information system collects the data from the vast information sources to provide an immediate view to the control room staff regarding every incident and about the progress of traffic control and key sources. The main work for London traffic information systems consist: of information about the busses, traffic police service and the service operated itself. It will also track the information about the development schemes, review about the signal timing, longer term changes, equipment for developing and moderation of traffic development plans.
The LTIS will provide the information through the internet site regarding the planned closure between the areas and its operations of traffic at the time of events in the detailed manner by the help of transportation timings and map. At any time the information can be reached by the mobile devices like sending messages to provide the customers regarding the updates of the services. LTIS is the easiest provider to make use of the real time service by providing the valid information through the website (Tfl.gov.uk). The traffic information and the links to the planned journey with showing the timings and routes will be provided in one place with lot of options in the same website. The related journeys to a particular place will be shown at the time of planned closures in different routes and makes the journey easier. This will increase the greater access to the website when the events and incidents affecting the London transport network. The COMET system provides the real time traffic monitoring information of traffic system and its performance in central London, to take the immediate action on the incidents which will be affected by the congestions in the areas. This help to take an immediate action before happening by such an up to time information.
The traffic monitoring information will be collected by COMET and will be provided through the map based system. The information regarding the traffic updates will be updated for every five minutes and also the train timings, the journey planners will be updated. It is currently providing the information for central London and north, south road ways in the UK. The journey timing system is calculated by recording the number plates of the vehicles while they were travelling to some distance in particular time and this information regarding the time for the journey planner will be updated for every ten minutes.
It calculates the day to day timings, traffic, so these values will be calculated on daily basis and depends upon the conditions at that time.
Functional management information systems-
The function of information regarding the traffic in which will change according to the situation and timing in the day to day life. Marketing managerial information systems is related to the marketing and sale of an item related to the area. It is the function of beginning which was started to receive the related information in time. The functions can be varied in to different types like size and type of a organization. The success of the business is related with how the information is provided to run an organization and how it is going through the customers in an easy and fastest way. For a particular product the description should be deferent. The function of a product should be mentioned clearly that can be understandable easily like setting up a direct recharge of the oysters, Purchasing a travel card online, booking the tickets for coaches, funfairs, discounts, rail cards etc . Such services can be useful for the customers and this sought of information is important. The costumer should now the information and should show interest when searching for the information for the travelling plan. This will save a lot of time and make them happy for the savings offered by the company. So the functional management information system is very important for an organization for maintaining the development of business plans and implementing them in a easy way with profits is very much important. The function of the organization is key source of getting income by providing the information to its customers in the perfect manner.

Recommendations-
As taking the London is the busiest and costliest city in the world, we can make some considerations to the current traffic situation. We can find the information related to the timings and routes to the destination but there is a need of more information on the site about the fares and travel tickets. Some streets in the city are very busy, like oxford circus, Tote ham court Road, there will be more pedestrians and traffic rush is also too much. The width and length of the road is small, so the cars, bikes and buses have to maintain limited speed by crossing the number of signals, this will take so much time to reach the destination point, weather it shows the less time in the related website that it will take a few minutes. So this should be taken in to consideration. There should be need of more relevant information regarding the planned engineering works is taking place every weekend. Some campaigns is required regarding this information and it will be better to provide the information for the hole month where these works are going to take place, then people can choose other way of transport. The diversions should be kept and this information should be updated in mean time so the travelers can go fast to their destination by choosing these routes, then this will reduce the traffic on the roads and lot of time can be saved. Measures should be taken at the match times because at the time of football or some other sport events the rush of the people will be more so the roads are getting blocked, so for the day or for the time of match the traffic should be diverted to some other route and must be informed in the site then there will be no messing up on the streets.


Conclusion-
Traffic information system is very important information for everyone. Traffic is the main thing that has to be monitored regularly. It is a part of the life for the busy Londoners in their daily life. With the implementation of traffic information system this became very easy as information is updated and monitored. People are aware of information about the traffic and travel information through the website which provides information regarding the routes and journey planners to all the people in London. This became a main source to all people regarding routes about the destination and time of travel to particular routes. This organization maintains the records of controlling and monitoring traffic throughout the London by collecting the data from all the sources. It has the team which works continuously on providing the information to the people. This sight became the main source for all the people. Traffic police also plays an important role in monitoring the traffic in many congestion times. Measures have taken to provide the correct information which has been useful to the people. Without the information from the sight transport for London there will be no availability of information, so this plays a major role in traffic controlling and information providing to the people. Measures have been stated that are still required from my opinion. The planning and gathering the information is exactly correct in the view of the customer and measures for the road transport works for the future basis is also taking place. All the developments are taking place for the 2010 Olympics which are going to be held in London. As the costliest means of transport it is providing the fastest way of traveling facilities to the people. Hence Transport for London is the topmost provider of information throughout the London and providing lot of information to the people regarding the travel and traffic information by updating regularly. It is playing the major role in the life of the people over all.










References-
1. http://www.etcproceedings.org/paper/transport-for-london-real-time-traffic-management-operations , p.Davies Transport for London UK
2. http://www.aeablogs.org/eakd/files/Zachman_s_Original_1987_Paper.pdf
By J.A. Zachman
3. http://www.tfl.gov.uk/

AJAY KUMAR KATAMANENI