Currently the Dutch Ministry of Transport (Transport Research Center) is engaged in the design and implementation of a generic Operator Support System in the Netherlands. This Operator Support System (OSS) is a distributed system to support traffic operators and traffic managers at operating centers. The aim is to provide common operating facilities for the various dynamic traffic management systems and other related systems for motorway (traffic) management. Examples of such Motorway Management Systems (MMS) are monitoring, signalling, ramp metering, incident management systems and future automatic tollsystems. Also meteo-systems and communication infrastructure management systems are foreseen to be controlled via the OSS.
The use of common software and the consistency in the graphical (map-oriented) user interface between different motorway management systems results in a consistent transparant view on all applications for the operator. Main benefits related to this feature are a more efficient execution of the operator task, less training effort, and a reduction of the number of control consoles at an operating center. The non-hierarchical architecture of the operator support system enables handover of operational tasks between operating centers during night shifts or quiet periods. Furthermore, several tasks can be executed via so-called scripts in an unattended mode. This feature will result in more efficient traffic control requiring less manpower during relative expensive working hours.
Evidently such a system can be exploited succesfully only when severe reliability, performance, connectivity and scalability requirements are met. This paper presents the way of working that has been followed to verify the underlying design and to validate the functional and technical feasibility of the system architecture. The focus is put on application of well-known standards and techniques for mission critical system analysis and design (MIL-STD 490/498/499, IEC 1508 and MIL-STD 1629A/FMECA). First the main features of the OSS architecture are presented. Subsequently the underlying technologies are briefly described. The third paragraph describes the applied validation framework. Finally the fourth paragraph presents the main findings of the OSS validation.