Architecture-based development of road traffic management systems

Road traffic problems, such as congestion and accidents, are high in many countries, leading to economic losses, environmental damage due to increased pollution, waste of time in congestion and lives lost. In order to reduce these problems, Road Traffic Management Systems (RTMS) are applied, for example, in activities such as controlling, monitoring, and visualizing traffic in motorways and urban roads. The development of RTMS is challenging. RTMS are large socio-technical systems, which means that organizational and regulatory policies, rules, processes and constraints have to be taken into consideration. This framework needs to be represented in what is called the domain architecture. However, defining the domain architecture relates more to the RTMS domain than to the technical solution. The software architecture is fundamental for the organization of the system, comprising the sub-systems, important software components and the relationship between them and the environment, and to document all important technical decisions. In this article, both the domain and the software architecture are proposed for developing RTMS. The approach is used in practice as shown by the HARS case study.