Development of COMPASS an advanced traffic management system

The Ontario Ministry of Transportation initiated the Highway 401 Freeway Traffic Management System (FTMS) project in an effort to help reduce congestion along this critical transportation corridor. The purpose of the project was to implement a system that would alleviate the effects of congestion. The system, called COMPASS, is an advanced traffic management system (ATMS). The customized software package which drives the realtime operation of the system incorporates a fully modular design, user-friendly operator, the use of predefined traffic response plans, realtime simulation capability and the ability to run multiple algorithms for a single application.