Alerting and Advisory Systems (Terminator*)

This terminator represents the federal, state, and local alerting and advisory systems that provide alerts, advisories, and other potential threat information that is relevant to surface transportation systems. This includes systems such as the Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISACS), the National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC), the Homeland Security Advisory System (HSAS), and other systems that provide intelligence about potential, imminent, or actual attacks on the transportation infrastructure or its supporting information systems.

This terminator also represents the early warning and emergency alert systems operated by federal, state, county, and local agencies that provide advisories and alerts regarding all types of emergencies including natural hazards (floods, hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes), accidents (chemical spills, nuclear power plant emergencies) and other civil emergencies such as child abduction alerts that impact transportation system operation and/or require immediate public notification. Note that weather related watches and warnings, such as those issued by the National Hurricane Center, are provided by both this terminator and the Weather Service terminator since many alerting and advisory systems and the National Weather Service both provide severe weather and related hazards information.

The alerts and advisories that are provided by the systems represented by this terminator are based on analysis of potential threat information that is collected from a variety of sources, including information collected by ITS systems. The bidirectional interface with this terminator allows potential threat information that is collected by ITS systems to be provided to the alerting and advisory systems to improve their ability to identify threats and provide useful and timely information.

The types of information provided by this terminator include general assessments and incident awareness information, advisories that identify potential threats or recommendations to increase preparedness levels, alerts regarding imminent or in-progress emergencies, and specific threat information such as visual imagery used for biometric image processing.

Inputs/Outputs
Interfaces Diagram

Terminator Interfaces Diagram

This is a context diagram for the entity Alerting and Advisory Systems Terminator that shows every architecture flow that this entity sends or receives, as defined in the National ITS Architecture. A complete list of all architecture flows shown on this diagram, is available under the Inputs/Outputs section on this page.

Get the Source Graphic, a Windows Metafile (WMF), in ZIP format.

Inputs/Outputs: Architecture Flows* and Data Flows*

Alerting and Advisory Systems Commercial Vehicle Administration

alerts and advisories (Architecture Flow*) - Assessments (general incident and vulnerability awareness information), advisories (identification of threats or recommendations to increase preparedness levels), and alerts (information on imminent or in-progress emergencies). This flow also provides supporting descriptive detail on incidents, threats, and vulnerabilities to increase preparedness and support effective response to threats against the surface transportation system.
Data Flows*:
- faas-alerts_and_advisories_for_cvas

Alerting and Advisory Systems Commercial Vehicle Check

alerts and advisories (Architecture Flow*) - Assessments (general incident and vulnerability awareness information), advisories (identification of threats or recommendations to increase preparedness levels), and alerts (information on imminent or in-progress emergencies). This flow also provides supporting descriptive detail on incidents, threats, and vulnerabilities to increase preparedness and support effective response to threats against the surface transportation system.
Data Flows*:
- faas-alerts_and_advisories_for_inspection
- faas-alerts_and_advisories_for_screening

Alerting and Advisory Systems Emergency Management

alerts and advisories (Architecture Flow*) - Assessments (general incident and vulnerability awareness information), advisories (identification of threats or recommendations to increase preparedness levels), and alerts (information on imminent or in-progress emergencies). This flow also provides supporting descriptive detail on incidents, threats, and vulnerabilities to increase preparedness and support effective response to threats against the surface transportation system.
Data Flows*:
- faas-alerts_and_advisories_for_threat_analysis
- faas-wide_area_alert_notifications_and_advisories
threat support data (Architecture Flow*) - Information provided to help receiving agency identify possible threats, including biometric image processing support data.
Data Flows*:

Alerting and Advisory Systems Fleet and Freight Management

alerts and advisories (Architecture Flow*) - Assessments (general incident and vulnerability awareness information), advisories (identification of threats or recommendations to increase preparedness levels), and alerts (information on imminent or in-progress emergencies). This flow also provides supporting descriptive detail on incidents, threats, and vulnerabilities to increase preparedness and support effective response to threats against the surface transportation system.
Data Flows*:
- faas-alerts_and_advisories_for_cvo
- faas-alerts_and_advisories_for_freight

Alerting and Advisory Systems Maintenance and Construction Management

alerts and advisories (Architecture Flow*) - Assessments (general incident and vulnerability awareness information), advisories (identification of threats or recommendations to increase preparedness levels), and alerts (information on imminent or in-progress emergencies). This flow also provides supporting descriptive detail on incidents, threats, and vulnerabilities to increase preparedness and support effective response to threats against the surface transportation system.
Data Flows*:
- faas-alerts_and_advisories_for_maint

Alerting and Advisory Systems Traffic Management

alerts and advisories (Architecture Flow*) - Assessments (general incident and vulnerability awareness information), advisories (identification of threats or recommendations to increase preparedness levels), and alerts (information on imminent or in-progress emergencies). This flow also provides supporting descriptive detail on incidents, threats, and vulnerabilities to increase preparedness and support effective response to threats against the surface transportation system.
Data Flows*:
- faas-alerts_and_advisories_for_traffic

Alerting and Advisory Systems Transit Management

alerts and advisories (Architecture Flow*) - Assessments (general incident and vulnerability awareness information), advisories (identification of threats or recommendations to increase preparedness levels), and alerts (information on imminent or in-progress emergencies). This flow also provides supporting descriptive detail on incidents, threats, and vulnerabilities to increase preparedness and support effective response to threats against the surface transportation system.
Data Flows*:
- faas-alerts_and_advisories_for_transit

Emergency Management Alerting and Advisory Systems

threat data for analysis (Architecture Flow*) - Data from surveillance or sensor equipment in secure areas provided for further analysis.
Data Flows*:
threat information (Architecture Flow*) - Threats regarding transportation infrastructure, facilities, or systems detected by a variety of methods (sensors, surveillance, threat analysis of advisories from outside agencies, etc.
Data Flows*:
- taas-threat_info

Fleet and Freight Management Alerting and Advisory Systems

fleet and freight threat information (Architecture Flow*) - Information about threats detected by commercial vehicle fleet and freight operators. The threats include incidents involving commercial vehicles (i.e. hijacking), unusual activities observed by commercial vehicle operators (i.e. truck parked under a bridge), and incidents involving freight equipment (i.e. freight equipment tampering).
Data Flows*:
- taas-threat_info_from_cvo
- taas-threat_info_from_freight