What's New with the
National ITS Architecture Version 6.1

This is where you can find out about all of the latest changes to the National ITS Architecture. You can view changes either by looking at the "Change" at a high-level along with all the areas affected by the change, or you can look at the "change" at a detailed-level sorted by the architecture area. Some of the more visible enhancements are listed in the summary below:

link to the high level changes page link to the detailed change log page

    Summary of Version 6.1 Changes:

    Released January 7, 2009
    VII Initiative
    General – One of the key aspects of the National ITS Architecture has always been the integration of intelligent vehicles and intelligent infrastructure using Field-Vehicle communications. In Version 6.1, this aspect of the Architecture was extended to include many additional potential applications that have been identified through the Vehicle Infrastructure Integration (VII) initiative. For example, selective access control was added to EM05, parking facilities now provide information such as limited height warnings to vehicles in ATIS09, transit vehicles communicate with surrounding vehicles to provide gap assistance in ATIS09, vehicles cooperate with the infrastructure to support HOV management (ATMS05) and emissions monitoring, (ATMS11), and grade crossing warnings are provided to vehicles in ATMS14. In addition, the intersection safety market packages (AVSS05 and AVSS10) were extensively revised to be consistent with VII and the Cooperative Intersection Collision Avoidance Systems (CICAS) initiative. Finally, terminology was updated to make it more technology independent (e.g., "tag update" was replaced with "vehicle payment update") in architecture flows and descriptions associated with electronic payment (ATMS10 and ATMS16).

    Standards - The SAE J2735 standard (DSRC Message Set Dictionary) includes new messages that were reconciled with the National ITS Architecture. For Version 6.1, the National ITS Architecture was revised to better support the new IntersectionCollisionAvoidance and SPAT (Signal Phase and Timing) messages. A new architecture flow "vehicle intersection safety data" was created and flow "intersection status" was modified.
    UEFM Initiative
    Identified changes to architecture flows involving the Intermodal Freight Depot and Intermodal Freight Shipper terminators to align with the Universal Electronic Freight Management (UEFM) initiative. These changes are also consistent with recent C-EFM pilot project while staying within the scope of the ITS User Services.
    Clarus Initiative
    In Version 6.1, this aspect of the architecture was updated to make the architecture more consistent with current efforts on the Clarus initiative. The architecture has revised the uses of "alerts" in the National Architecture to cover weather type alerts (and other alerts) that are common to Clarus. This resulted in the creation of 2 new architecture flows (traveler alerts) from the ISP to the PIAS and VS subsystems and a new equipment package, which was mapped to the ATIS02 market package.
    ICMS Initiative
    Capabilities relating to the Integrated Corridor Management Systems (ICMS) Initiative were incorporated into Version 6.1. One of the key capabilities added was support for a Decision Support System. A new Equipment Package, TMC Traffic Management Decision Support, was added to support this capability, with the new equipment package included in ATMS09 (which has been renamed Traffic Decision Support and Demand Management to highlight the new capability). To provide consistent support for the distribution of event information, the incident information architecture flow has been added to several interfaces where the information was previously contained in other more general flows. Additional small changes were also made to add more direct support for network performance measurement and support for data quality checks on operational data.
    Communication Page
    A new Communications Layer web/hyperlink page has been added that provides information about this layer and the four interconnect types shown on the top level interconnect diagram of the National ITS Architecture. In addition, one of these interconnects has been renamed from Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC) to Field - Vehicle Communication. This was done to clarify that this interconnect applies to many more technologies than those most commonly associated with the term DSRC.
    TMDD
    To better synchronize the National ITS Architecture with the latest TMDD Standard, Version 3.0, several small changes were made to the TMS interfaces. Network inventory information was added to the architecture flow road network conditions and additional device control capabilities were added to the TMS to Other TMS interface to cover the types of device control contained in TMDD Version 3.
    Transit Update
    The transit interface for schedules and fares has been updated for version 6.1. The single architecture flow "transit and fare schedules" covers both static and dynamic information, providing no distinction in the architecture between basic and advanced transit system implementations. This flow has been divided into two flows on the TRMS to ISP Interfaces, one to cover static information and one to cover dynamic information.
    Hypertext Architecture Version 6.1 generated on 1/7/2009 from the following databases
    Physical Architecture dated 12/15/2008,
    Logical Architecture dated 12/2/2008,
    Market Packages dated 12/14/2008,
    Security dated 11/13/2008,
    User Services dated 4/9/2007,
    Theory of Operations dated 12/14/2008,
    AppMap dated 12/19/2008 and the
    SDOMAP dated 12/12/2008