Digital camera on an overhead sign gantry at the DLR measuring and test track
With its measuring and test track on the Ernst-Ruska-Ufer in Berlin-Adlershof, DLR provides an ideal environment for developing concepts such as communication between vehicles and sensors on traffic lights and in road surfaces and to test these under realistic conditions.
ACCES control panel simulator
ACCES (Airport and Control Center Simulator) is the DLR simulation environment for an airport control centre.
DLR (CC-BY 3.0).
Traffic Tower is the virtual traffic management centre for the DLR control centre. Whether monitoring traffic during major events or evaluating traffic control algorithms, Traffic Tower supports DLR research through its simulation of road traffic and traffic control systems.
The demand for passenger and goods transport is continuing to increase. Infrastructures are in short supply, their demand-oriented expansion hardly appears possible. Societal and economic developments make ever more complex demands with regard to trip and transport chains. Humans and the environment have to be protected against the negative effects of transport. These determining factors lead to the key challenges for modern traffic management: The effective and efficient usage of existing infrastructures as well as the reduction of environmental burdens. To specifically address these challenges, it is necessary to expand the existing strengths of each of the modes of transport, and, at the same time drive their interlinkage forward. This is why we are researching the management of all modes of transport, albeit with various specific shapes.
Based on road traffic management, we target at improving the interaction between the various modes of transport. Under particular consideration of public local transport (ÖPNV), our main objective is to make the use of available infrastructures more efficient. The foundation is comprehensive traffic recording in connection with intelligent data management. In order to further improve modeling and simulation of multimodal traffic flows, it is important, inter alia, to switch over from selective to spatial data capture. Moreover, we will develop management and control processes, which, besides purely optimizing the travel times of the transport users, will also include other parameters, like environmental aspects. Furthermore, we address questions of traffic safety through recording and classification of conflict situations.
We also make use of our know-how to advance the competitiveness of rail transport. Thus, for example, we support investment decisions that are necessary for maintaining and modernizing railway infrastructures by developing a correspondingly oriented life cycle management. Critical incidents in the rail sector can, generally, be attributed to technical failures of partly outdated infrastructures, or to human error, caused by attention deficits, a lack of information or misinterpretations. Therefore, we, within the scope of human-centered system design, are conducting research on user models for operating and decision-making situations. With regard to the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS), we aim at realizing interoperability in Europe. Here, we above all address the improvement of testing and validating components of the European Train Control System (ETCS).
For the maritime transport system the aspects of efficiency, safety and security are of key importance, too. In order to improve them, we have been contributing to maritime traffic management. Here, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) has set important boundaries with their e-Navigation strategy. We orient ourselves towards it, and, in doing so, concentrate on the three thematic fields maritime integrated Position, Navigation, Time (PNT) system, collaborative traffic recording and assessment, as well as operational management in the maritime transport sector.
System efficiency, competitiveness, environmental conservation, punctuality, and reliability are the key words used to paraphrase our work on airport management. In order to make significant contributions to this, we closely collaborate with the DLR Programme Aeronautics on the synchronization of the land-side and air-side airport processes. Due to the various stakeholders at the airport and the individualized optimization processes, we additionally concentrate on the role of people and collaborative decision-making processes. Our central research objects also include the expansion of our simulation models by the aspect of intermodal transport links, and the corresponding restructuring of the management of passenger and baggage flows.
One aim of our work on traffic management at public mass events and disasters is the operationalization of the previously developed airborne sensor systems as well as the user-oriented expansion of the decision-making support tools. This is associated with an advancement of the process results for automatic traffic, infrastructure and situation recording, inter alia, through an enhancement of the spectral range by infrared. For the automatic registration of individuals and the production of movement patterns, we will do a processor update. Generally, we are switching over from the previously purely vehicle-related approach to the multimodal mobility analysis of individuals. Therefore, we now also take rail and public local transport, ports and airports into consideration. This also makes it possible for us to automatically produce simulation-based evacuation plans for given scenarios and regions.
Last modified:09/10/2013 11:24:43