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ITS Acronyms and Glossary

AADT: Annual Average Daily Traffic flow.

AAWT: Annual Average Weekday Traffic flow.

ADIS: Advanced Driver Information Systems; vehicle features that assist driver with planning, perception, analysis, and decision-making.

ANPR: Automatic Number Plate Recognition.

ANSI: American National Standards Institute.

AVCS: Advanced Vehicle Control Systems.

AVI: Automated Vehicle Identification.

AVL: Automated Vehicle Location.

AVLS: Automated Vehicle Location System.

ATCO: Association of Transport Coordinating Officers.

ATCO.CIF: Association of Transport Coordinating Officers Common Interchange Format (data structure for timetable data exchange).

Beacons: Short-range roadside transceivers for communicating between vehicles and the traffic management infrastructure.

B&W: Black & White.

CCTV: Closed Circuit television.

CEN: Comite European de Normalisation.

CH₄: Methane.

COBS: Control Office Base Station.

CO₂: Carbon Dioxide.

DAB: Digital Audio Broadcasting. Digital radio.

Dead-Reckoning: A technique that calculated the current location of a vehicle by measuring the distance and direction that the vehicle has travelled since leaving a known starting point.

DGPS: Differential GPS.

Differential Correction: A technique for overcoming GPS position determination errors; GPS receivers are placed at precisely identified control locations to measure the difference between indicated GPS positions versus actual positions.

DRIVE: Dedicated Road Infrastructure for Vehicle safety in Europe.

e-GIF: Electronic Government Interoperability Framework.

ETC: Electronic Toll Collection.

Geocode: A code representing a political or geographic unit incorporated into a GIS.

FQP: Freight Quality Partnership.

GIS: Geographic Information System.

GPRS: General Packet Radio Service.

GPS: Global Positioning System.

GSM: Groupe Speciale Mobile.

HGV: Heavy Goods Vehicle.

HIOCC: High Occupancy Algorithm.

HOV: High-Occupancy Vehicle.

IHT: Institute of Highways and Transportation.

INGRID: Integrated Incident Detection.

IR: Infrared.

ITSO: Integrated Transport Smartcard Organisation.

KSI accidents: Killed or Seriously Injured. Part of the DfT's (formerly DETR's) 10-year plan to reduce KSI accidents.

LAN: Local Area Network.

LCD: Liquid Crystal Display.

LED: Light Emitting Diode.

MIDAS: Motorway Incident Detection and Automatic Signalling.

MOVA: Microprocessor Optimised Vehicle Actuation.

N₂0: Nitrous Oxide.

NO_x: Oxides of Nitrogen.

NPV: Net Present Value.

OCR: Optical Character Recognition.

OS: Ordnance Survey.

OSGR: Ordnance Survey Grid Reference.

OTU: Outstation Transmission Unit.

P&D: Pay and Display.

PM₁₀: Air Pollutant - particle with a aerodynamic diameter of less than or equal to 10 microns.

PMR: Private Mobile Radio.

PDA: Personal Digital Assistant.

RDS: Radio Data System.

RDS-TMC: Radio Data Systems incorporating a Traffic Message Channel (see TMC).

RFID: Radio Frequency Identification.

RTI: Road Transport Informatics; a European term for ITS.

RTPI: Real Time Passenger Information.

SCATS: Sydney Coordinated Adaptive Traffic System.

SCOOT: Split, Cycle time and Offset, Optimisation Technique. An urban traffic control system.

Smart Card: An electronic information carrier system that uses plastic cards, about the size of a credit card, with an imbedded integrated circuit that stores and processes information.

TAG: Transport Appraisal Guidance.

TCC: Traffic Control Centre.

TFT: Thin Film Transistor.

TMC: Traffic Message Channel (with RDS); transmits, on FM subcarriers, digital codes representing standardised traffic information messages to be decoded and displayed (or spoken) in any given language by in-vehicle receiver.

TOC: Traffic Operations Centre.

TRO: Traffic Regulation Order.

TSRGD: Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2002.

UTC: Urban Traffic Control.

UTMC: Urban Traffic Management and Control.

VMS: Variable Message Signs; highway signs which can change the message they display. Strategic VMS - Give drivers information about key problems on the network well before they come across them e.g. "Accident ahead". Tactical VMS - Give drivers more local information to allow them to re-route or alter travel plans.

VOC: Volatile Organic Compound.

VRU: Vulnerable Road User.

VSL: Variable Speed Limits.

WGS-84: World Geodetic System 1984; a widely accepted, standardised system of geodetic co-ordinates of latitude and longitude. Used by the Navstar GPS.

WIM: Weigh-In-Motion; a technology for determining the weight of a commercial vehicle without requiring it to stop on a scale; uses AVI to identify the vehicles; employs technologies that measure the dynamic tyre forces of the moving vehicle, and then estimates the corresponding tyre loads for a static vehicle.

XML: Extensible Markup Language.