Subject: [NEXTEL-1] IEEE 1512 Incident Management Standards Frequently Asked Questions

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Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2003 13:17:31 -0400

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IEEE 1512 Incident Management Standards
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Special for the ICDN Newsletter

Last Updated 9/30/03

Who has the development responsibility for the IEEE 1512 family of incident management standards?

What stakeholders does the IMWG represent?

What agencies have actively participated in the 1512 standards development?

Is the 1512 family of standards considered a "critical" ITS standard?

What functions will the 1512 family of standards perform?

What operational problems does the 1512 family of standards solve?

What kinds of data does the 1512 family of standards handle?

What types of centers and/or systems can use the standards?

What specific pieces make up the 1512 family of standards?

Are the 1512 standards compatible with XML data and Web Services industry standards?

How would the standards typically be implemented?

What is the current balloting status of the 1512 standards family?

Are the standards being used by any projects today? If so, how?

What future projects have committed to using the standards?

Do the 1512 standards make use of any other existing ITS standards such as TMDD, etc.?

1. Who has the development responsibility for the IEEE 1512 family of incident management standards? (top)

IEEE’s Standards Coordinating Committee 32 (SCC 32) has the responsibility for all ITS standards within IEEE’s sphere of responsibility. The Incident Management Working Group (IMWG) was set up under SCC 32 to develop the 1512 family of incident management standards. IMWG is a multidisciplinary group of volunteers who meet several times per year to derive message set requirements, develop the actual standards documents and plan for eventual standards deployment.

2. What stakeholders does the IMWG represent? (top)

The IEEE 1512 Incident Management Working Group represents the transportation community (highway, bus, rail, commercial vehicles, fleet managers), law enforcement, fire and rescue services, emergency medical services, hazardous materials first responder agencies and shippers, as well as the developer community that builds Computer Aided Dispatch and Advanced Transportation Management Systems. Although ports and airports have not been directly represented in the Working Group, there is no inherent reason why this set of standards cannot be used in these environments, as well.

3. What agencies have actively participated in the 1512 standards development? (top)

Federal agencies were represented by the FHWA and U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). Standards development organizations were represented by IEEE, ITE and AASHTO. Educational organizations have been represented by the University of Maryland Center for Advanced Transportation Technology (also acting as the project office for the CapWIN project. Several State Departments of Transportation have participated, including North Carolina, New York, Connecticut, Washington, Wisconsin, Florida, Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, and New Jersey. Public safety agencies have been represented by law enforcement, fire services, and EMS members. Vendors from all segments of the ITS industry have helped the actual standards development process.

4. Is the 1512 family of standards considered a "critical" ITS standard? (top)

The 1512 standards are among the 17 standards listed in the US DOT Report, Intelligent Transportation Systems: Critical Standards, published in June 1999. The 1512 standards are categorized as "Foundational," which means that they are critical to the development of other standards.

5. What functions will the 1512 family of standards perform? (top)

The 1512 standards family supports the operational functions of basic incident information exchange, situational awareness, asset management, plan dissemination and warning. These functions can be combined in many ways, depending on the operational needs of an evolving incident.

6. What operational problems does the 1512 family of standards solve? (top)

The 1512 standards will facilitate solving interoperability problems between transportation management systems and public safety communications systems. The standards provide a common language specification that can be used by dissimilar systems to exchange critical items of information in real-time or near real-time. The standards will also have value in getting critical transportation information to Emergency Operations Centers at all levels of government during major manmade or natural hazard incidents. The 1512 standards will not solve institutional issues, but provide a tool set that regional stakeholders can use as leverage to encourage interoperability initiatives.

7. What kinds of data does the 1512 family of standards handle? (top)

The basic 1512-2000 standard handles a wide variety of incident related data, including basic incident details (type, location, time, impact, estimated duration, etc.), incident detail updates, merging of incidents, splitting of incidents, deletion of incidents, etc. Sufficient flexibility was built into this standard to handle virtually any multi-agency incident management protocol. In some cases the use of these message sets causes agencies to critically evaluate how they accomplish multi-agency incident management. The 1512.1 volume adds the ability to describe work zones, traffic control plans, traffic management assets such as HAR, traffic signals, maintenance vehicles, traffic signal priority plans, and network conditions (derived from TMDD and ATIS message set standards). The 1512.2 volume describes public safety-specific warning information, situational awareness, plan dissemination and inter-agency asset management. The 1512.3 volume assists incident managers by describing hazardous materials and their threat profiles, procedures to manage these threats (e.g. chemical hazard mitigation) and data needed to manage the overall incident (e.g. cleanup, evacuation.).

8. What types of centers and/or systems can use the standards? (top)

Any system that can implement a message-based communications subsystem can implement the 1512 Standards as is by adopting the XML data schema. This includes CAD systems, ATMS systems, Emergency Management systems, and fleet and freight management systems. These systems are found in Transportation Management Centers, Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs), other public safety communications centers, emergency operations centers and shipper dispatch centers. Other types of centers are likely to see opportunities to use these standards as the 1512 deployment matures.

9. What specific pieces make up the 1512 family of standards? (top)

The complete 1512 Standards family includes 1512-2000 (Base Standard, currently under revision), 1512.A (Data Dictionary), 1512.1 (Transportation Message Sets), 1512.2 (Public Safety Message Sets), and 1512.3 (Hazardous Materials Message Sets). [Note: 1512a is no longer a standalone document as the data dictionary is maintained in the ITS registry, but it can be downloaded from the registry.] A new standard, 1512.4 (Vehicular Message Sets), is under consideration by IEEE.

10. Are the 1512 standards compatible with XML data and Web Services industry standards? (top)

All the 1512 standards have been published or will be published with an accompanying XML data schema. This XML schema can be implemented with industry standard web services, but the 1512 standards do not specifically provide center-to-center protocol.

11. How would the standards typically be implemented? (top)

A developer would study Clause 4 of a Message Set standard to determine what functional requirements were included in the standard, and then select a group of message sets depending on the functions required in the system being built. Some enumerated data elements within a message set may not be implemented, depending on local requirements. For a web service-oriented deployment, the message sets would provide the XML data schema needed to define data elements in the deployment.

12. What is the current balloting status of the 1512 standards family? (top)

1512-2000 was published in 2000 and is currently undergoing its 2003 revision. 1512.A was published in 2000. 1512.3-2002 was published in 2002. 1512.1-2003 was approved in 2003 and is awaiting final publication by IEEE. 1512.2 is nearly ready for balloting. Work on 1512.4 has not yet been approved.

13. Are the standards being used by any projects today? If so, how? (top)

Portions of the standard are being used by the Integrated Incident Management System (IIMS) in New York City and by the CapWIN project in the Washington DC Metropolitan Area. These projects are using (IIMS) or plan to use (CapWIN), the basic IDX incident message sets from 1512-2000 (and its revision, as appropriate).

14. What future projects have committed to using the standards? (top)

The Washington DOT/Washington State Patrol integration project, The Regional Integration of ITS (RIITS) project in Los Angeles CA, and the Intermodal Transportation Management System (IMTMS) in San Diego CA have committed to using portions of the 1512 standards.

15. Do the 1512 standards make use of any other existing ITS standards such as TMDD, etc.? (top)

The 1512 Standards have incorporated relevant portions of the SAE ATIS and NTCIP TMDD standards. International Traveler Information System (ITIS) codes are also used in some data elements.

For More Information

IEEE Incident Management Working Group (P1512) website