Did you know that Rhythm Engineering recently introduced In|Traffic, our new traffic management software? In|Traffic replaces CentralSync for coordination configuration. Thus, In|Traffic offers a variety of new and exciting cutting edge features for your coordination configuration needs.
Some of these new features include:
- Configuration Management
- Configuration History
- Application Types & Services
- Device & License Management
- User Accounts, Roles, & Permissions
- Coordination & Time-Space Diagram
- Crossing Coordination, Reference Intersections, & Dynamic Period
- Validation
Let’s take a closer look at these various applications by comparing and contrasting In|Traffic versus our older CentralSync software.
Configuration Management
While CentralSync (CS) allowed for individual intersections to have their own configurations; configuration management became increasingly more difficult, particularly with scheduling.
With In|Traffic, all intersections that you intend to be coordinated are part of the same configuration. Individual intersections are not allowed to have their own configurations and still be part of the coordinated group.
Multiple Management Groups are supported with In|Traffic. The most typical case is that a Management Group contains one corridor. With In|Traffic, all of your corridors/management groups can be found in once place. With CS, you had to close down one corridor to view another.
Configuration History
CS was a configuration tool that worked similarly to a document editor. However, CS did not have the ability to undo/redo or to turn on tracked changes and see revision history.
With In|Traffic, you are able to see changes that have been made to configurations, devices that have been added and/or removed, etc. If you would like to go back to a prior version of the configurations in the Management Group, you can select a prior configuration change.
Application Types and Services
CS was a software application that you could install on your computer and it operated in a stand-alone format. A user would open their configuration file or pull from one of the In|Sync devices in the field, make their changes, and then push those changes back out the field. Other users could not see what changes were being made and there was not a central repository for configuration data, etc.
In|Traffic can be installed on any computer, as well. However, it’s real strength is being installed on a central server for multiple users to access. It contains an internal database for configuration and data storage, and it is accessed via a web interface using the latest modern browsers.
Because In|Traffic is installed on a central server, many users can access it simultaneously, and all can enjoy the benefits of seeing other user’s changes.
Device and License Management
In|Traffic is also used to manage your Rhythm Engineering products, something CS could not do. Using In|Traffic, you can see all of your products, from In|Sync, to In|Time, to In|Form, and all of their associated licenses. License management allows you to see what assets you have and where they are applied.
User Accounts, Roles, & Permissions
CS had no user accounts. Any user could use the software and make changes.
With In|Traffic, you can create a specific login for each of your users. In addition, you can restrict the permissions that each of your users is granted. If you’d like to prevent users from taking configuration changes to your In|Sync deployments but you still want to allow them to see the data analytics and run reports, you can do that.
Coordination & Time-Space Diagram
In CS, defining coordinated phases required the user to scroll through the map, zoom into the intersection, and select the phase icon. This was tedious and cumbersome.
In our In|Traffic software, defining coordination is simply a matter of selecting the phases at each intersection in the order of vehicle travel along the corridor.
The user is also able to set travel times and speed limits between intersections. The travel time is used to draw the tunnel as it progresses down the corridor, but the speed limit is used to draw an effective tunnel which represents how vehicles will travel down the corridor. This effective tunnel is something that was not present in CS.
Also, in In|Traffic, the user is able to interact with the time-space diagram view of the tunnel coordination in more ways than was possible with CS. By simply clicking and dragging on part of tunnel, the user is able to alter how the tunnel coordination is defined.
Validation
CS was a document editor, allowing you to configure everything in any which way you wanted. There were some basic checks, but the user was always required to double-check that their solutions wouldn’t result in bad behavior by the In|Sync system.
With In|Traffic, prior to synchronizing the configurations to the intersections, they are run through a validation routine. This validation routine performs the same process of solving the scheduled against the tunnel configuration and the configured sequences and vehicle/ped phases times as the In|Sync System itself. With this level of validation, the user can be sure that the configurations they’ve seen out to their intersections will run properly and that In|Sync will be capable of correctly running the intersection. This was a feature that CS was lacking.
The various features of the new In|Traffic software offer a plethora of features to optimize traffic management and coordination configuration. As such, Rhythm Engineering is proud and excited to unroll the In|Time software and we hope that you are excited, too!
