The Architecture Reference for Cooperative and Intelligent Transportation (ARC-IT) version 9.0 is a major release of the US National ITS Architecture Reference that fully defines and upgrades the four architecture views that were initially defined in ARC-IT 8.0.

This includes changes to support vehicle automation content inspired by research results and stakeholder input, including the National Dialogue on Highway Automation.

The most significant enhancements for version 9.0 are:

• Significant expansion of the Communications Viewpoint and supporting models. Solutions to information exchanges are more detailed than in prior versions; issues related to the use of specific standards to specific information flows are identified. This includes an expansion to support region-awareness; standards applicability assessment; and new, completely re-imagined communications diagrams.

• Region-awareness. ARC-IT contains content from contributors and ITS deployers outside of the United States; such content is annotated to support regional context setting in the Regional Architecture Development for Intelligent Transportation (RAD-IT) and the Systems Engineering Tool for Intelligent Transportation (SET-IT).

• New Service Packages, including:

  • CVO05: Commercial Vehicle Parking
  • CVO20: International Border Registration
  • CVO21: International Border Electronic Clearance
  • CVO22: International Border Coordination
  • MC10: Asset Tracking
  • PS15: Stolen Vehicle Recovery
  • TM24: Tunnel Management
  • TM25: Wrong Way Vehicle Detection and Warning
  • TM26: Signal Enforcement
  • WX04: Roadway Micro-Prediction

• (Re)-introduction of “environmental terminators” describing system boundaries representing the roadway and surrounding environment that ITS subsystems might sense or need to accommodate. Users of version 7.1 and earlier might recognize some of these; their purpose now is to begin to understand the relationships between the environment and the entities that own, operate, and maintain the roadway and vehicles, particularly if a vehicle is highly automated.

• In addition to the environmental terminators, several new Physical Objects, including:

  • Parking Management Center, which takes the center-portion of the Parking Management System; the field portion is now called Parking Area Equipment
  • Roadside Communications Unit, a short-range wireless communications-only field device with no ITS application functionality
  • Wireless Communications Provider System, representing wireless provider infrastructure.

As with version 8.3, ARC-IT is available as an online website or as a single download that contains most of the ARC-IT web site that may be installed locally for offline use.

The architecture toolset has been upgraded to work with version 9.0 of ARC-IT, including additional standalone features and maintaining the ability for users to exchange information between the tools.