Transportation Systems: Monitoring, Control, and Security

Abstract

Transportation is one of the main cornerstones of human civilization which facilitates the movement of people and goods from one location to another. People routinely use several transportation modes, such as road, air, rail and water for their everyday activities. However, the continuous global population increase and urbanization around the globe is pushing transportation systems to their limits. Unquestionably, the road transportation system is the one mostly affected because it is difficult and costly to increase the capacity of existing infrastructure by building or expanding new roads, especially in urban areas. Towards this direction, Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) can have a vital role in enhancing the utilization of the existing transportation infrastructure by integrating electronic, sensing, information and communication technologies into a transportation system. However, such an integration imposes major challenges in the monitoring, control and security of transportation systems. This chapter surveys the state of the art and the challenges for the implementation of ITS in road transportation systems with a special emphasis on monitoring, control and security.