Publication Number: FHWA-RD-99-109
Date: November 1999

ADMS: A Warehouse of Information

Last month transportation professionals from around the country convened in Washington, DC, to plan an implementation strategy for ADMS, the Archived Data Management Systems. As States increasingly implement intelligent transportation systems (ITS), a wealth of data is collected-only to be discarded because there is no plan or process for storing and analyzing that data. ADMS would create a historical data archive or transportation "data warehouse," capable of merging archived operational data as well as storing new data. The data would then be available to highway agencies for planning and other purposes, including collecting, verifying, and archiving of the ITS data at local, State, and Federal agencies.

ADMS is designed for a broad range of users in the fields of safety analysis and transportation planning. Metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), which oversee congestion management, air quality, and traffic simulation models, is but one example of the stakeholders and future users of ADMS.

By enabling traffic data collected by ITS to be saved and stored, ADMS provides the tools for later analysis. The Federal Highway Administration's (FHWA) Ralph Gillmann says, "This collected traffic data is a great resource. It's a shame to throw it away when it can be archived at such a modest cost." Once archived and analyzed by researchers, the data can be used to develop better traffic systems. To ensure that ADMS will meet the needs of its users, FHWA has held a series of meetings in the past year where representatives of the stakeholders met with ITS architects to review and revise the ADMS structure.

The objective of the ADMS meeting in October was to develop a roadmap for the next 5 years to determine what research and tests need to be done.

For more information on the ADMS project, contact Ralph Gillmann at FHWA, 202-366-5042 (fax: 202-366-7742, email: ralph.gillmann@fhwa.dot.gov).

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