NTCIP 1207

Description / Abstract: NTCIP 1207 v02 assumes a model of operation in which RMC units possess intelligence, and the data used for ramp management and data collection is resident at the RMC unit. We refer to the RMC unit's status, control, and configuration data as the "controller database"; the standard specifies interfaces whereby this data can be manipulated by the central system. There are no imperative commands such as "Activate a timing plan" or "Report status"; the central system controls the behavior of the RMC unit purely through queries of and changes to the controller database using a suite of communication protocols appropriate for the underlying communications infrastructure. These communications protocols are defined in the NTCIP 23xx series standards (Application Layer protocols), NTCIP 22xx series standards (Transport Layer protocols), and NTCIP 21xx series standards (Subnetwork Layer protocols).

The scope of NTCIP 1207 v02 is limited to the functionality related to RMC units used within a transportation environment. The limits and descriptions of the parameters are established to give the user maximum flexibility to operate devices that either exist at the time NTCIP 1207 v02 was authored or may exist in the future. NTCIP 1207 v02 defines objects which are specific to RMC units and also defines standardized object Groups which can be used for conformance statements.

To achieve the functionality described in Annex A, which describes the typical operation of an RMC unit, some or all of the objects described in other standards are utilized.

The remainder of NTCIP 1207 v02 provides the following main sections, each building on the previous section(s):

a) Management Information Base: This section defines the data exchanged during communications (an update of NTCIP 1207:2001 Section 2).

b) Functional Requirements: Annex A defines the functional requirements which describe the typical operation of an RMC unit.

c) Protocol Requirements List (PRL, formerly PICS): This annex depicts the definition of each of the object definition, its value range, an indication of whether the object definition is a control, status or database parameter, and a column to allow a user to enter project-specific information.

Note: NTCIP 1207 v02 does not yet follow the new System Engineering Process (SEP) configuration used in other NTCIP version 02 standards. NTCIP 1207 v02 also does not yet contain test procedures that are needed for each functional requirement. This may be added in a future version of NTCIP 1207 v02.

All of these sections are of interest to the readers of NTCIP 1207 v02. The functional requirements in Annex A provide the user with details of the operations of a typical RMC unit, which is supported by the object definitions defined in Section 2. The parameter names used in the functional requirements section are used as the names of the parameter headers in Section 2 to ease the complexity of NTCIP 1207 v02.

Additional annexes provide information on certain topics such as Changes between Version 1 and this version, and the global object tree for the RMC unit-specific object definitions.