scope:

This standard is the base standard for a family of related standards that address the intercommunication needs of emergency management centers and other types of centers engaged in transportation incident management. Incident in this standard includes information concerning any transportation-related event that is received by the emergency management system, including planned roadway closures and special events, whether or not the incident actually affects traffic flow, and whether or not a response is required. This standard specifies common incident management message sets to allow vital data exchange for information and coordination. It provides a common mechanism for this data exchange within the defined National ITS Architecture with latitude for local agencies to determine what level of cooperation, and hence message exchanges, best meets their requirements. This standard is independent of communication protocols used in any local implementation. It also assumes that the mechanics of communication, such as addressing, are handled by communication management which is not addressed in this standard.

Other companion standards, herein referred to as companion volumes, will provide specific content and usage guidance for other types of centers that could participate in a local incident management system. Companion volumes dealing with the unique needs of transportation management, public safety, and hazardous materials centers are under development. In addition, a companion volume repositing incident management data elements (DEs) exclusive to emergency management will be prepared.

Purpose

This standard provides a framework for the exchange of messages used in incident management between emergency management centers and other types of centers, e.g., transportation management centers (TMCs). A minimum set of messages to be accommodated by compliant systems is dictated. Within the framework, there is ample flexibility, in that many messages are in fact composed of lists of optional DEs, so those lists have the function of "vocabularies" of DEs. That is, the actual DEs specified in a local implementation can be selected from those lists. In addition, within some DEs, where there is a list of possible data values (e.g., possible center types and possible causes for evacuation), there are provisions for local implementers to add their own values. This provides for both a standardized lexicon for describing events, as well as a local derivative list to be used. Because the dispatching systems of each participating center may internally use radically different coding schemes for incidents, events, and resources that it wishes to exchange data about, this standard provides a flexible set of descriptive elements that can be implemented to provide differing levels of local, regional, and national interoperation. It remains the responsibility of participating local agencies to determine what level of interoperation is suitable for their own needs. In a local implementation, conformance with this standard may require extant interagency agreements to exchange particular messages using particular DEs selected from this standard. Those messages have been structured so that centers using different legacy systems, and centers with different data needs, can still use a set of common messages to exchange information with other centers.

Further, this standard shall be implemented in conjunction with related ITS standards that provide other required portions of the entire architecture. The related ITS standards include detailed message formatting with specific center and domain field of use, center-to-center exchange protocols, and messaging processes, including message delivery, security, and gateway functions. This standard acts as a "wrapper," incorporating such domain-specific knowledge in its own messages to allow exchange of information in each companion volume for each type of center.