This section provides an overview of SE management from the perspective of transportation agencies. Successful SE management, and thus successful project deployment, depends on a clear understanding of the roles of ITS participants, many of which are related to SE processes:
· An agency is the owner if it is financially responsible for and has control over the system. Most traditional, non-connected ITS components are typically owned by a transportation management agency.
· An agency is the operator if it is responsible for interacting with the ITS and controlling its state. This might be refined to manager and operator roles, where the manager is accountable for one or more human interface roles, while the operator performs the actual ITS device interactions during system operations.
· An agency is the maintainer if it is responsible for keeping the hardware and software that comprise system in an operational state. The maintainer typically is delegated authority by the owner. The maintainer interacts with the target Resource so as to keep that Resource in the Operational state
· The installer is the organization that performs the initial delivery, integration and configuration of the target Resource. This might be a system integrator, an agency performing its own installation, or a device supplier that performs on-site installation.
· The developer is the organization that creates the system and its documentation. In most cases this organization will be a system integrator or device supplier.
· The certifier is the organization that verifies that the system meets relevant performance, functional, environmental and quality requirements. This could be an independent third party or it could be the same entity that has the developer role. In the case of connected vehicle projects this role includes the verification of the security management system.
The agency that will be the owner of the operational system will acquire a set of development services to develop the ITS project. The services can be either in-house or contracted. The system’s owner and operating organization will ultimately be responsible for the system and its operations & maintenance. The system’s owner needs to supply clear requirements and expected project outcomes to the development team. These outputs must be compatible with the long-term operations & maintenance goals of the system’s owner & stakeholders.
Each project has an inherent level of risk that will help determine how a systems engineering process is applied to the development. In order to decide what that level of risk is, the agency needs to do a risk evaluation, which is discussed in Section 4.2 below. Once the level of risk has been determined, then the agency needs to consider their approach to systems engineering given the defined level of risk. This is discussed in Section 4.3 below.
Section 4.4 provides consideration for how an agency should manage the SE effort on a project. Agencies possess differing levels of systems engineering expertise and experience, which will affect their ability to manage ITS projects. The section will provide insights into the role of the agency in different types of projects. The section will set their expectations about the project and what they should expect to see.
The final Section 4.5 describes how agencies can interpret the FHWA regulation/ FTA policy on systems engineering.
