Overview
This guidebook provides an overview of the mission and functions of transportation management centers (TMCs), emergency operations centers (EOCs), and fusion centers (FCs). Functional areas for each of these centers include:
- TMCs – management of traffic control systems and assets, incident response, emergency response, network monitoring and surveillance, acquisition and communication of traffic information
- EOCs – communications management, physical facility for assembly of responsible staff/officials, emergency response decision making and management, monitoring and surveillance of emergency situation and response
- FCs – aggregation and synthesis of safety and security-related information, assessment and reporting of safety and security threats, monitoring and surveillance of critical infrastructure conditions
The guidebook focuses on the types of information these centers produce and manage and how the sharing of such information among the centers can be beneficial to both the day-to-day and emergency operations of all the centers. This information is presented in a straightforward “description” and “potential uses” format for each type of information, categorized generally into operational information (realtime or very recent), records and logs information (recent or historical), and infrastructure information (locations, routes, dimensions, resources, nodes, etc.). Challenges exist to the ability to share information (policy and regulatory as well as technical and vulnerability), and the guidebook addresses these challenges and options for handling them. The guidebook also provides some lessons learned and best practices identified from a literature search and interviews/site visits with center operators.