Seattle wide-area information for travelers (SWIFT) : architecture study

The Seattle Wide-area Information For Travelers (SWIFT) Field Operational Test was intended to evaluate the performance of a large-scale urban Advanced Traveler Information System (ATIS) deployment in the Seattle area. The unique features of the SWIFT ATIS were the provision of information for multiple transportation modes, the delivery of this information using three different devices, and the use of FM sideband as the primary communication medium. A total of approximately 800 system users were recruited during the course of the study. The SWIFT Architecture Study is one of five component studies to the overall system evaluation. This report details the results of the SWIFT Architecture Study based on the evaluation objectives that were initially identified in the SWIFT Architecture Study test plan (1996). Specifically, four evaluation objectives are identified in the SWIFT Architecture Study test plan. The first two of these objectives relate to the system performance when the system is operating according to its functional specifications, and is essentially free of any component failures. In contrast, the third and fourth objectives focus on what happens when part of the system becomes unavailable due to system component failures. For each of these conditions, the performance of the architecture is examined from both the user and system perspective.