ATM networking environment for a multimedia based highway information system

The existing photo logging systems used by the highway agencies are limited in accessibility and usability in the areas of providing engineers information on traffic accidents, design improvement and highway pavement management. For example, traditional computer databases are routinely used for variety of engineering work. But it is impossible to simultaneously examine highway visual frames and analyze related traditional engineering data sets, such as as-built information. The analog nature of the systems also presents difficulties in integrating the visual information with other types of data. This paper presents a distributed multimedia based highway information system (MMHIS). The implementation of a MMHIS involves technologies in digital video and CODEC, and high speed network transmission. This paper discusses the applicability of asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) for digital video transmission over networks. In addition, information relating to the system design and implementation are also presented.