ConSysTec's ITS Architecture Applications

ConSysTec has developed two software applications to assist with the development and maintenance of regional ITS architectures. These tools are used in every ITS Architecture that is developed by ConSysTec.

Visual Architect

Visual Architect is a Microsoft Visio application developed by ConSysTec to create and modify ITS Architecture customized service packages based on the U.S. National ITS Architecture.
VA
Customized service package diagrams are at the heart of an ITS Architecture using the methodologies developed by ConSysTec. While Visual Architect does not perform all functions related to creating an ITS Architecture, it does provide a highly interactive and graphical view of the ITS Elements and their associated system interfaces being defined in the ITS architecture. Also, Visual Architect provides an interface to the Turbo Architecture database, which has become the de-facto standard for encoding regional ITS architectures. In this capacity, Visual Architect greatly speeds the time required to communicate operational concepts to stakeholders, encode regional ITS architecture topology information into Turbo Architecture, and enables accurately managing large ITS architectures an economic reality.

Visual Architect complements Turbo Architecture. In some respects, Visual Architect is a graphical front-end for portions of Turbo Architecture. For example, Visual Architect will automatically update service package and regional ITS architecture flow selections in Turbo Architecture based on the content of the customized service package diagrams. But most importantly, Visual Architect depends on Turbo Architecture for creation and maintenance of the ITS element inventory, and user-defined flows. For example, the ITS element names used in the customized service package diagrams are accessed directly from the Turbo Architecture database. Finally, after the user has finished using Visual Architect to update the Turbo Architecture database, there are still steps, unrelated to Visual Architect that the user must perform to have a complete Turbo Architecture deliverable. For example, equipment package and functional requirements selections are not performed by Visual Architect, and must be manually entered in Turbo Architecture as normally required when using Turbo Architecture by itself.

WebBuilder

WebBuilder is a Microsoft Access application developed by ConSysTec to create a hypertext html view of an ITS Architecture. WebBuilder creates a website that provides an easy to use, highly accessible view of a regional ITS Architecture. The website created allows users to rapidly and easily find the elements and interfaces of interest to specific parts of a regional ITS Architecture (by function or by stakeholder), provide stakeholder feedback on specific elements of the ITS architecture, and supports printing portions of interest directly from any current Web browser.

WB
Customized service package diagrams are at the heart of an ITS Architecture using the methodologies developed by ConSysTec. Using the customized service package diagrams developed with stakeholders by ConSysTec, and with the ITS architecture information stored in the Turbo Architecture, WebBuilder extracts the relevant information and creates the website for stakeholder review, participation, and use. A majority of our client's ITS architectures that are hosted on ConSysTec's website were created using WebBuilder.

WebBuilder is compatible with current versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, and Mozilla Firefox. The hypertext links are created in a manner to that most web servers can host the websites.