This project is structured to provide a technical report outlining a series of recommendations to employ a stable and reliable communications mechanism during, and subsequent to, catastrophic events between multiple transportation management centers along the I-95 Corridor. This study targets I-95 Corridor Coalition participating agencies looking to maintain an exchange of emergency management information to manage their operations when traditional communication means (e.g. landline, wireless and cellular phone) are not available. Generally, the communication system is, in most respects, the least failure prone element of an overall system, but potentially has a high risk of being disrupted in case of emergency situations or catastrophic events, such as terrorist attack, extreme weather, earthquake or hurricane. The communications between Transportation Management Centers (TMCs) or Traffic Control Centers (TCCs) of member agencies; emergency communications between TMCs/TCCs and public safety agencies or emergency management agencies, could be severely disrupted. Currently none of the existing information exchange systems in the I-95 Corridor Coalition systematically provides any emergency communication backup mechanism. |