A functionality based hierarchical model for survivable intelligent transportation systems

This work presents a functionality based model for survivable intelligent transportation system (ITS) control infrastructures. Specifically, a method is shown that allows us to determine the vulnerability of an ITS communication infrastructure to malicious acts and to derive optimal mitigations. The research is applied to a real ITS currently being implemented in a small town. Results show that significant reductions in vulnerability can be achieved utilizing the principle of redundancy with minimal effort. The method presented is especially suitable to reducing vulnerabilities of existing ITSs as it can be effectively applied after an ITS has been built. Mitigation techniques can be derived based on maximal benefit under consideration cost-benefit ratio.