BIFA Scope

The scope of the Border Information Flow Architecture can be described in terms of:

• The size of the region (Geographic Scope)
• The planning or time horizon
• The variety of transportation services that are covered (Service Scope)
• Other regional ITS architectures in the BIFA region

Geographic Scope

The BIFA region encompasses the international border between the United States and Canada as shown in the following figure.  The focus of the architecture is on the major land border crossings that carry the vast majority of private and commercial vehicle traffic and pose the most significant transportation challenges along the border.  The architecture also addresses rural border crossings and ferry terminals – all 130 (as of 2005) land border crossings are covered.

As the name implies, the focus of BIFA is on the opportunities for information sharing and coordination at the border.  BIFA extends on both sides of the border, including the US and Canadian systems that manage transportation at and in the vicinity of the border.  The natural question is – how far does the BIFA region extend into the US and Canada?  Rather than specify the extent in terms of miles or kilometers, the BIFA architecture scope extends to include the agencies and jurisdictions that interface with the border crossing systems and/or interface with agencies and jurisdictions across the border.  This concept is illustrated in the figure at right.

Time Horizon

BIFA has a time horizon of 10+ years with particular focus on near-term integration opportunities that will yield real implementations and real results.  BIFA is unique in that it actually includes many different regions that span the US-Canada border and all land border crossings, including busy metropolitan area border crossings like those in the Detroit-Windsor and Niagara regions as well as rural crossings in areas like the North Dakota-Saskatchewan border.  The time horizon for implementation of services in these varied regions is vastly different.  Systems already in place to support the Peace Bridge may not be implemented for decades (if ever) on more rural crossings.  The broad scope of this architecture limits BIFA’s ability to precisely define the time horizon for individual systems and services for this reason.

Service Scope

BIFA includes all services that support border operations and management of the transportation system surrounding the border, with particular focus on those services that support integration and coordination across the border.  Based on discussion during Workshop #1 in March 2005, all service areas except for Transit Management and Vehicle Safety were judged to be relevant to the border region.  Select Market Packages from the left menu for more information

BIFA and Other Regional Architectures

The BIFA region is actually composed of many “regions” along the border.  Normally, a regional ITS architecture covers a single contiguous region – a metropolitan area, state, or (occasionally) a transportation corridor or rural region.  The BIFA geographic scope overlaps with other existing and planned regional ITS architectures, particularly on the US side of the border where US Title 23, Rule 940 requirements have promoted the development of regional ITS architectures for each metropolitan area.   The following table lists the regional, provincial, and statewide architectures that are known to partially overlap with the BIFA region.