This Function shall be capable of providing the following facilities:<br/><br/>(1) The ability to manage the use of Bus Lanes and when not being used by PT Vehicles to permit them to be used by other Vehicles.<br/>(2) The ability to continuously collect from other functionality the current data about traffic flow through each segment of the road network and the predicted arrival times of PT Vehicles at points along the routes used to provide their services.<br/>(3) The ability to use an appropriate predictive algorithm to calculate the spare capacity in each Bus Lane for a short time in the future (e.g. 15 minutes), both in terms of the numbers of extra Vehicles that can be accommodated, as well as the time for which this spare capacity will exist.<br/>(4) When the Function receives a request from a non-PT Vehicle for a licence to use particular Bus Lane(s), the ability to determine if the presence of the Vehicle will impede the flow of PT Vehicles using the Bus Lane and to grant a licence to the requesting Vehicle if not.<br/>(5) The ability to restrict the licence to the Vehicle that made the request, to a particular Bus Lane(s) and for a particular length of time.<br/>(6) The ability to return details of the licence to the requesting functionality and to send the details to the functionality monitoring the use of Bus Lanes, so that any non-PT Vehicle with a licence will not be prosecuted for illegally using a Bus Lane.<br/>(7) If the traffic conditions for which licences were issued and the algorithms used by the Function predict that the presence of non-PT Vehicles in Bus Lanes will impede the progress of PT Vehicles, or a "critical/emergency" situation arises, the ability to send a message to revoke the relevant licences.<br/>
(a) when the bus lane use request data flow is received from the Manage Vehicles using Bus Lanes function, collect the static data about the bus lane from the store of Bus Lane Data;<br/>(b) collect the data about current traffic flow and predictions for the arrival of PT Vehicles from the Manage Bus Lane Data function;<br/>(c) if passage of requesting vehicle through the bus lanes will not impede the progress of any PT Vehicles, and will increase the vehicle capacity of those road segments, then issue a licence to the Manage Vehicle function using the licence output data flow;<br/>(d) immediately after (c) send a notification that the vehicle has a licence to use the bus lane to the Bus Lane Monitoring function and to the Manage Bus Lane Data function;<br/>(e) continue to monitor the use of the bus lane as in (b) above;<br/>(f) if the circumstances under which use of the bus lane was granted to the vehicle change such that the progress of PT Vehicles will be impeded then revoke the previously granted bus lane use licence and send the appropriate data flows to the Manage Vehicle and Monitor Bus Lane use functions<br/>