SA 4.7: Provision of updates of ITS spatial road data

Background

TN-ITS is an international platform promoting the exchange of road-network-related spatial data between road authorities throughout Europe, and providers of high-quality digital maps for ITS applications. TN-ITS is organised as a members association under ERTICO.Highly up-to-date ITS maps are increasingly important for advanced applications in the domains of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems(ADAS), Cooperative ITS (C-ITS) and Automated Driving, but also for instance applications for multimodal applications.

Public road authorities control road network changes in terms of traffic signs and regulations, public transport information, other road attributes, and even geometry. By principle, public road authorities would be the most efficient and immediate source for information on changes in the road infrastructure relevant for establishing highly up-to-date digital maps for ITS.

Keeping track of changes in the road infrastructure requires a suitable digital infrastructure and sophisticated procedures at road authorities, while an adequate exchange framework is needed to bring the updates to the users of such information.

The mission of TN-ITS is to foster pan-European roll-out of a data chain for ITS spatial data serving immediate updates, to provide a common exchange infrastructure to accommodate the diversity of road data maintenance solutions on the side of road authorities, and to provide implementation support.

TN-ITS updates can be directly incorporated into ITS digital maps as they come from a trusted source with high reliability, constitute single data points that do not require extensive processing and interpretation as for big data, and enable immediate availability of updated map information to the user.

First TN-ITS implementations were done last year in Norway and Sweden, in the framework of the Transportation Pilot carried out together with the Joint Research centre of the EC. The EU EIP Sub-Activity 4.7 provides the opportunity to progress TN-ITS implementation to five more European countries.

Scope

The scope of the Sub-Activity is: (1) implementation of a pilot TN-ITS service for the provision of updates of ITS spatial road data in each of the five Member States actively involved in this sub-activity (Finland, Belgium/Flanders, the UK, Ireland and France); (2) study of the best approaches for future extension of the service; (3) installation of solid procedures for instantaneous updating of the spatial data store.

Objectives

The Sub-Activity is defined by the following operational objectives:

  • First basic TN-ITS implementation in each of the five Member States involved in this sub-activity, addressing a limited set of attributes and only the main corridors.
  • Gain experience for future further roll-out of the service to the comprehensive network.
  • Get a thorough understanding of: (1) how the service can be modelled in relation to the existing infrastructure for storing spatial road data; (2) which enhancements may be needed for the existing infrastructure to better accommodate the intended service.
  • Investigation of existing procedures for the instantaneous updating of the stored spatial road data for changes in the real world, and proposals for improvement.

Duration

2016/2017 (24 months)

Partners

ERTICO/TN-ITS (project leader), Finland (FTA), Flanders (MOW), United Kingdom (DfT), Ireland (DTTaS and NUIM), France (IGN), HERE (The Netherlands), TomTom (Belgium)

Follower

Germany