15)  Analyse the Member States’ responses to the RTTI Recommendation and draw up further actions.    

16)  Create public-private partnerships to capture, process and provide real-time traffic, travel and road condition data including Floating Vehicle Data. 

17) Support the wider use of the pan-European RDS/TMC network for safety-related traffic information. Provide a report with required actions to the European Commission on the status of RDS/TMC implementation and the remaining bottlenecks. 

End-2008 Release

Activity leader

15) European Commission

16)  Organisations across multiple sectors (industry, public bodies, motoring clubs)

17) TMC Forum (now activities have been absorbed into TISA, Traveller Information
 Services Association)

Introduction

These Recommendations refer to the deployment an RTTI system in Europe. Since their publishing, the wish and the activities within many Member States has grown considerably to establish - or extend – RTTI-services via RDS/TMC and install more of the necessary infrastructure for the collection of relevant traffic data.

The indicators below follow the progress of the Recommendations taking into account the new recommendations of the RTTI WG.

Therefore to measure the progress of this recommendation, two indicators are proposed, one taking into account the methodological aspect of the tests, the other tracking the actual tests being undertaken. Figure 3 shows the breakdown of the indicator.

Indicators of progress of the Real-time Traffic and Traveller Information (RTTI) for road safety recommendations

Analysis of the progress

Report on the progress of Real-time Traffic and Traveller Information (RTTI) for road safety recommendations

Current Status

Real-time traffic and travel information (RTTI) can contribute greatly to safety. In order to facilitate access to public sector data, and enable the private and public sectors to co-operate in the service provision, the EC published in 2001 a Recommendation on the deployment of traffic and travel services in Europe. RTTI is the first area of a new generation of telematics services for drivers and other travellers to achieve appreciable success. Currently, this is due to the fast-growing implementation of services and products based primarily on existing RDS-TMC broadcast technology.

In the future, supplementary technologies such as digital bearers will enhance the service possibilities - 2008 sees the first launches of TPEG services over DAB. By delivering traffic data messages promptly to a suitable in-vehicle terminal, TMC and TPEG upgrade static navigation to real-time, i.e. dynamic route guidance, or “electronic traffic avoidance” while giving safety benefits by alerting drivers to accidents, congestion and hazardous driving conditions.

Floating Vehicle Data, ‘Floating Phone Data’ (GSM network-based telephone location) and other advanced data collection techniques are now being used to support high quality TMC services.  Public/private partnerships help increase the use of these techniques.

RDS-TMC receiver deployment has reached mass market status thanks to its relationship with navigation systems, particularly the booming Personal Navigation Device market. The Traveller Information Services Association (TISA) continues to support wider use of RDS-TMC through assistance for new and existing EU Member States and organisations. It offers:

-          Advice on all aspects of setting up TMC services

-          Harmonisation, standardisation and quality assurance, e.g. certification of Location Tables

-          Development work to implement new features to improve services.

-          Development work on advanced TPEG services for digital bearers such as DAB, DVB and DMB.

The use of higher-bandwidth communication media (such as terrestrial or satellite DAB) and the results of research initiatives such as AGORA (pioneering on-the-fly location referencing) and TPEG (new protocols extending the message set and supported applications) can help broaden the capability for future RTTI services.

The first service trials using TPEG-based technology, started at the end of 2006, formed an important step in bringing this new technology closer to market. The first limited commercial services began to broadcast in the UK at the end of 2008.

Several current and recent European projects support the actions proposed by the RTTI recommendations:

-          CONNECT Euro-Regional project which (among other activities) supported the introduction of TMC in selected new EU25 Member States.

-          DYNASTY (Europe-Aid framework) demonstrated TMC in China and promoted its adoption, leading to current service deployment work in China

-          Mobile.info (German industry-led but wider applicability) developed TPEG-based RTTI service supporting dynamic navigation. The project delivered its output to TISA to support wider standardisation and deployment work.

-          TISA (Traveller Information Services Association), a non-profit organisation hosted by ERTICO and formed in order to leverage synergies of TMC and TPEG forums and technologies for a coordinated market development:

o       working on development and standardisation of new features for TMC, following requests from industry and public authorities, on an ongoing basis

o       working on development and standardisation of TPEG (Transport Protocol Expert Group) framework and travel information applications using digital bearers

National activities centre around introducing TMC to new markets not only in Europe but worldwide, introducing more advanced traffic information collection methods and trialling RTTI over digital bearers. Examples include:

-          Taking TMC from trial to full commercial service status in Finland

-          Commercial service development and launch in USA

-          Commercial service development and launch in Australia and New Zealand

-          Service demonstration and commercial service development in China

-          Commercialisation and upgrade of existing TMC service in Italy

-          Commercial service launch in Belgium

-          Development of TMC service for Andorra

-          Development of TMC service for Czech Republic

-          Development of TMC service for Slovakia

-          Ongoing maintenance of existing services and improvement with extra locations supported across many countries (e.g. UK, Germany, France)

The RTTI Working Group, following 2001’s EC Recommendation on the deployment of traffic and travel services in Europe, has provided further analysis and recommendations for accelerating the take-up of the measures for accessing the public sector data, enabling the establishment of public-private partnerships, and the provision of reliable, high-quality RTTI services in Europe. The WG has produced a technical and economical model for implementing RTTI services. It recognised that the only viable short-term solution is RDS/TMC, while other technologies will offer higher quality services in the future.

The RTTI WG ended its work in 2005 and made its final results public at the 2^nd eSafety High Level Meeting in October 2005. Among the recommendations to Member States: 

• An agreement on an implementation strategy for the extension of RTTI services working to European standards is needed
• Support the TMC Forum is encouraged
• There should be a minimum quality for public services
• Clear guidelines for the private sector should be published on the conditions for establishing private data collection networks for commercial vehicles, and

·        The frequency spectrum and broadcast capacity should be made available in the near future and support the development of future advanced digital services.

Since then, further development in the field of RTTI has taken place, but open issues remain with respect to implementation, recommended measures and further roll-out. 

In May 2006, the eSafety Forum welcomed the re-launch of the RTTI WG activities. Its revised objectives wereto:

• Review the results and recommendations of the Final Report and analyse the open issues
• Focus on traffic related criteria, expectations, and needs
• Propose a “Road Map” for the implementation of RTTI
• Propose further actions to the EC

The WG generated an updated set of recommendations including input from a public consultation. After consolidating the comments, it updated the RTTI recommendations in order to present them as a Final Report to the eSafety Plenary Forum meeting and German Presidency event.

The ITS Action Plan and EasyWay project are key current initiatives which have identified the importance of supporting RTTI development and deployment. Future actions for deployment include:

-          Work to take advantage of the RTTI possibilities offered by the availability of new broadcast data bearers such as digital radio.

-          Work to improve quality of service in urban and cross-border areas.

-          Continuing work to optimise and manage the quality of existing services.

-          Support in introduction of TMC services to new markets (e.g. Eastern Europe and China).

TISA is engaged in coordinating and supporting these actions among public and commercial stakeholders. Member State support for digital broadcast deployment is critical for widespread implementation of advanced services using TPEG to deliver a wide range of high quality RTTI and other traveller information services.

Contacts:

Traveller Information Services Association: Mr James Burgess, TISA Executive Office, hosted by ERTICO – ITS Europe, Avenue Louise 325, 1050 Brussels.  j.burgess@tisa.org  / www.tisa.org